1920s | Flashback : Dallas

July 10, 2016

The Dallas Express — A Look Inside the Offices of the City’s Most Important Black Newspaper — 1924

2600 Swiss, home of The Dallas Express (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Without question, The Dallas Express (1892/3-1970) was the most important and most widely-read black-owned newspaper published for Dallas’ African-American community. In addition to stories of particular interest to its Dallas and Texas readership, it also covered national and international news, and in the Jim Crow era, when black Dallasites were rarely mentioned in white-owned newspapers except in crime reports, The Express reported on the people, the businesses, the churches, and the achievements of their large community. They also wrote about politics and issues of race and discrimination. One of the paper’s slogans was “A Champion of Justice, A Messenger of Hope.”

I’ve been interested in newspapers, journalism, and the actual physical process of printing newspapers for as long as I can remember, but until a couple of years ago, I was not aware of The Dallas Express, founded in 1892 by publisher/editor W. E. King. Discovering this paper and its stories about my hometown has been eye-opening. The Dallas Express is an important — and often overlooked — source of Dallas history. I love reading through issues of The Express because unlike white-owned papers of this period, it presents a realistic and human chronicle of the everyday lives of Dallas’ black men and women, something which was almost completely ignored by The Dallas Morning News and The Dallas Times Herald.

For many years, the offices of the Express were just north of Deep Ellum, at 2600 Swiss — at the corner of Good Street, about where Brad Oldham’s Traveling Man sculpture stands today. (I have a feeling the actual location was in the middle of what is now Good-Latimer. See the location on a 1921 Sanborn map here.) Happily, the Express printed a full-page ad for itself in the June 7, 1924 edition, so we can see what the Swiss Avenue building, its offices, and its production rooms looked like. These photos were taken by noted Dallas photographer Frank Rogers. (Apologies for the muddy quality of these photos — I’d love to see the crisp originals!)

These photos show the Dallas Express offices as they looked in 1924, when the newspaper had already been in business for 32 years. The exterior of the two-story building can be seen in the photo at the top — standing next to a private residence. (Click photos to see larger images.)

Below, president and business manger (and, later, owner), C. F. Starks:

The editor’s office (John W. Rice was the editor at this time and is, presumably, the man in the foreground):

The business office:

The composition room:

The linotype department (I have written about my fascination with linotype machines here):

And the press room:

The text from the ad (this special “Pythian Edition”of the paper was printed to coincide with the 40th annual meeting of the Knights of Pythias):

“YOUR Paper,” The 5th Largest of its Kind in America, Commends The Knights of Pythias Along With All of the Other Fraternities Represented Here for Their WONDERFUL PROGRESS.

THE EXPRESS believes that much of the splendid success which has come to the Fraternities of Texas, has come because of the fact that they have told the public “well and often” about the benefits which they offer and the advantages which they bring. And too, this paper takes a great deal of PRIDE in the thought that it has helped to bring this to pass because it is the medium in Texas best fitted to tell the world about the PROGRESS of the institution of our State.

These views of our force and the equipment at our plant explain why we can guarantee “Distinctive Service” and “Meritorious Printing” to every one of our customers.

The 20,000 copies in this special issue will go to every corner of America and to some foreign countries. No other journal of the Race in the Southwest does this.

The Dallas Express Pub. Co. Solicits Your Patronage not because it is a Negro institution but because it can guarantee to you the sort of service that you need. No job too small for the greatest consideration. No order too big for us to fill.

TEXAS’ OLDEST AND LARGEST NEGRO NEWSPAPER AND PRINTING PLANT
In Dallas Since 1892
2600 Swiss Avenue

The full-page ad:

Dallas Express, June 7, 1924

Another photo of the printing room appeared in an Express ad which ran in the paper the following week:

Dallas Express, June 14, 1924

1923 Dallas directory

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Sources & Notes

Photos by Frank Rogers. Original prints might be in the Frank Rogers Collection at the Dallas Public Library, but nothing showed up when I searched the DPL database. Original crisp prints would be wonderful to see!

