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January 2, 2016

“The Pause That Refreshes at the Texas Centennial” — 1936

Belly on up to the Coke cooler, pardner… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

What do Stetson-wearing Texans enjoy drinking more than sarsaparilla? Coca-Cola, of course!

This ad led me to discover that the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Dallas set up a working mini bottling plant in Fair Park during the Texas Centennial, costing a cool $60,000 and taking up 4,100 square feet of the Varied Industries Building. 100 bottles a minute were produced, destined for thirsty customers who bought the five-cent drinks there at the plant or at concession stands around the park. A photo accompanying a Dallas Morning News blurb about the mini bottling plant — which “will be marked by a thirty-foot electric tower brought from the Century of Progress…” (DMN, Feb. 6, 1936), looked like the stunning Century of Progress photo seen here.

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Top ad found on Pinterest; full ad found on eBay.

The “Varied Industries Building” apparently burned down in 1942 and was replaced in 1947 by the Automobile Building.

December 28, 2015

Year-End List! My Favorite Dallas Ads Posted in 2015

“This town ain’t big enough…”

by Paula Bosse

It’s the end of the year, the traditional time to make lists. Over the next few days I’ll be posting some of my favorite Flashbacky moments from 2015. First up, ads. I’ve really been remiss is posting ads this year for some reason. I love old ads (in fact, before this blog, I maintained an advertising blog for several years — Retro Adverto — I haven’t updated it since I began Flashback Dallas, but I hope to pick it back up some day).

Click ads for larger images. To see the original post these ads came from (which includes sources and no doubt pithy commentary), click the title of each ad.

And thanks for reading in 2015!

“‘They Shall Not Pass’ — Acme Screen Co. Ad (1924)” (seen above).

“You Know What They Say: Big Feet, Big Cigars — 1877.”

“‘When “Big D” Lights Up’ –Phelps Dodge Ad (1969).

“‘A Perfect Auto Tent’ — 1921.”

“The Interurban Parlor Car: Perusing the News in Comfy Chairs.”

Honorable Mention: “New Year, New Teeth — 1877.” This gets its own little category because the ad is slightly amusing, but the story behind the dentist who took this ad out is MUCH more interesting!

ad-dentist_1878-directory

ad-dentist_new-year-gift_dal-herald-123077

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For all the “Year-End Best of 2015” lists, click here.

For the “Year-End Best of 2014” lists, click here.

December 24, 2015

“A Haven From the Usual Turmoil of Holiday Shopping”

ABS_xmas_haven_nd “A superlative selection…”

by Paula Bosse

Remember the quiet joy of shopping in bookstores? Remember bookstores? In celebration of the completion of this year’s Christmas shopping, I give you two ads from The Aldredge Book Store, where there’s “plenty of parking space […] and a pleasant Christmas spirit.”

ABS_xmas_1963 1963

No one is in a hurry. And we all try to see that you still have your Christmas spirit when you leave.

I practically grew up in this store, and I miss it.

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Sources & Notes

Both ads from the early 1960s. They appeared in the Sunday book sections of The Dallas Morning News and The Dallas Times Herald. (Remember when we had two newspapers? Remember when we had Sunday book sections?)

Previous posts on The Aldredge Book Store can be found here.

6 Comments

December 22, 2015

Spider-Man: Christmas in Dallas! (1983)

xmas_spider-man_cover_sm

by Paula Bosse

Remember when news photographer Peter Parker was covering a charity ball in Dallas? You know, the one attended exclusively by millionaires from around the country who were raising money for orphans?

(click for larger image) via Sense of Right Alliance blog

And then the Kingpin showed up dressed as Santa Claus and held the wealthy crowd for ransom, but Peter Parker managed to slip away and — whoa! — hey, Spider-Man appeared, and he and the Kingpin duked it out for awhile until an inventor of an anti-gravity device stepped in to aid the Webbed Wonder, and together they sent the Kingpin packing as he floated away, presumably into outer space. And, with Evil thwarted, Peter Parker was able to fly back home to spend Christmas morning with his beloved Aunt May. I’m sure you remember that! It was in all the (evening) papers.

This exciting adventure was told in a special give-away supplement included in a 1983 edition of The Dallas Times Herald. In the panels I’ve seen, there isn’t anything overtly Dallas-y, but that’s probably because the comic book aficionados who have scanned various pages are more interested in Spider-Man than in Dallas.

