Architecture/Significant Bldgs. | Flashback : Dallas

June 6, 2014

Night Life Along the Centennial Midway — 1936

The magical midway at night (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Glamorous night shots as seen in not-quite-real-looking postcards from the 1930s and ’40s are among my favorites. And this shot, of the Texas Centennial Exposition Midway at night-time is so, so GREAT!

The text on the back of the card:

Night life in all its glory and glamour. Oddities, Animal Shows and Girl Shows to charm the most fastidious, along the Midway.

***

Compare to the shots of this stretch of the Midway from the other direction, in my previous post here.

Click picture for MUCH larger image!

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June 4, 2014

The Texas Land & Mortgage Company — 1912

1912

by Paula Bosse

The Texas Land and Mortgage Company of London, Ltd. was the first mortgage company in the state of Texas. The Dallas branch of the English company opened in 1882 at a time when British investment across Texas was booming; it was one of the few speculation firms in the state that grew and prospered into the 20th century. Much development of the city in this period can be attributed to loans granted by the Texas Land & Mortgage Company.

The building they occupied (built by them in 1896) was located at the northwest corner of Commerce and Field, across Field from where the Adolphus has stood since 1912. The building in the 1912 ad looks a little different from the one in the photo below, taken four years earlier. It’s not a terribly attractive building in either photo, but there is some improvement in the later picture, and it IS vastly superior to the 7-Eleven occupying that corner today.

1908

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Advertisement from the pages of The Cattle Raisers’ Association of Texas, March 1912.

Bottom photograph from Greater Dallas Illustrated (Dallas: Friends of the Dallas Public Library, 1992 — originally published in Dallas in 1908).

For a short biography of A.G. Wood, the Scottish general manager of the Texas Land & Mortgage Co., see the Encyclopedia of Texas (1922) entry here.

Click pictures for larger images.

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June 3, 2014

Swooning Over Love Field — 1940

Art Deco Love Field!

by Paula Bosse

I’m a huge-fan of the modern 1950s-era Love Field (the one with the Mockingbird Lane entrance), but even that can’t trump this fantastic building! Designed by architect Thomas D. Broad, the new Love Field administration building and terminal — which faced Lemmon Avenue — was unveiled on October 6, 1940, to rapturous acclaim. The night view above is pretty breathtaking. Forget the airfield. For me, it’s all about this entrance. Those windows. And those doors. And that font! And those little airplane pictographs!

It wasn’t bad in the daytime, either — just nowhere near as dramatic. And in dire need of landscaping.

And here it is from the field side. Still swoon-worthy. The back of this postcard reads:

LOVE FIELD — NEW $225,000 ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
One of America’s finest air terminals which takes care of more airline passengers, more air mail and more air express in ratio to population than any other airport in the country.

What happened to this beautiful building? I searched through the Dallas Morning News archives until I felt I had to throw in the towel, never finding a definitive answer. But here’s what I did find. When the brand-spanking-new terminal (the one we know today) opened in 1958, the 1940 terminal was vacated. A better word might be “abandoned.” Most assumed the building would be razed very soon after. But I got as far as September of 1964, and the old terminal was still standing. And it wasn’t pretty. This excerpt from a Dallas Morning News article is painful to read:

…The old terminal building cowers in desolation…. Virtually every window has been smashed, carpeting the deserted terminal with a dangerous floor of broken glass. Loose wires stick out here and there, and blinds hang in twisted postures from broken cords. The building’s big sign DALLLAS is missing its D. (DMN, July 2, 1961)

(And even more thoroughly painful is the article in the Dallas News archives by Kent Biffle, “Ghosts Wait by Runway” — DMN, Feb. 2, 1961.)

Apparently, the old building had to remain standing until a “much-debated” new multi-million-dollar runway was agreed upon.

The point at which I threw in the towel in my quest to discover when the old terminal building had been demolished was a DMN photo from September 25, 1964, with the caption “$4,000,000-Plus Runway Progress. The 8,800-foot parallel runway at Dallas Love Field, left center, is two-thirds completed and should be ready for use next spring.” I am assured the photo has a hard-to-see old terminal still decaying in it. I assume they razed that sucker pretty soon afterward. …Possibly.

***

Sources & Notes

Top two photos are from the Love Field Collection, Dallas History and Archives, Dallas Public Library; accession numbers are PA83-13-8 for the swoony one at the top, and PA83-13-4 for the daylight exterior photo. I originally found these in the post “The New Love Field” by Jacob Haynes, here.

Click pictures for larger images — the first two are HUGE!

9 Comments

May 31, 2014

Deco Idealized: Fair Park Before the Centennial Exposition — 1936

by Paula Bosse

The first rendering is so sleek and sharp and perfect that I want to cry. But the artist’s second conception? Well, now I know what the Fair Park band shell would look like plopped down in the middle of the manicured grounds of an English estate or an Italian villa (or maybe in the Clampetts’ backyard, out past the cement pond). …And it still looks damn good.

