Flashback : Dallas

A Miscellany: History, Ads, Pop Culture

Category: Advertisements

Photo-Pac: The First Disposable Camera — 1948

weir_mechanix-illus_1949_smA. D. Weir and his invention, 1949

by Paula Bosse

Alfred D. Weir (1909-1996) was the son of A. F. Weir, the successful retail furniture merchant who founded Weir Furniture in 1922. The younger Weir graduated from SMU in 1933 with a degree in mechanical engineering and started his career, fresh out of college, at Dallas’ Ford assembly plant. During World War II, he was the chief industrial engineer at North American Aviation and was later employed by Fairchild Engine and Aircraft, Ford’s aircraft division in Kansas City, Texas Instruments, and Bell Helicopter.

After the war and before his time in Kansas City, Weir took time out from his engineering career to try his hand as an entrepreneur: he invented, patented, and manufactured the Photo-Pac, a single-use camera made of inexpensive fiber board and pre-loaded with 35mm film (loaded by blind employees in total darkness). The user would buy one of these cameras at a drug store, department store, or gas station for $1.29, take eight photographs, and then write his or her name on the side of the camera and drop the whole thing — with the film still inside the camera — in a mail box. Photos would be processed in Dallas, and prints and negatives would be returned to the customer in a couple of days. The camera would not be returned.

photo-pac_san-bernardino-county-sun_040250-photoSan Bernardino County Sun, April 2, 1950

photo-pac_arlington-heights-illinois-herald_122349-photoArlington Heights (Illinois) Herald, Dec. 23, 1949

It appears to have made its debut at the 1948 State Fair of Texas at an introductory price of only 98¢ (click for larger image).

photo-pac_billboard_100948Billboard, Oct. 9, 1948

Manufacture and distribution of the camera began in earnest in May, 1949. And then … ads for the camera were everywhere! (The home-grown invention appeared in a hometown newspaper advertorial on May 1, here.) Weir and his small team managed to get the camera in retail locations all over the country. He was also worked hard to line up distributors. Ads such as this one were placed in several U.S. newspapers:

photo-pac_FWST_061649Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 16, 1949

It seems to have been very popular — both as a novelty impulse buy and as a useful product for people who either did not own cameras or who did not want to take their family cameras on trips. Here’s a typical ad (see text below):

photo-pac_FWST_111649_fair-dept-store-ad

photo-pac_FWST_111649_fair-dept-store-ad_detFWST, Nov. 16, 1949 — from ad for Fort Worth’s Fair Department Store

The camera won a “prize gadget” award from Mechanix Illustrated (click to see very large image).

photo-pac_mechanix-illus_sept-1949Mechanix Illustrated, Sept. 1949

By the summer of 1950, the number of exposures went from eight to twelve, and the price increased to $1.49. It seemed that the business was growing, but by the fall of 1950, Photo-Pac seems to have reached the end of the road. Court dockets showed a couple of lawsuits filed against the company. Newspaper ads showed stock of the cameras being deep-discounted to as low as 50¢ apiece. The next year, 1951, saw Weir returning to his engineering career — he accepted a position with Ford in Kansas City and apparently left his business dreams behind. It was a great idea, but, for whatever reason, it never fully caught on.

36 long years after A. D. Weir’s Dallas company folded, Fuji introduced their very popular disposable camera; Kodak followed with theirs in 1987. Those things were everywhere — everyone’s had one of them at one time or another. I bet A. D. Weir was miffed.

fuji_FWST_070286FWST, July 2, 1986

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weir_smu_rotunda_1930A. D. Weir, SMU Rotunda, 1930

weir_smu_rotunda_1933Weir, SMU Rotunda, 1933

weir_dmn_032253-photo1953

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is an inset from the Mechanix Illustrated “prize gadget” page, from the blog Modern Mechanix, here.