There are local ads, though. Like this one for Morgan Boots. (Is it too much to ask for them to have slipped a couple of special custom-designed sticky-soled boots onto Spider-Man’s Spidey-feet? Come on, Stan Lee!)

(click for larger image)

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Sources & Notes

“Spider-Man: Christmas in Dallas!” (by Jim Salicrup, Alan Kupperburg, and Mike Esposito) was issued as an advertising supplement by The Dallas Times Herald in 1983. I haven’t found a scan of the full mini-comic book online, but several panels are here and here and here (the first two of these linked blogs have scans of several of the local ads).

Quite honestly, this looks like it could have been prepared for Anytown, USA (“Spider-Man: Christmas in [insert your city’s name here]”). I much preferred Captain Marvel’s visit to Dallas in the ’40s when there were Dallas-specific things EVERYWHERE: see my previous post “Captain Marvel Fights the Mole Men in Dallas — 1944” here.

Incidentally, tons of these are available on eBay right now — averaging about $5.00 each. Need one?

2 Comments

December 17, 2015

The Obligatory “Star Wars” Post

“A long time ago, in 1977…”

by Paula Bosse

The relentless Star Wars promotional onslaught has been upon us for a while now. I have no idea what episode we’re up to at this point, but let’s look back to overlooked tidbits about that first movie. My favorite is this wire-service blurblet which appeared newspapers in April, 1976 — a full year before the movie was released.

“Luke Starkiller” is a great name. Too bad Lucas changed it. Gene Siskel asked him about it in 1983.

The movie played exclusively at the late, lamented NorthPark I & II; it opened on Friday, May 27, 1977. Lines were around the block. For weeks.

northpark-cinema

May 26, 1977 (click for larger image)

(Did you keep your “free Star Wars buttons”?)

Moviegoers were stunned that the ticket price had been boosted to a then-unheard-of $3.75 (the equivalent of about $14.50 today). As one article explained, “Twentieth-Century Fox takes 90 percent of the gross receipts after deduction of expenses” in exchange for allowing theaters to show the movie. (I wonder how much popcorn was!)

Lastly, a fairly enthusiastic social commentary piece about the movie can be found in an article written by Dallas Morning News editor and editorial-page mainstay William Murchison (in fact, the article appeared on the editorial page of the DMN). The moneyed Mr. Murchison likens the exhilaration felt in finally getting into a showing that hadn’t been sold out to “crashing the Astor Ball” and is shocked at the “ungodly” ticket price — “a price that would buy a good Cabernet Sauvignon.” Even so, he and Lovey apparently were quite taken with the exploits of Mr. ~~Starkiller~~ Skywalker, et al.) (Check the Dallas Morning News archives for the article “Movies to Make You Feel Good” by William Murchison, DMN, Aug. 30, 1977.)

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Sources & Notes

“Star Wars” poster by Tom Jung found here.

9 Comments

December 11, 2015

Get Your “Flying Merkel” at the Texas Motorcycle Co. — 1911

“All shaken to pieces?”

by Paula Bosse

I might have bought a Flying Merkel in 1911 for the name alone.

The Texas Motorcycle Company was at 1605 Commerce. This ad is from 1911, but see what that block of Commerce looked like two years later in the detail of a larger photo, below. The motorcycle company was next to Worley’s, in the building with the Knight Tires/Stutz Auto signs.

Imagine two years before: Commerce would have been filled with Flying Merkels on test drives, zipping in and out of traffic!

***

Sources & Notes

Ad from the 1911 Dallas High School yearbook.

Photo is a detail from a larger photo contained in my earlier post “Horses, Carriages, Horseless Carriages — Commerce Street, 1913,” here.

Read about the 1911 Flying Merkel, here.

One of these bikes recently sold for more than $200.000!

Click pictures to see larger images.

December 5, 2015

Downtown Parking Innovations

Splendiforous parking garage, 1945

by Paula Bosse

Here are a couple of ways developers have attempted to cope with the parking needs of downtown Dallas. I’m not sure how long either of these parking garages lasted, but I give them both A’s for effort.

First, 1945: Nichols Bros. Garage & Rent-a-Car Service at 1320 Commerce (just east of Field). Just look at all these amenities — women and chauffeurs are not forgotten.

…Fluorescent lighting — Air-conditioned waiting room for customers — Beautiful powder room for women — Waiting rooms for chauffeurs — Complete facilities for auto storage, washing, lubrication and motor tune-up service.

1945 Dallas directory

I don’t know how long this lasted, but if you’re going to have a garage downtown, it might as well look like that one!