Text from the back of this postcard:

The center of musical activity will be the open air band shell and amphitheater, a permanent feature of the Civic Center — seating capacity, 5,000 — the band shell accommodates 150-piece band. The most imposing structure in the Civic Center is the Hall of Fine Arts, constructed of Texas stone, cost $500,000, housing a $5,000,000 art collection assembled from all parts of the world.

***

Click picture for much larger image.

May 30, 2014

The Marsalis House: One of Oak Cliff’s “Most Conspicuous Architectural Landmarks”

The fabulous Marsalis house in Oak Cliff (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The Marsalis Sanitarium was a 15-bed private surgical and convalescent hospital in Oak Cliff, established in 1905 by Dr. J. H. Reuss and his partner, Dr. James H. Smart. Whether or not that building was actually pink (and I certainly hope that it was!), it was most definitely a show-stopper — one of those stunning structures that one doesn’t expect to see in and around Dallas because almost none of them still stand.

This grand home was built by Oak Cliff promoter and developer Thomas L. Marsalis in about 1889 as his personal residence at a reported cost of $65,000 (the equivalent of more than $1,750,000 in today’s money). It was located at what is now the southwest corner of Marsalis Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. The house was apparently never occupied. Supposedly, Marsalis’ wife did not want to live there because it was “too far from town” (!), but Marsalis’ financial distress throughout this time was probably more to blame.

Dallas Morning News

Marsalis’ insolvency resulted in the foreclosure of the house in the early 1890s and its ultimate sale at public auction in 1903. The winning bidder at that auction was Dr. Reuss, and the house became the Marsalis Sanitarium soon after.

1905 ad (click for larger image)

marsalis_sanitarium_dmn_010109 DMN, Jan. 1, 1909

Worley’s City Directory, 1909

Sometime after 1909 it became a girls’ seminary, and then in 1913 it fell into private hands. On August 10, 1914 the poor house burned to the ground. The headlines the next day read:

“Oil Starts Oak Cliff Early Morning Fire; Fisher Asserts Some One Set Old Building Ablaze; Firemen Find Structure Completely Enveloped in Flames and Interior Roaring Furnace.”

marsalis-house-fire_dmn_081114 DMN, Aug. 11, 1914

Such a sad ending for such a beautiful house!

***

Sources & Notes

1905 ad for the Marsalis Sanitarium from the December 1905 issue of the Texas State Journal of Medicine, found on the Portal to Texas History, here.

Black and white photograph of the Marsalis home in 1895 from the article in Legacies magazine, “Where Did Thomas L. Marsalis Go?” by James Barnes and Sharon Marsalis (which can be read here); photo from the collection of the Dallas Public Library.

For a biography of the family of Dr. Joseph H. Reuss, proprietor of the Marsalis Sanitarium, see here.

Click pictures for larger images.

5 Comments

May 29, 2014

Back When the Kessler Couldn’t Catch a Break — 1957

kessler-theater-after-tornado_1957

by Paula Bosse

One of the casualties of the famous tornado that hit Dallas and Oak Cliff in 1957 was the Kessler Theater. In 1957, the Kessler — then only 15 years old — had hit hard times and was being used to house an evangelical church. It was rebuilt after the tornado, but soon after it was hit by a three-alarm fire. Conclusion? Do not disturb the entertainment gods — that place was meant to be a theater!

kessler_tornado_sherrod

From the post-tornado reports in The Dallas Morning News:

At the West Davis and Clinton business district, an evangelical church in a converted theater building at the intersection was caved in, leaving little more than two walls standing. The church’s cross from atop its more than 50-foot tower was crumpled in the gutter. (DMN, April 3, 1957)

And in a survey of the clean-up:

At Davis and Clinton, where the old Kessler Theater was being used as a revival center before the tornado, workmen were busy wrecking the building, completing what the tornado had started. […] J. T. Hooten, foreman for Winston A. Caldwell, explained that the damaged sections of the theater which might give way under a slight strain and cause further damage had to be torn out. His crew carefully but hurriedly dismantled the old Davis Street landmark. Hooten said the owner may rebuild the theater as a 1-story office building. (DMN, April 10, 1957)

Here is a detail of an aerial photo by photographer Squire Haskins, showing the damaged Kessler in the center (see the full, very large photo here):

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo from an incredibly detailed website devoted to the 1957 Dallas tornado, the home page of which can be seen here.

Second photo from D. Troy Sherrod’s Historic Dallas Theatres (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2014); photo from the collection of the Dallas Public Library.

Aerial photograph by Squire Haskins from the Squire Haskins Photography, Inc. Collection, UTA Libraries, Special Collections; more information is here (click the thumbnail to see a larger image).

Website of the recently (and beautifully) restored Kessler is here.

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May 28, 2014

The Statler Hilton: Dallas Has It All … Again

by Paula Bosse

It’s alive!

The old Statler Hilton looks like it might finally be renovated! Read about the exciting plans here.

Click picture for larger image.