Photos appeared in the June 7, 1924 edition of The Dallas Express. The full newspaper can be found here. Only a few years’ worth of scanned issues of The Express are available on UNT’s Portal to Texas History site — mostly 1919-1924 — they can be accessed here.

Read about The Dallas Express at the Portal to Texas History, here; the Wikipedia entry is here.

July 6, 2016

Mrs. Hartgraves’ Cafe, and Bonnie & Clyde Earning Paychecks on Swiss Avenue

The Swiss Circle building, 2016 (click for larger image) / Photo: Paula Bosse

by Paula Bosse

Bonne and Clyde were famous for being from West Dallas, but each actually spent a good amount of time in East Dallas. Working. Earning an honest living. Bonnie worked as a waitress, and Clyde worked in a mirror and glass company. Both worked in establishments on Swiss Avenue, though probably at different times. They hadn’t met yet, but it’s interesting to know they worked at businesses only a few blocks apart: Hartgraves Cafe was at 3308 Swiss, and United Mirror and Glass was at 2614 Swiss. Both buildings are still standing.

The Hartgraves Cafe (the name of which is always misspelled in historical accounts as Hargrave’s Cafe — even by Bonnie and Clyde enthusiasts) was in a curved building at the corner of Swiss and College (it is now at the corner of Swiss and Hall). 50-something-year-old Mrs. Alcie Hartgraves (her first name usually appeared in directories as “Elsie,” sometimes as “Alice”) opened the restaurant a few months after her husband, Ben, had died in 1923. It lasted until late 1930 or early 1931. (All clippings and photos are larger when clicked.)

1928 Dallas directory

Swiss Avenue between College Avenue and Floride, 1928 directory

According to Bonnie and Clyde histories, Bonnie worked there as a teenaged waitress with an absent husband, from 1928 to early 1929. According to one woman who worked at the Yates Laundry, just across from the cafe’s back door, Bonnie was a very nice person. Here, in a 1972 oral history, Rose Myers — who worked at the Yates Laundry for 25 years — remembers Bonnie from those days at Mrs. Hartgraves’ cafe:

From the book Reminiscences

The laundry is long gone, but here’s what the back side of the building Bonnie worked in looks like today.

Photo: Paula Bosse

And here’s a Coca-Cola ghost sign, painted on the end of the building that faces Hall.

Photo: Paula Bosse

The Bonnie Parker connection is about the only reason people know about this odd little building in Old East Dallas. From looking through Dallas street directories, it appears that this building was built in 1915 or 1916 as a retail strip which, until Mrs. Hartgraves left, usually contained three or four businesses. The question is: why was it shaped like that? Many people think it was a streetcar stop, the cars using the circle as a place to turn around, but old maps showing streetcar routes from this period don’t show cars going down this part of Swiss. Below, a detail from a 1919 map, with Swiss and College streets in red. Streetcar tracks on Swiss turn left at Texas and then right on Live Oak, completely bypassing the circle area. (Another handy map of old streetcar routes laid over a present-day Google map can be found here.)

1919 map detail, via UNT

There’s a great view of the area in the 1921 Sanborn map here (with a different angle here). It may just be that the building was built to take advantage of/conform to the odd jog that Swiss Avenue takes in front of it. Here’s an aerial view from the recent past.

Bing Maps

Our own teensy and unspectacular Royal Crescent! (You know what they say — “Everything’s bigger in Bath….”)

But what about Clyde? Clyde worked at a mirror and glass company four-tenths of a mile west. Here’s an ad from 1928 (the same year Bonnie was working at Hartgraves).

via Bonnie & Clyde’s Hideout

Charles “Chili” Blatney worked with Clyde at United Glass and Mirror. In the Dallas Morning News article “He Helps Dallas to See Itself” by David Hawkins (DMN, March 17, 1970), Hawkins wrote: “Blatney remembers him as the friend he was: The little guy who always wore a hat and who would jerk it off and beat the floor with it in merriment when a good joke was told. […] ‘I guess I was surprised to see him turn real bad,’ [said Blatney].”