Then in 1954, the 8-story Dallas Carpark at Jackson and St. Paul arrived (a second one at Jackson and Lane was under construction that same year). It was a franchise of the Pigeonhole Parking System of Spokane, utilizing “car-parking machines” invented by Leo Sanders of Spokane, Washington. I’m not exactly sure how these worked, but cars were hoisted and lowered on elevators, and the whole parking process, from start to finish, was conducted without an attendant ever actually touching the cars. Again, I don’t know how long this endeavor was in business (at least through the early 1960s), but — parking-garage-history neophyte that I am — I’ve never heard of such a thing. (There’s a video showing how it worked — thanks, “Not Bob” for posting this in the comments)!

*
UPDATE: “Found” film footage of a family’s trip to Dallas in 1962 actually shows this pigeon-hole system in action. The whole short video is interesting, but the pigeon-hole footage is what got me really excited — it begins at the 1:32 mark.

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A couple of screenshots:

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Sources & Notes

Nichols Bros. ad from the 1945 city directory.

The 1951 Universal Newsreel segment can be found on Vimeo here (thanks to “Not Bob”).

1962 YouTube video of found footage can be seen here (thanks to Robert Wilonsky of The Dallas Morning News for posting this link!).

See photos and read about the elevator-centric Dallas Carpark at Jackson and St. Paul in these Dallas Morning News articles:

“Parking Gets Lift in Downtown Area” by Robert F. Alexander (DMN, Sept. 26, 1954) (with photos)
“Pigeonhole Parking Now in Operation” (DMN, Oct. 10, 1954)

See several photos of the “pigeon-hole” parking system in other parts of the country in the article “Pigeon Hole Parking — An Amusement Park Ride for Your Car,” here. Here’s one in Portland, Oregon (the Dallas Carpark was 8 levels high):

12 Comments

December 4, 2015

“Work and Play in Telephone Land”

Dallas women at work, 1925 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Today at look at two ads seeking “young women of high ideals and ambition” to become telephone operators, one of the few careers open to women exclusively.

First, an ad from 1911 for the Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Company (click for larger image — transcription below).

1911

COMFORT and CONVENIENCE

The new building is equipped with every comfort and convenience for the operators. The entire third floor is set aside to their use, and there are the cafe, the rest room and roof garden. Taken all together the building is a model, designed and planned with the one purpose: That of the helpfulness of service. Representatives of the company feel that environment has much to do with the attitude of the employees.

The Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Company offers exceptional advantages to young women of high ideals and ambition. The way is open by which a PROFESSION may be mastered under the most pleasant and auspicious circumstances. You earn while you learn.

For information, apply to the principal of the operating school at the “Main” exchange, corner of Akard and Jackson streets, or “Edgewood” exchange on Harwood street, near Grand avenue.

Here’s an ad from 1925 for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, really pushing the idea that working as a switchboard operator is mostly rest and “a variety of diversions — sewing, dancing [!], reading, conversation”... more play than work, really!

1925

WORK AND PLAY IN TELEPHONE LAND

The telephone operator works between rests. Most of the time, it is true, she sits at the switchboard putting up the talk tracks for the subscriber, but in-between-times are periods for recreation, in which she has opportunity for change and relaxation. Attractive rest rooms invite a variety of diversions — sewing, dancing, reading, conversation — or just rest.

Miss Etta Mooneyham, Chief Operator at the Long Distance Office, at 4100 Bryan street, will welcome your visit any afternoon from two to five o’clock.

If you’re lucky, maybe Miss Mooneyham will ask you to dance.

Relaxing in one of the “attractive rest rooms” (1925)

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Sources & Notes

1911 ad appeared in the Dallas Morning News on May 29, 1911; 1925 ad (containing the photos at the top and bottom) appeared in the 1925 edition of “The Oak,” the yearbook of Oak Cliff High School (later renamed Adamson High School).

I’ve been fascinated by telephone operators my whole life. Ever wonder why operators have historically always been women? Watch an entertaining 5-minute video about why women took over the profession, here.

Also, read an interesting New York Times article about “telephone girls” (June 11, 1899), here.

Lastly, because I really want to post this ridiculous screenshot of what 19th-century operators apparently wore at some point, an AT&T industrial film called “The Nation at Your Fingertips”can be viewed here. (The few seconds showing this operator who surely would have experienced crippling next pain for the rest of her life begins at the 3:43 mark.)

See an earlier, related post — “Telephone Operators Sweating at the Switchboard — 1951” — here.

Click pictures for larger images.