May 24, 2014

The Oak Cliff Viaduct & The Weird Composite Photo — 1912

First you take a photo of the beautiful new Oak Cliff Viaduct, above.

Then you take a photo of the Dallas skyline, below.

Then you put them together and get this bizarro Franken-photo!

It doesn’t look like any view of Dallas you’ve ever seen, but it still looks pretty damn cool.

***

Sources & Notes

All these panoramic photos are in the collection of the Library of Congress, all from the studio of Johnson & Rogers. The top photo has a copyright date of March, 1912, and the bottom two have copyright dates of August, 1912. See these panoramic photos (as well as one of the Buckner Orphan’s Home in 1911) on the Library of Congress site here.

Would this unusual composite have been done for a fanciful postcard or some other kind of promotional material (for the city or for the photographers)? Was it just done for fun? Tellingly, it’s the only one of the three without the studio’s imprint. If anyone has further info on this, please let me know!

These photos are HUGE. Click to see larger images — and use that horizontal scrollbar!

8 Comments

May 12, 2014

SMU, “The School of the Future” — 1915-16

Proposed buildings — upper half of the campus

by Paula Bosse

In 1916, the SMU campus consisted of Dallas Hall and four dormitories — five lonely buildings set in a vast empty expanse of some 600-plus acres (a good chunk of which would be sold during the hard times of the Great Depression). There are as many jokes throughout the first yearbook about this prairie outpost’s resemblance to a “farm” as there are about the university’s ongoing construction — there are numerous photos of high-spirited students standing on or next to piles of bricks and constantly churning cement mixers. Even though there were fewer than two dozen members of the senior class, the entire student body of that first year numbered an impressive 701. This first year was, of course, a milestone in the history of SMU, but it was also a significant step forward in the history of Dallas.

Dallas Hall — Administration Building

Men’s Building

Science Hall

Rankin Hall — Men’s Dormitory

Women’s Building

8smu-rotunda-1916-dallas-hall-entrance Entrance Dallas Hall

9smu-rotunda-1916-dallas-hall-portico Portico Dallas Hall

Bishop Boulevard from Administration Building

Newest view in town

1915-16 Freshman Class

13smu-rotunda-1916_hyer SMU President Robert Stewart Hyer

Dallas Hall, bales of hay, and stilted-yet-charming student versification

15smu-rotunda-1916_first-class

16smu-rotunda-1916_cover

SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY
Dallas, Texas

For Men and Women
School of Liberal Arts
School of Theology
School of Fine Arts

Student Body:
The first year closes with a matriculation of 701, exclusive of the Summer School, which may bring the total enrollment to more than 1000. This is a record without parallel.

Location:
The campus is located north of the city, and four miles from the center of business activity. It is situated on an eminence above the level of many of the city’s highest buildings. In addition to the many natural trees, there have been several hundred trees and shrubs transplanted, making it a park of unusual beauty.

Buildings:
Dallas Hall, the gift of the citizens of Dallas, and costing $300,000.00, is acknowledged to be one of the best school buildings in the South. It is fireproof throughout and so arranged that it will accommodate the maximum number of students. Four dormitories with accommodations for about 300 students have already been built. They are all equipped with modern conveniences for comfort and study.

All the buildings are provided with electric lights, natural gas, artesian water, and steam heat. No effort has been spared to provide the best in every department.

S.M.U., “THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE”

***

Sources & Notes

All images from the “Rotunda” yearbook, issued by Southern Methodist University in 1916.

A very good, brief history of SMU’s beginnings is “From High on the Hilltop…” by Marshall Terry, and it can be read in its entirety here (PDF).

More photos from this yearbook in a later post, “SMU’s First Year: The Dinkey, Campus Hijinx, and The Basket Ball,” here.

7 Comments

April 26, 2014

The San Jacinto School — Frittering Away the Gay Nineties, Stuck in a Classroom

1893 class photo, Ross Avenue

by Paula Bosse

Above, fourth graders lined up in 1893 on the steps of the San Jacinto School, once located at Ross and Washington (now the site of the DISD Administration Building). All seem fairly glum. (At least they’re not toiling in factories like many other children of this period.)

Below, the sixth-grade class of 1899 seems slightly less bummed-out, perhaps because they’re on the brink of the much-anticipated 20th century. Those boys (and sadly probably only the boys) might well have been among the city’s business and political leaders during Dallas’ most explosive period of growth just a few short years later.

The San Jacinto School was designed by James E. Flanders and built in 1891 on two acres at the corner of Ross Avenue and Washington. It was demolished in 1948 to make way for the somewhat more severe (and perhaps a bit more interesting) DISD Administration Building.

san-jacinto-school_dhs

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is from the wonderful historical photo blog Shorpy, and can be found here.

First photo of the school building is from Texas: Along the Line of the Texas & Pacific Ry. (Dallas: Texas & Pacific Railway, n.d. [1898]).

Last photo is from a website devoted to “Dallas’ First Architect,” James Edward Flanders.

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