The building still stands, almost unrecognizable.

So, yeah, East Dallas was the stomping grounds of Bonnie and Clyde, back when they were living paycheck-to-paycheck and before they had begun their short-lived life of crime.

***

Sources & Notes

Photos of the Swiss Circle building taken by me when I stumbled across it yesterday. I knew what it was when I saw it, but I didn’t really know much about it, other than the Bonnie connection. The building is currently vacant, currently for lease, and currently a weird shade of green. It’s a great space and a cool building. The back side is FANTASTIC!

The surname of the property owner (or property manager) is rather unbelievably … Dunaway.

The passage quoting Rose Myers, who worked at the Yates Laundry, is from the book Reminiscences: A Glimpse of Old East Dallas.

A discussion of this building can be found on the Phorum discussion board, here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on Bonnie and Clyde can be found here.

Click everything. See bigger images!

14 Comments

May 31, 2016

Knox Street, Between Cole and Travis

Knox in its salad days…

by Paula Bosse

Above, Knox Street looking southeasterly from Travis in 1924. The Ro-Nile Theater (later the Knox Theater) is on the left. Today it is, I think, Pottery Barn Baby (and I think it is the original building). It directly faces what it now Weir’s Furniture. See what this view looks like today, here.

Below, a snow-covered Knox Street — around 1949 — looking northwesterly, from about Cole. The Knox Theater is on the right. See what this view looks like today, here.

I used to love when Knox was charming and funky. When I drive around this area now, I’m afraid I always end up feeling claustrophobic.

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Sources & Notes

Top photo from the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University; more info is here.

18 Comments

May 9, 2016

Elm Street — 1920s

by Paula Bosse

Above, a 1920s postcard showing Elm Street looking west from about where the Majestic Theatre is now. The lovely Melba Theatre can be seen at the right, with its sign partially visible. Originally opened as the Hope Theatre in 1922, it was renamed the Melba in October 1922 and became the Capri on Christmas Day 1959. West of the Melba is the tall red brick Dallas Athletic Club Building. Both of these buildings were demolished in 1981. (Also demolished about the same time were the Kress Building, the Volk Building, and the Baker Hotel. 1981 was a bad year to be an old building in Dallas. Read more in the Dallas Morning News article “Kress Building: Demolition Derby,” DMN, April 24, 1981.)

The same view today can be seen here.

Click for larger images.

1 Comment

April 22, 2016

Bob-O-Links Golf Course — 1924-1973

Bob-O-Links golf and St. Thomas Aquinas… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The photograph above (with a view to the southeast) shows Abrams Road (at the left), a few blocks south of Mockingbird. On the right is St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and school, and on the left, part of the Bob-O-Links Golf Course, Lakewood’s only public golf course. If you’re familiar with that part of town, it’s pretty incredible to see all that open land right in the middle of it.

Bob-O-Links, a 9-hole course, was opened by Harry McCommas in 1924 on 60 acres of the land originally owned by the pioneer McCommas family (the family’s full 640 acres covered land that stretched from what is now Abrams Road to White Rock Lake). Despite a creek meandering through seven of the course’s nine holes, the course was an immediate hit, mainly because it was one of the few public courses in town. This is where East Dallas residents with golf-fever would go to play if they couldn’t afford to join the Lakewood County Club.