3 Comments

December 3, 2015

Sivils Drive-In, An Oak Cliff Institution: 1940-1967

Oak Cliff’s landmark hangout (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

When J. D. Sivils (1907-1986) and his wife, Louise (1918-2006), brought their “Sivils” restaurant to Dallas in June 1940, their Houston drive-in of the same name had already been featured as a Life magazine cover story, garnering the kind of incredible national publicity that any business owner would have killed for! And all because of their carhops — “comely, uniformed lassies” whom Mrs. Sivils insisted on calling “curb girls” (which might have a slightly different connotation these days…). Life — never a magazine to overlook pretty young girls in sexy outfits — not only devoted a pictorial to the “curb girls,” they also put one of them (Josephine Powell of Houston) on the cover, wearing the Sivils’ uniform of (very, very short!) majorette’s outfit, plumed hat, and boots.

Feb. 26, 1940

Louise Sivils and a prospective “curb girl” (Life)

Four months after the blitz of national attention the drive-in received from the Life story, Sivils came to Dallas. The drive-in was located in Oak Cliff at the intersection of West Davis and Fort Worth Avenue on “three acres of paved parking space.”

The day the drive-in opened, a photo of the not-yet-legendary Sivils appeared in The Dallas Morning News (see “Sivils to Open Dallas Place Thursday,” DMN, June 27, 1940). Other than this, there is surprisingly little in the pages of The News about this drive-in’s opening — surprising because it became such a huge part of the lives of Oak Cliff’s teens in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. It’s one of those places that seems to have reached almost mythic proportions on the nostalgia scale.

Sivils didn’t quietly sneak into town, though. Take a look at this very large, very expensive newspaper ad, which ran the day before OC’s soon-to-be favorite hang-out opened. (Click for larger image.)

June 26, 1940

Nationally Famous for Food and LIFE
SIVILS COMES TO DALLAS!

Texas’ largest drive-in
Opens tomorrow
(Thursday 3:00 PM)

You’ve heard about “Sivils”! You’ve read about “Sivils” in LIFE Magazine and you’ve seen a beautiful “Sivils Girl” on the cover of LIFE Magazine! But now Dallas has a “Sivils” all its own! Come out tomorrow. See Texas’ largest drive-in. Enjoy “Sivils” famous food and ice cold beer or soft drinks. “Sivils” special ice vault assures the coldest drinks in town!

75 Beautiful “LIFE Cover Girls” to Serve You

All Kinds of Ice Cold Beer and Soft Drinks
Juicy Jumbo Hamburgers
Fried Chicken
Tenderloin Trout Sandwiches
K.C. Steaks
Pit Barbecue
All Kinds of Salads and Cold Plates
Delicious Sandwiches
Complete Fountain Service

Sivils – “Where All Dallas Meets”
At intersection West Davis and Fort Worth Ave.
Three Acres of Paved Parking Space

100-150 “curb girls” were employed by Sivils at any given time in those early days, and it was open 24 hours a day. The place was hopping. Sounds fantastic. Wish I’d seen it.

via Flickr

eBay

Below, a scanned menu (click to see larger images):

via eBay

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Sources & Notes

Top postcard from the Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers Postcard Collection on Flickr, here.

Read the 4-page Life article (and see several photos of the Houston “curb girls”) here (use the magnifying glass icon at the top left to increase the size of the page).

Interesting quote from that article:“They work in 7½-hour shifts, six days a week, for which they get no pay but average $5 a day in tips.” Doesn’t sound legal…. (The Inflation Calculator tells us that $5 in 1940 money is equivalent to just over $83 in today’s money.)

Sivils closed in 1967, possibly because Mr. and Mrs. Sivils wanted to retire, but it seems more likely that Oak Cliff’s being a dry area of Dallas since the 1950s was killing its business. Check out the News article “Big Head Expected as Oak Cliff Beer Issue Foams” by Kent Biffle (DMN, Aug. 17, 1966) which appeared just months before another election in which the “drys” outvoted the “wets.” (More on Oak Cliff’s crazy wet-dry issues, here.)

J. D. Sivils was interviewed in a short documentary about Dallas carhops, filmed in the early 1970s. In it, he talks about the early days of Sivils and — best of all — there is film footage galore of the drive-in from his collection. Watch it in my previous post — “‘Carhops’ — A Short Documentary, ca. 1974” — here. (Below a screenshot of Sivils from the film.)

