Flashback : Dallas

`The “South” Central Business District…

by Paula Bosse

Another year is over. Another year that has been full of things that have made the regular posting of things here difficult. I miss the days when I could really dive into a subject and just write and write. I love doing that almost more than anything. Someday I’ll get back to that. 2024 — my eleventh year writing Flashback Dallas — contains the fewest posts of any previous year. Most of my favorites appeared in the first half of the year. My favorite post is the first one on this list, and the others are listed as they appeared chronologically. Click the titles to see the original posts; click the photos for larger images.

Thank you all for reading! I hope for a better 2025 for all of us!

*

1.  “THE SOUTH END ‘RESERVATION’ RED-LIGHT DISTRICT — ca. 1907” (January)

This is far and away my favorite post of the year, sparked by the photo below (a detail of it is above). As often happens, I was looking for something unrelated when I stumbled onto this photo and made an exciting discovery of a slice of Dallas history I had never known about. The amount of reading and research this photo spurred was surprising. And fun. As I was saying to someone the other day, if you find history boring, blame the teller, not the history. I personally want my historians to be motivated by enthusiasm and curiosity and to later share what they’ve learned in an entertaining way that encourages their audience to dive into the topic even further.

My year started with brothels. There’s a lot of history south of Jackson Street, children…. I absolutely loved writing this.

*

2.  “DEEP ELLUM: LIFE ALONG CENTRAL TRACK” (February)

For years I’ve loved a much-reproduced photo of Deep Ellum taken in the 1930s, which people often refer to as the “Gypsy Tea Room” photo. I used it in a post a few years ago (another of my all-time favorite Flashback Dallas posts) — it took 9 years, but I found two more “companion” photos taken at virtually the same spot, and I put them all in this post. We see people gathered along the busy storefronts that lined Central Avenue, between Elm and Pacific. One photo even shows a train rolling past. I love all these photos.

*

3.  “THE GIRLS OF ST. MARY’S” (March)

This was a cute little photo that showed up on eBay, featuring members of the basketball team of St. Mary’s College in East Dallas (Ross & Garrett). I enjoyed going through all the photos for this post and imagining how elegant Ross Avenue once was.

*

4.  “THE GRADING OF JUNIUS — 1903” (March)

This really great photo found on eBay shows street work in Old East Dallas. I love finding a photo or an ad or a postcard and just wondering, “Okay, what am I looking at here?” I love it almost as much and I love diving in and learning just what it IS I’m looking at. This was another fun post to research.

*

5.  “THE FOREST THEATER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF — ca. 1912-1914” (March)

A very nice man sent me this photo, and I started to write about it in 2015. It was so confusing that I put it off until 2024! I love entertainment history, so when I can write about Dallas entertainment history… two birds, one stone. Any first-hand memories of this well-off-the-beaten-path neighborhood movie house have disappeared into the mists of time. It probably would have been completely forgotten, were it not for this photo. Don’t throw out those old photographs! (I’m so relieved I finally wrote this post.)

*

6.  “JIMI HENDRIX IN DALLAS, 4/20/69” (April)

I wrote about this Jimi Hendrix encounter at Love Field back in 2017. It was accompanied by a really, really great TV interview by a very young Channel 8 reporter named Doug Terry. I had tried to contact Doug to let him know this no doubt epic moment in his career was generating enthusiasm on SMU’s Jones Film YouTube channel, but I never heard back from him. …Until this year. And I had to revisit this story, with his personal memories of the interview. Thank you, Doug!

*

7.  “HOTEL RODESSIA” (April)

I love seeing postcards I’ve never seen before. Like this one. Rodessia Hotel? Never heard of it. And then I found out what that building had originally been — it was a historic building that I had written about in another favorite post. It’s all one big circle….

*

8.  “RUDOLPH GUNNER: DALLAS BOOKSELLER AND EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN’S ‘BEST FRIEND'” (May)

Every year I try to write a bookstore-related post in honor of my bookseller father (Dick Bosse, Aldredge Book Store). This year, it’s a story he would have LOVED! 

*

9.  “TELESIGN: FLASHING NEWS TO DOWNTOWN DALLAS — 1951” (August)

I was probably more excited than I needed to be when I discovered that Dallas once had one of its own “news ticker” signs which ran across a couple of downtown buildings in the ’50s. How had I never heard of this?!

*

10.  “TOOLING AROUND MUNGER PLACE — ca. 1913” (November)

EBay has so. much. stuff on it. In amongst the… let’s say “less than interesting” material crammed onto the site are the occasional little hidden gems. Like this photo of a well-to-do young woman sitting in her FANTASTIC ELECTRIC CAR, parked in front of a cool-looking, still-standing house on Swiss Avenue. What’s not to love?

*

And those are my Top 10 personal favorite posts of 2024.

Up next: the most popular posts of the year. Coming any moment!

***

Sources & Notes

See all three 2024 Year-End “best of” lists (as they’re posted) here.

See all Flashback Dallas Year-End lists — past and present — here.

*

Copyright © 2024 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.