From an article by John Anders in The Dallas Morning News:

When [Harry] McCommas, 75, decided to build a golf course on his grandfather’s sheep pasture in 1928 [sic], there were only three other golf courses in Dallas. And two of those three are now gone. “We were really out in the country then. There was no water, gas or electricity so we hauled in our water by truck. We didn’t need much since it was originally a sand course.” (DMN, July 6, 1973)

When the course opened in 1924, it was pretty much out in the sticks. By the late 1950s, though, Lakewood was booming, and developers were eager to build things — much to the dismay of nearby residents. Development was staved off for over a decade, but during that whole time, developers never stopped trying to get the area re-zoned, either for commercial use or for apartments and townhouses. Eventually — inevitably — the land was sold, and the days of the little golf course came to an end. The only “victory” the neighborhood could claim is that only single-family homes would be built on the land.

Bob-O-Links Golf Course closed on July 4, 1973. And as one drives down Abrams Road these days, it’s almost impossible to believe that it was ever there.

via Flickr

Dallas Park Board minutes, July 4, 1958

1962 map detail (click for larger image)

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Sources & Notes

I have no information about the top photo. It was posted on the Lakewood neighborhood group on Facebook by local bon vivant Michael Vouras. Comments on his post suggest that it may be a photo in the possession of St. Thomas Aquinas, taken around the mid 1960s. I welcome more info! (UPDATE: Below in the comments, other dates are suggested.)

A present-day aerial view of the same area can be seen here. The golf course (formerly on the left) has been gobbled up by houses.

A great article on Bob-O-Links — “The Bygone Days of Bob-O-Links Golf Course” — was written by Patti Vinson and appeared in a 2015 issue of The Lakewood Advocate; read it here.

Further reading from the archives of The Dallas Morning News:

“Re-zoning Denied for Bob-o-Links” (DMN, Sept. 17, 1960): this re-zoning request was to build a 35-acre shopping center; it was shot down by angry neighborhood residents
“Negotiations Finished To Buy Bob-o-Links” (DMN, Feb. 9, 1973): purchaser was long-time Dallas developer Hal McGraw who promised to build only single-family homes
“Farewell, Bob-O-Links” by John Anders (DMN, July 6, 1973): very entertaining article about Anders’ last round on the course, with memories of his earlier experiences on the course and quotes from owner Harry McCommas

Wish I’d been there. “FORE!”

20 Comments

April 18, 2016

White Rock Lake From Above — 1925-1926

Fairchild Aerial Survey photograph, 1925 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Above, a striking view of White Rock Lake, looking north, with Garland Road and the Houston & Texas Central Railroad tracks (becoming the Texas & New Orleans Railroad tracks in 1934) crossing at the lower center of the photograph, just southwest of the lake. Another Fairchild Aerial Survey photo is below — this one is from 1926, and its wider view shows just how undeveloped this area was at the time.

Fairchild Aerial Survey photo, 1926 (DeGolyer Library, SMU)

Here’s a present day view. (Click the image below to see a huge Google Earth image.)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo from the very interesting article “From Water Supply to Urban Oasis: A History of the Development of White Rock Lake Park” by Steven Butler (Legacies, Fall 2002), here.

Bottom photo, titled “White Rock Lake Aerial Overview (Unlabeled)” is from the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be accessed (and magnified greatly) here. The “labeled” version — which identifies roads and landmarks — is here. From the SMU description: “This is one of 38 photographic prints taken by Fairchild Aerial Survey, Inc. of White Rock Lake for Dr. Samuel G. Geiser, SMU.” The full set of the White Rock Lake aerial photos is here. A map here shows where the grid maps are in relation to the lake as a whole.

Thanks to “Not Bob” for linking to the Google Earth image in the comments!

These photos are big. Click them!

4 Comments

March 29, 2016

Home Sweet Home at Commerce & Harwood

“Main Street Garden?”

by Paula Bosse

Quaint homes, mere steps from City Hall. Not sure of the exact date of this photo, but these homes and this service station were at the above location in 1920. Wonder when those homeowners finally decided to sell? Talk about your primo real estate!

Below is a similar photo, but this one shows more of Commerce looking east — I don’t come across a lot of photos of this era showing downtown past what was unofficially thought of as its eastern boundary.