Weir’s patent can be found on Google here. To view Google Patent Image separately (and really big), click image below.

weir_patent

There seems to be some debate about whether Weir’s Photo-Pac was actually the first single-use disposable camera — if it isn’t strictly the first, it seems to have been the one that made the most headway into the American marketplace. A great article on the topic can be found on the Disposable America website here.

Wikipedia’s “disposable camera” page is here.

A. D. Weir’s father, Alfred Folsom (A. F.) Weir opened Weir Furniture at 2550 Elm Street in 1922; in 1934 the company was incorporated to include his wife and son. A. F. Weir sold the Dallas company to his brother Earl (who had owned furniture stores in Fort Worth and Arlington) in the 1940s — that business closed sometime between 1945 and 1948. In 1948, Earl’s son John Ray Weir opened Weir’s Furniture Village on Knox Street, a business still going strong today.

Most images are magically larger when clicked!

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Sonny James: The “Shindig Heartbreaker”

shindig-cast_sonny-james-websiteSonny James, center, with fiddle (photo: SonnyJames.com)

by Paula Bosse

Sonny James — the much-loved Country Music Hall of Fame singer — died yesterday (Feb. 22, 2016). When I was a child, his version of “Runnin’ Bear” was my favorite song, and it was played endlessly throughout the ’70s on Dallas’ classic country stations like KBOX and WBAP. I was surprised to learn a few years ago, that the Alabama-born Sonny James lived in Dallas for several years, and that Dallas was where he was performing regularly when he exploded into the national consciousness with his first #1 hit, “Young Love.”

sonny-james_dmn_0609561952

Before he made his way to Dallas, Sonny James had been making a name for himself as a performer on Shreveport’s Louisiana Hayride. One of his first appearances in Dallas was during his Hayride Days: he was a guest on the Big D Jamboree in the summer of 1952.

He must have made quite a splash, because only a month later, he had left the Hayride, moved to Dallas, and was signed to appear on the show “Saturday Nite Shindig,” the WFAA-sponsored answer to the Big D Jamboree, which debuted on October 11, 1952. (As “Saturday Night Shindig,” the radio show had been a WFAA staple since it began in 1944; Sonny James was hired to be part of a new “Shindig,” which was revamped from a folksy half-hour show to a 4-hour live music show and was broadcast from Fair Park.)

“Yeoow! More Zip than a Singed Cat!” (Click for larger image.)

sonny-james_dmn_100852Oct. 8, 1952

sonny-james_dmn_101052Oct. 10, 1952

It was an immediate hit, and Sonny became the main draw and something of a teen heart-throb. Less than a month after the announcement of his permanent gig as a “Shindigger,” he also got his own radio show on WFAA, Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 11:00 to 11:15.

Pretty soon, the Shindig revue was being simulcast on TV and radio, live from Fair Park (from the bandshell when it was warm, and from various other buildings during cold and inclement weather).

sonny-james_dmn_041153April 11, 1953

The Shindig show seems to have died away in 1954 or 1955. Sonny James headed back to the Sportatorium and the Big D Jamboree (which was run by his manager, Ed McLemore). One show of note was this one in 1955, with his old Louisiana Hayride pal Elvis Presley. (McLemore made sure that even though Elvis was the headliner, Sonny’s name was actually bigger!)

big-d-jamboree_FWST_041555-elvis_sonny-jamesApril 15, 1955

Sonny James had been recording for Capitol for several years, with some success, but it wasn’t until the end of 1956 that he had his mammoth #1 crossover hit, “Young Love,” which made him a national star. Apparently, he kept a residence in Dallas for a while (the last address I see for him in Dallas was in 1955 at 4718 Capitol, between N. Carroll and Fitzhugh). While living in Dallas, he was a steadfast member of the Church of Christ at East Side and Peak, and he frequently participated in area fishing contests (in fact, there might have been more mentions of his extracurricular fishing exploits in the local papers than there were mentions of his show-biz exploits — his fishing activities were often covered using his real name, Jimmie Loden). One person who lived in the same neighborhood Sonny did recalled on a Dallas-history message board that Sonny worked on Saturday mornings bagging groceries at a store on the corner of Capitol and Fitzhugh.

