Snowy Scene North of Pacific — ca. 1909
by Paula Bosse
Snow, saloons, and First Baptist Church
by Paula Bosse
As I write this, we are still in a deep-freeze from a storm that rolled through several days ago. Sadly, it’s more ice than snow, and it’s taking forever for the streets to clear. Since you’re probably stuck inside, this seems like a perfect time to look back at another frosty scene of Dallas, from over a century ago. (See the link at the bottom of this post under “Sources & Notes” for a higher resolution, zoomable image at SMU’s digital collections site.)
The photo above shows the area just north of downtown in 1909 or 1910, looking to the north from Pacific Avenue. The only real landmark that might be recognizable to us is the First Baptist Church (marked with an “X”), but that burned down in 2024. It’s hard to believe that the area as we know today once looked like this.
Because I’ve written about it a couple of times, I recognized the P. S. Borich electric sign company, seen at the bottom left of the original photo and in the detail below. It was located at 102-4 Bryan (later 1600 Bryan), where it meets Akard at a point. Borich also faced Pacific, and, in this photo, we are seeing Borich from the Pacific side. (For more about this important pioneer sign company — it later became Texlite — and to see a map of the area, I’ve written about the Borich company here and here.)
Across from the Borich company was a saloon (and “sleeping rooms”) run by Ernest Dinelli at 113-15 Bryan (later 1521-23 Bryan). A close-up of the top of his building is below. (Wine and cigars and… whatever else… all going on within strolling distance of First Baptist Church!)
And across Bullington from Dinelli’s saloon was the Bryan St. Saloon owned by the Garonzik brothers, Will and Charles, at 117 Bryan (later 1601 Bryan). (That saloon had new owners practically every year.) Next door was the Hartman Construction Company at 119 Bryan (later 1603 Bryan). Next to Hartman were three large boarding houses.
I’ve determined that this photo was taken in 1909 or 1910 because the Garonzik saloon’s only appearance in the city directory was in 1909, and Hartman showed up for the first time in the 1910 directory. Below, the pertinent addresses from the 1909 Dallas city directory.
Bryan St., 1909 city directory
If you want to check out this area on Sanborn maps from 1905, they are here (Bryan is at the very bottom) and here.
This neighborhood looks prettier in this photograph than it probably was. Snow does that. Stay warm!
***
Sources & Notes
Top photo — “[Bryan Street and Surrounding Area During the Winter]” — is from the
George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University; more info on this real photo postcard is here. (SMU notes that the postcard was mailed in June 1919.)
*
Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
Hi Paula, that was a good article. I forgot that church burned down, it was probably a planned demolishing disguised as an accident, which is very common for such old world churches & cathedrals. By the way; there was a little convenience store on Ross Ave. known as “Dallas’s oldest convenience store”, do you have any information on this store, it was an odd tiny one room building with a strange roof; I think the cross street was Routh Street, but I may be wrong. I remember stopping there when walking from the bus stop to Arts Magnet the first year Arts Magnet opened (75 or 76?); at that time the cashier was a strange looking foreigner; the store was so strange that it stuck in my memory.
LikeLike