***

Sources & Notes

Photo from Noah Jeppson’s Flickr page, here.

Second photo, titled “Dallas City Hall,” is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; more info on this photo can be found here.

More on the building of the City Hall/Municipal Building in the Flashback Dallas post “The Elegant Municipal Building — 1914,” here.

3 Comments

March 28, 2016

Signage Overload on Main Street — ca. 1925

I hope the photographer has a red light behind him…

by Paula Bosse

This photo makes me feel anxious. There’s just too much going on here: too many signs, too many overhead wires, too garish a light.

This is the 1800 block of Main Street, looking east. The photographer’s shadow can be seen at the bottom of the photo. A large hotel of some sort (the name of which escapes me at the moment) can be seen in the distance (in the 1900 block) at Harwood.

The businesses in this block, from the 1925 city directory (click for larger image):

I have no 1926 directory to reference, but the 1927 directory has the building at 1811 Main (occupied in the photo by the Rund-Humphrey Water Heater Co. and the Stevenson Printing Co.) listed as being vacant. And the Hilton opened in 1925, so the photo seems to have been taken in 1925 or 1926.

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Sources & Notes

Photo from eBay.

See the Hilton (the first one, not the later Statler-Hilton on Commerce) from a different angle in the post “The Hilton Hotel, Main & Harwood,” here.

9 Comments

March 25, 2016

Main & Akard, Looking East

Watch your step, girls…

by Paula Bosse

Ah, Main Street. It’s so sad that the Praetorian Building — the tall white building in the distance on the left — has been demolished to be replaced by a giant eyeball, but it’s great to see that the Kirby Building — at the left — is still hanging in there and still looking great.

Check out the height of those curbs!

***

Sources & Notes

Photo from the WPA Dallas Guide and History ([Denton]: University of North Texas Press, 1992); photo from the collection of the Dallas Public Library. Two sources of this photo cite different dates: one 1935, the other 1930. My guess would be late ’20s — or, certainly closer to 1930 than 1935.

See what this view looks like today on Google Street View, here.

4 Comments

March 23, 2016

The Dallas Chapter of “The Women of the Ku Klux Klan” — 1920s

by Paula Bosse

I’ve managed to avoid mention of the Ku Klux Klan since starting this blog a couple of years ago, which is saying something, because the KKK pretty much ruled this city for a good chunk of the 1920s. The Dallas chapter — Klan No. 66 — had more than 13,000 men as members; it was one of the largest chapters in the nation (by some accounts, THE largest chapter). Members included politicians, judges, and law enforcement officials. But what of the Klan-leaning ladies who were not allowed to join? Before I plunge into that, let’s look at what’s going on in this weird, be-robed group shot, a photo taken around 1924 in Ferris Plaza with poor Union Station as a backdrop. (Click these for much larger images.)

In the early 1920s, women — who had led the temperance movement and whom had recently been given the right to vote — began to form groups that tackled social issues. Some of these groups espoused the same general rhetoric as the KKK. One of these groups was formed in Dallas in 1922 — the “American Women” group was the brainchild of three women, including Alma B. Cloud, who appears to have been only 21 years old. One of the other founders was her partner in a short-lived ladies’ clothing boutique. Cloud immediately hit the lecture circuit, giving free lectures on “Americanism” to (white Protestant) women around Texas.

Taylor Daily Press, Aug. 22, 1922

By the following summer, the male leadership of the Klan allowed a “Women of the Ku Klux Klan” to be created; its national headquarters was in Little Rock.

They were not officially part of the KKK but were, in theory, a separate entity. While not, perhaps, as outwardly extreme as their male counterparts, they were certainly as virulently racist and intolerant. They might not have been lynching people and threatening violence, but they were busy pushing their exclusionary, white supremacy agenda. And both the men and the women liked to dress up in white robes and hoods. Here’s what the women looked like when they added masks to the ensemble (not Dallas — location of photo unknown).