Sonny James went on to be a much-loved country performer who racked up a number of hits and was, apparently, one of the nicest guys around. He was most definitely a Southern Gentleman. Thanks, Sonny.

sonny-james_shindig_ebay

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sonny-james_dmn_110852-shindig-ad
Nov. 8, 1952

sonny-james_promo-photo_1953
1953

shindig_dmn_091253
Sept. 12, 1953

shindig_billboard_100353
Billboard, Oct. 3, 1953

sonny-james_dmn_082154
Aug. 21, 1954

james-sonny_1957_promo-photoRadio Annual and Television Yearbook, 1957

james-sonny_mclemore_1958Radio Annual and Television Yearbook, 1958

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Sources & Notes

Sonny James’ obituary form the Hollywood Reporter is here. His Wikipedia page is here.

The official Sonny James website is here.

To get an idea of the absolutely HOT hillbilly and rockabilly music that was being performed in Dallas in the years that Sonny James was here, check out this fantastic sampling of recordings from the Big D Jamboree:

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See a few photos of Sonny James in Dallas at SonnyJames.com here (click thumbnails for larger images — the photo of Sonny sitting in the wings watching Elvis on stage at the Big D Jamboree is pretty great!).

A couple of good articles about Sonny James’ time in Dallas (written while he still considered himself a resident of the city) can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives:

  • “Success Won’t Spoil Mr. James” by Tony Zoppi in his “Dallas After Dark” column (DMN, Feb. 10, 1957)
  • “Sonny Snubs That Las Vegas ‘Loot'” by, of all people, Frank X. Tolbert in his “Tolbert’s Texas” column (May 13, 1957), in which Sonny — fresh off his 2.5-million-selling “Young Love” hit — talked about having a clause in contracts saying he would not perform in places with drinking, “clinch dancing,” and gambling, mostly because he did not want to exclude his teenage fans from being able to see him perform.

A good interview with Sonny James — packed with photos — appeared in the January, 1958 issue of TV Radio Mirror, a full scan of which you can find here. Even after he had hit the mega-big-time, Sonny said he continued to keep an apartment in Dallas. In the story there is a photo of his Dallas girlfriend, Doris Farmer (née Shrode) — she and Sonny took out a marriage license in July, 1957 (seen here) — I’m not sure when they married, but Sonny and Doris were happily married until Sonny’s death, almost 60 years.

Another performer who lived in the DFW area at the same time as Sonny James and who was also on the cusp of national stardom was Pat Boone, who had his own show on WBAP while attending college in Denton. Sonny and Pat were friends and even appeared on a few bills together. They were both also members of the Church of Christ, which both no doubt felt was an important bond. I wrote about Pat Boone’s time in DFW in the Flashback Dallas post “Pat Boone, Host of Channel 5’s ‘Teen Times’ — 1954,” here.

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

When a Ten-Spot Could Get a Family of Four Into Six Flags — 1962

ad-six-flags_dmn_042362

by Paula Bosse

Six Flags Over Texas is about to open up again. In 1962 — the theme park’s second year — the admission price for one adult was $2.75 (approximately $22.00 in today’s money), and the price for children under 12 was $2.25 (approximately $18.00 in today’s money). A family of two adults and two children would pay $10.00 for admission — that would be a little under $80.00 in 2016 money, which was still a lot back then, until you compare it to today’s Six Flags ticket prices: $250 for a family of four (as long as both of those children are under 48″ tall). (Pink Things not included.) And you probably won’t even see a dad wearing a suit and tie and a porkpie hat. And you certainly won’t get to see ANY of this! I think you got a lot more bang for your buck 50 years ago.

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Never leave home without the Inflation Calculator.

