McKell Street’s Golden Age

by Paula Bosse

Veranda-life, Old East Dallas

by Paula Bosse

This does not look like Dallas. But it is. I had never heard of McKell Street, but it’s in Old East Dallas and is only two blocks long (it’s actually one long block), between Bryan and San Jacinto. This house stood until 2021 or 2022 at the corner of McKell and San Jacinto (see it in a 2021 Google Street View image here, when it was the very last remaining house on the street).

The address was 1520 McKell (the address written on the card looks like “1620,” but there was never a 1600 block of the street). When the house was built, sometime before 1903, its address was 136 McKell — you can see it and its curved wraparound porch on a 1905 Sanborn map here and on a 1922 Sanborn map here. And the sad empty lot in 2022 is here.

I love stumbling across unexpected photos like this. This was such a lovely little street. I can absolutely imagine Andy and Barney and Aunt Bee on that porch, rocking and chatting on a hot Sunday afternoon, enjoying a bowl of homemade peach ice cream and waving to neighbors as they walk by.

And now it’s nothing but an ugly stretch of parking lots and the powerfully unattractive AT&T building.

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Sources and Notes

Real photo postcard found on eBay in 2024.

This post appeared in a slightly different version on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page (subscribe for as little as $5 a month!).

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