Read the article “Carhops, Curb Service, and the Pig Sandwich” by Michael Karl Witzel (Texas Highways, Oct. 2006) in a PDF, here (increase size of article with controls at top of page).

Another Flashback Dallas post on drive-in culture — “Carhops as Sex Symbols — 1940” — is here.

Click pictures for larger images.

31 Comments

November 19, 2015

Selling Kidd Springs Heights, 1909-1910

The L. A. Wilson Co. is having a sale! (photo: SMU)

by Paula Bosse

The above photo shows a car-and-buggy convoy belonging to the L. A. Wilson Land, Loan & Investment Company, stretched out in front of the Gaston Building at Commerce and S. Lamar. There’s a “Sale To Day” and they’re really pushing property in the Kidd Springs Addition in Oak Cliff. The date “April 20, 1910” is written on the back of the photo, and if that’s true, the big show here might be rooted more in desperation than in enthusiasm. The Wilson company began selling the 30-or-so lots in the new Kidd Springs Heights neighborhood in July of the previous year. An ad that appeared seven months before this photo was taken announced that there were only ten lots left. It looks like this was an impassioned display to make Kidd Springs seem more exciting and move that remaining property. People love parades.

(This is another great photo to zoom in on to see the details. All images are larger when clicked.)

The L. A. Wilson Co. was a fairly large real estate company founded by Missouri-born Lewis A. Wilson (1851-1926); at the time of this photo, the company’s offices were in the Gaston Building at 213 Commerce. (In the photo immediately above, I think the man with the moustache is Mr. Wilson.)

Dallas Morning News, July 4, 1909 (ad detail)

The first ad announcing the sale of lots in the Kidd Springs Heights area of Oak Cliff appeared on July 4, 1909. It included the two blocks north of what is now W. Canty, bounded by Turner Ave. on the west and N. Tyler (and Kidd Springs Park) on the east.

DMN, July 4, 1909

Four weeks later, a huge half-page ad ran in The Dallas Morning News, full of wonderful reasons why life would be better in Kidd Springs Heights:

The newest theory of scientists is that one should sleep at least eighty or ninety feet above the level of the city – and thus escape the germs which are particularly active during the hours of darkness. Here then is the place for your home. Here then is the place for investment. Kidd Springs Heights is higher than the top of the court house. Up where the cooling breezes are found on the hottest of hot days; where the air is ozone-laden; where the nights are cool and refreshing and where insomnia soon becomes naught but a dim memory.

The effusive sales copy is definitely worth a read (click ad below to read the full sales pitch).

DMN, Aug. 1, 1909

Six weeks later the following self-congratulatory ad appeared. (It’s interesting to note that of the twenty lots sold, two of them had been sold to Mrs. L. A. Wilson, and one each had been sold to the two salesmen. The next year’s telephone directory showed that the Wilsons lived on Live Oak, and the two salesmen lived in boarding houses.)

DMN, Sept. 12, 1909

It wasn’t until 1921 that the tiny little Kidd Springs Heights was annexed to the city of Dallas.

DMN, May 14, 1921

Things may be different today, but in 1909, these were the boundaries of Kidd Springs Heights.

The most interesting odd thing about Kidd Springs Heights? There appear to be two brick archways placed (very awkwardly) across Turner Avenue from one another — each spanning the sidewalk. I can’t find any information about these, but it looks as if they were set right at the northern boundary of the Kidd Springs Heights Addition. Old maps (such as this one from 1919) show no development to the north of this boundary up into at least the ’20s (it doesn’t look as if this addition is even in Oak Cliff proper), so I guess they were there before those sidewalks and served as a welcoming gateway to a new development where germs did not dwell after nightfall.

900 block of Turner Avenue (Google Street View)

(Check out both of these markers on Google Street View, here. It’s pretty strange-looking.)

If anyone has information on these markers, please pass it along!

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is titled “L. A. Wilson Land Loan Investment Company, Gaston Building, Commerce Street” — the photographer’s name and the date are written on the back: W. R. Lindsay, April 20, 1910. It is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University, and it can be viewed here. I have adjusted the color.

Lewis A. Wilson’s biography can be read in A History of Greater Dallas and Vicinity (1909), here. His photo:

The Kidd Springs Wikipedia entry is here.

The Sanborn map from 1922 showing this tiny neighborhood at about the middle of the page on the right can be found here. Note how few lots actually have houses built on them. (Taft is now W. Canty; Edwards is now Everts.)

The Murphy & Bolanz map can be seen here. (If the link doesn’t work, you may need to download the plug-in — information on how to do that is here.)

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