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

Lakewood Post Office — 1946-1976

lakewood_post-office_dmn-123045Lakewood Post Office, 6324 Prospect

by Paula Bosse

I’m often surprised to discover things about the part of Dallas I grew up in which I somehow never knew — in this case: Lakewood’s first post office, which was apparently in operation when I was a living, breathing, sentient human being but which I’d never known about until today. (I actually grew up in the nearby Lower Greenville neighborhood, but even though I went to Long and Woodrow, I don’t remember being all that aware of Lakewood proper until I was able to drive myself around it as a teenager.) Somehow I had never known that there was a post office in Lakewood before the one at Swiss and La Vista. Or, rather, I’d never even thought about it. Until I saw this ad earlier today:

lakewood_lighthouse_dmn_0425471947

“The Lighthouse — Unusual Sea Foods, Steak and Chicken — Opposite Lakewood Post Office.”

Post office? New to me. I looked it up. It was just west of Abrams, on Prospect at Kidwell, positioned diagonally across the lot. It was the 13th post office substation in Dallas, and it opened on December 2, 1946, over two years after its approval had been announced, during the war, in August, 1944.

A 1945 Dallas Morning News article had this interesting bit of information:

The contractor is Bascomb E. McClesky [sic]. The building will have 4,000 square feet of floor space. Parking space will be provided on the lot. [McCleskey] will retain title to the property and will lease it to the government, Payne said. (“Lakewood To Get Branch Post Office,” DMN, Nov. 18, 1945)

(I’m not sure I was aware developers leased property to the federal government. B. E.  McCleskey lived in the Pasadena area of Lakewood and seems to have spent his 30-year career as a general contractor who also bought, sold, and developed both commercial and residential properties in and around this part of East Dallas. When he began his career, he had an office on Gaston in the new Lakewood Shopping Center; at the time of his death in 1956, his office was right next door to the post office on land which, presumably, he still owned.)

This post office lasted for 30 years until the newer, hulkier, and far less aesthetically appealing station opened at Swiss and La Vista on May 10, 1976.

lakewood-post-office_dmn_112576_swiss.-photo
1976

Some factoids which will come in handy should you ever find yourself in a U.S. Post Office Trivial Pursuit (Lakewood Edition) competition:

  • When the first Lakewood post office opened in 1946, it employed 3 clerks, 1 supervisor, and 16 carriers.
  • When the second post office opened 30 years later, it employed 13 clerks, 2 supervisors, and 47 carriers.

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But back to the first post office — the building is still standing and houses the Times Ten Cellars wine bar! I’ve passed that building a lot over the years, but I guess I never paid much attention to it. I don’t know why, because it’s a great little  building. It would never occur to me that it might ever have been a post office. I wish more businesses in Dallas would consider repurposing older buildings rather than building characterless boxes that look like every other characterless box. Thank you, Times Ten Cellars!

times-ten-cellar_google_2015Google Street View (2015)

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That Lighthouse “unusual sea foods” restaurant? It doesn’t seem to have lasted very long. It changed hands a few times before closing as the Lighthouse Cafe at the end of 1950. At one point it was known as Phil’s Lighthouse — “Dallas’ most unique dining place where the atmosphere is: ‘Nautical But Nice.'”

phils-lighthouse_dmn_121649DMN, Dec. 16, 1949

That’s right … “NAUTICAL BUT NICE”!

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Sources & Notes

If anyone remembers the Lighthouse restaurant: was it actually shaped like a lighthouse?

Detail of a page from the 1952 Mapsco showing the location of the old post office (click for larger image):

lakewood-post office_1952-mapsco

lakewood-post-office_then-now

Click pictures for larger images.

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

Life in The Grove: Pleasant Grove — 1954-1956

pghs_1956-dairy-queenDairy Queen, 1238 S. Buckner — 1956 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The community of Pleasant Grove was first settled in the 1840s but didn’t officially become part of Dallas until it was annexed in 1954 after a huge postwar surge in population. Upon annexation, the schools that made up the Pleasant Grove Independent School District became part of the DISD, including Pleasant Grove High School, which was located on Lake June Road, between Conner and Pleasant Drive. PGHS closed when the brand new W. W. Samuell High School opened on January 28, 1957, halfway through the 1956-1957 school year. The photos here are from the yearbooks of the last three years that Pleasant Grove High School was open — most of the ads feature students inside or in front of the business establishments. And they’re great! (Click photos for larger images.)