Several of the independent women’s groups founded previously were happily absorbed by the WKKK — including Miss A. B. Cloud’s group. In fact, Miss Cloud became the leader of the Dallas chapter. The “Klaliff.” The headquarters for this group — which campaigned for “progressive morality”– was in a little space on North Harwood.

1924 Dallas directory

1924 seems to have been the big year for both the KKK and the WKKK. The women found themselves at lots of parades with burning crosses and other … “functions” — so why not form a drum corps? A few clippings. (Click for larger images.)

Amarillo Globe-Times, March 16, 1924

Dallas News, July 31, 1924

McKinney Courier-Gazette, Nov. 12,1924

By 1926, the KKK was starting to lose its power, and the fear and intimidation they had instilled in much of the public began to wane. The (men’s) KKK had had to downsize and move into the women’s headquarters, and their candidates began losing elections. Even worse, you know things were getting bad if someone was suing the KKK for delinquent robe-payment!

KU KLUX KLAN WOMEN SUED FOR ROBES BILL: Suit for $4,463.80 was filed in the Forty-Fourth District Court on Friday afternoon by John F. Pruitt against the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc. The petition alleges that the plaintiff sold the defendant, a corporation, 6,000 robes at $2.50 each during the two years preceding the filing of the suit, for which the defendant agreed to pay $15,000 to the plaintiff. It is alleged that $4,463.80 remains unpaid. (DMN, Nov. 28, 1925)

The power once exerted by the Ku Klux Klan had diminished greatly by the end of the 1920s, and while the Klan has never disappeared completely, it will never again reach the heights it had attained in the 1920s.

Whatever happened to Miss A. B. Cloud? After having been ousted from her “imperial” position (for reasons I don’t really care enough about to investigate), she had a few sales jobs and eventually began to present motivational sales talks. There was an Alma B. Cloud in California who was mentioned in several news stories from the 1930s — she presented motivational lectures to students on how best to plan their future adult lives. Um, yes. I’m not 100% sure this was the same A. B. Cloud who was the former WKKK gal from Big D, but it seems likely. I wonder what those students would have thought had they known of her pointy-hooded past?

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Sources & Notes

Links-a-plenty.

Top photo is titled “Ku Klux Klan Women’s Drum Corps Dallas in Front of Union Station,” taken by Frank Rogers; it is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University — it can be accessed here. I have manipulated the color.

Women of the Ku Klux Klan letterhead comes from the Women of the Ku Klux Klan Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries; the collection can be accessed here.

The photo of the masked WKKK women is all over the internet — I don’t know its original source or any details behind it, but it’s creepy.

“Women of the Ku Klux Klan” on Wikipedia, is here.

“Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s” by Kathleen M. Blee, is here.

“Charity by Day, Punishment by Night: The Ku Klux Klan in Fort Worth” — from the great FW history blog Hometown by Handlebar — is here.

And, probably best of all, the Dallas Morning News article “At Its Peak, Ku Klux Klan Gripped Dallas,” by the wonderful and much-missed Bryan Woolley, can be read here. This article contains facts and figures, describes the sort of “madness of crowds” atmosphere in the city at the time, and details some of the horrible atrocities committed by the KKK in Dallas. Woolley cites historian Darwin Payne’s assertion that if one considered every adult man in Dallas who would have been eligible to have joined the Klan (this excludes, of course, those of African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Catholic, or Jewish descent), one in three of them was a member of the Dallas chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. ONE IN THREE.

A few short mentions of the Dallas WKKK have been compiled here.

UPDATE: For a look at racism in modern Dallas, watch the half-hour film “Hate Mail,” made in 1992 by Mark Birnbaum and Bart Weiss, here. It includes interviews with several prominent Dallasites, as well as interviews with a couple of Klan leaders.

Click pictures and clippings to see larger images.

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