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Photos of overcrowded Pleasant Grove High School and its numerous out-buildings, 1955.

pghs_1955a

pghs_1955b

Pleasant Grove Pharmacy, Grady’s Clover Farm Grocery, and Grove Shoe Store:

pghs_1954-yrbk_a1954

Worthington Service Station:

pghs_1954-yrbk-worthington1954

Schepps Dairy:

pghs_1954-yrbk-schepps1954

The Eatmore Hamburger System (greatest name EVER!!):

pghs_1954-yrbk-eatmore1954

Dasch Cleaners:

pghs_1955-yrbk-dasch1955

Harvey Hayes, “The Insurance Man”:

pghs_1955-yrbk_a1955

Cassidy’s Conoco Station, Tee-Pee Drive-In Grocery, and Gay and Jones Motor Co.:

pghs_1956-yrbk_b1956

Worthington’s Magnolia Service Station (again) and Barrett’s Used Cars:

pghs_1956-yrbk_a1956

W. W. Hughes Magnolia Service Station, E & L Service Shop (bicycle and lawnmower service), and, again, Pleasant Grove Pharmacy:

pghs_1956-yrbk_d1956

Billie Price Real Estate and Maridell’s:

pghs_1956-yrbk_c1956

Martin’s Sinclair Service Station (with a DQ photobomb):

pghs_1956-martins1956

The Kaufman Pike Drive-In, “The Theater With a Heart”:

pghs_1956-yrbk-kaufman-pike-drive-in1956

And lastly, a very dark photo of Pleasant Grove High School from the 1948 yearbook:

pleasant-grove-high-school_1948-yrbk1948

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Sources & Notes

All photos and ads are from the 1954, 1955, and 1956 editions of The Bobcat, the Pleasant Grove High School yearbook.

More on the history of Pleasant Grove in southeast Dallas, here. More on the history of Pleasant Grove High School here and here. The confusing school changes revolving around the the PGISD/DISD switchover were a bit like musical chairs and affected attendance of numerous high schools (including Forest High School, Crozier Tech, and Woodrow Wilson), junior high schools, and elementary schools. Read about the details in the Dallas Morning News article “Mid-Term Switch Set for Students” (DMN, Jan. 6, 1957).

Google map showing Pleasant Grove and approximate location of PGHS, here.

As always, click pictures for larger images.

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

The Lakewood Theater — 1944

lakewood-theater_ad_inset_1944A well-lit staircase to the balcony (click for giant image)

by Paula Bosse

Occasionally one stumbles across a national advertisement featuring someone or something familiar to local audiences which elicits an involuntary exclamation like, “Hey! I know that guy!” I had a response kind of like that when I saw this General Electric light bulb ad featuring a photograph of the interior of the Lakewood Theater (showing a few figures from the mural by Woodrow boy Perry Nichols).

“See how postwar theaters may use G-E lighting to provide attractive atmosphere, to give helpful guide light along the stairs to the balcony.”

lakewood-theater_ad_MPH_072244_med

Yes, the Lakewood certainly did have an “attractive atmosphere.”

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Sources & Notes

Ad for G-E Mazda lamps appeared in the July 22, 1944 issue of Motion Picture Herald. Click the above ad to see it much larger. To see it REALLY big, click here. (Apologies for the bleed-through of the ad on the other side of the page. If you’re a Photoshop wizard who can remove the offending ghost letters plastered across Nichols’ whimsical mural, I’d love a cleaned-up version.)

I have no idea what’s going on with the beleaguered Lakewood Theater these days, but if you’d like to see those murals in color, see the photos in the Lakewood Advocate, here.

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

The Volunteer Fire Department’s Early Days

sanger-bros_fire-department_dmn_030836aPumping water from an underground cistern (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Dallas was constantly catching on fire in its early days. According to this very informative advertisement, Alex Sanger was one of the Dallas businessmen responsible for organizing the city’s first volunteer fire department. Interestingly, the Sanger Bros. department store also had a volunteer fire department which not only protected the store, but also served as a special unit of the Dallas Volunteer Fire Brigade.

The drawing above and the text below are from a 1936 Sanger Bros. advertisement. (Click to see larger images.)

sanger-bros_fire-department_dmn_030836b1936

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

D. B. Keiper, Cistern and Tank Builder

ad-keiper_cisterns_directory_1884Ad from the 1884 Dallas directory

by Paula Bosse

For all your cistern and tank needs, D. B. Keiper’s your man.

keiper_dallas-herald_061881Dallas Herald, June 18, 1881

keiper_dallas-herald_101384Dallas Herald, Oct. 13, 1884

keiper_dallas-herald_120484Dallas Herald, Dec. 4, 1884

keiper_dmn_091586Dallas Morning News, Sept. 15, 1886

keiper_dmn_093088DMN, Sept. 30, 1888

keiper_dmn-121391DMN, Dec. 13, 1891

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Top ad from the 1884 Dallas directory.

I didn’t find out much about the Pennsylvania-born David Butz Keiper (1827-1895), except that he bought a lot of lumber, sold a lot of cisterns and tanks, and took out a huge number of newspaper ads over the years.

One wonders if he might have built and installed the underground cistern of the Rosenfield house I wrote about in “The Blue House of Browder,” which was built around 1885 — this “for sale” ad appeared in 1887, when Keiper seemed to be Dallas’ king of cisterns:

1887_browder_dmn_050887-FOR-SALEDMN, May 8, 1887

Keiper specialized in underground wooden cisterns (made from cypress lumber) to hold collected rainwater, but there were many different types of cisterns in use around Texas in the nineteenth century. Mark H. Denton wrote an interesting article, “Cisterns in Texas,” for Current Archeology in Texas (April 2011), with illustrations but with little on wooden cisterns; read Denton’s article here (scroll to bottom of p. 4 of the PDF).

Image too small? Click it!

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Ramon Adams: Violinist, Candy Manufacturer, Old West Expert

adams-ramon_texas-week-mag_090746_portal-photo_bwRamon F. Adams, 1946

by Paula Bosse

I’ve spent a fair amount of my adult life cataloging Texana books and ending descriptions with the bibliographic citations “Adams, HERD” or “Adams, SIX-GUNS.”* “Adams” was Ramon F. Adams, a respected and prolific writer and bibliographer specializing in the Old West and cowboy life. If you collect books on Texas and The West — or on cowboys and the cattle industry — you have Ramon Adams’ books on your shelves. And he lived in Dallas.

Ramon Adams was born in Moscow, Texas in 1889, near Houston, but left there as a young man to study and teach music. He was a professional violinist who played not only an occasional symphony gig, but after his years of teaching, he made a steady living playing in movie theater orchestras, accompanying silent films. While playing in the orchestra at the Rialto in Fort Worth, he even wore white tie and tails. When the Rialto musicians went on strike in 1923, he and his wife, Allie, moved to Dallas, and he played in the orchestras up and down theater row until the fateful day when he was cranking a stalled Model T Ford in an attempt to start it and broke his wrist. It never healed properly, and his days as a professional violinist came to an abrupt end.

I never knew about his first career as a musician, and I never knew about his second career as a candy merchant! The Candy Years began when he and his wife bought a little candy store on Elm Street between the Melba and the Majestic, and it did such good business that, a few years later, he went into manufacturing and wholesaling candy. The Adams Candy Co. began its successful life in the 1930s, known for its widely available candies such as “Texas Pecandy” and for its “Burnt Offering” (“burnt almonds in chewy caramel and rich chocolate”), which was made specially for Neiman-Marcus.

pecandy_dmn_090940Sept. 1940

The runaway success of his candy business meant that when the Adamses sold the business in the mid-’50s (making, one assumes, a hefty profit) Ramon was able to devote his full attention to researching and writing about cowboy life and culture. He had been writing all along, in his spare time, but only in short bursts, usually at night, at the kitchen table. He had written several very long pieces for The Dallas Morning News in 1927 and 1928, but his first book, Cowboy Lingo, wasn’t published until 1936 — when he was 46 years old. And then the floodgates opened. When he died in 1976, his obituary noted that he had written 24 books — in addition to numerous articles for magazines and journals. He was the expert other experts consulted. And he lived in Dallas. And he made “Pecandy.”

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I love this 1936 caricature of Adams. (He looks an awful lot like Dr. Smith of Lost In Space here….)

adams-ramon_caricature_1936

A pleasant little article on Adams, no doubt written by one of his many journalist friends, from 1946 (click for larger image):

adams-ramon_texas-week-mag_090746_portalTexas Week magazine, Sept. 7, 1946

And…

ad-adams-candy-co“Get a taste of Texas in your mouth!”

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Sources & Notes

The Handbook of Texas entry on Ramon F. Adams is here.

A more comprehensive Biographical Note is on the page devoted to the Ramon Adams Collection, Texas/Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library, here.

* “Adams, HERD” and “Adams, SIX-GUNS” is short-hand used by catalogers of books on Western Americana when noting that the book being cataloged is referenced in Ramon F. Adams’ book The Rampaging Herd: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on Men and Events in the Cattle Industry (Norman: Univ. Oklahoma, 1959) or his book Six-Guns and Saddle Leather, A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on Western Outlaws and Gunmen (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma, 1954).

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

The First Woman to Swim the Channel Helped Search the Trinity for Drowned Victims — 1927

swim-girl-swim_haGertrude Ederle (l) with co-star, Dallas native Bebe Daniels / via HA.com

by Paula Bosse

In 1926, Gertrude Ederle, a 19-year-old American, became the first woman to swim the English Channel — her time of 14 hours and 39 minutes was the fastest time ever. She became an instant international celebrity. When she returned to New York, she was given the very first ticker-tape parade, and over two million people turned out to see her.

After this momentous achievement, Ederle turned for a while to entertainment. She made a cameo appearance in a (now lost) silent film called Swim, Girl, Swim (which, incidentally, starred two Dallas natives, Bebe Daniels and James Hall), and she also toured for a while with a vaudeville company.

It was during one of these tours in April, 1927 that she arrived in Dallas, just as torrential rains began to fall. There was severe flooding along the West Fork of the Trinity, especially in the area of Record Crossing. The boat in which two young men were riding had capsized and they had been caught in the undertow and drowned. There had  been an unsuccessful search for their bodies, and I’m not sure who came up with the idea of contacting Miss Ederle, but someone did. Why NOT call in the world’s most famous swimmer to see if she could lend a hand while authorities dragged the river? Miss Ederle did, in fact, join in the underwater search, but the bodies were not found. I bet she never forgot that Dallas stop!

The news was reported in Time magazine:

trinity_bodies_time-mag_041827Time, April 18, 1927

While in town, Trudy also squeezed in a personal appearance at Sanger Bros., hawking what looks to be her own line of swimsuits.

ederle_sangers_dmn_041427-det

ederle_sangers_dmn_041427Apr. 14, 1927

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Sources & Notes

More on the Trinity River search can be found in The Dallas Morning News article “River Claims Two Victims; Gertrude Ederle Makes Vain Attempt to Recover Bodies” (DMN, April 5, 1927).

Newsreel footage of Gertrude Ederle can be seen here.

Photos of Ederle in action are here.

Ederle’s Wikipedia entry is here.

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.