WWI | Flashback : Dallas

May 29, 2023

Love Field Aviation Camp, World War I

Love Field, with water tower, 1918

by Paula Bosse

On Memorial Day, a few photos of Love Field, which began as an aviation training camp during World War One. Read more on its history in an article by the City of Dallas Office of Historic Preservation, here.

via DeGolyer Library, SMU

via Library of Congress

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is from the collection “Love Field Air Corps Training Depot and Dallas Aviation School, Texas” at the DeGolyer Library, SMU; more information on this photo can be found here. The second and third photos are from this same collection and are linked directly below the images. (The entire collection can be viewed here.)

More on WWI-era Love Field can be found in the 2014 Flashback Dallas (Valentine’s Day) post “From Deep in the Heart of Texas, I Give You Love Field — 1919.”

If you would like to support my work, please consider following me on Patreon for as little as $5 a month — I post exclusive content there daily.

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January 12, 2023

Businessmen’s Lunchtime Mobilization Drills — 1917

Drilling behind the depot, March 1917

by Paula Bosse

In March 1917, just days before the United States entered World War I, it was announced that there would be lunchtime military training drills in downtown Dallas for any man who wished to participate. This was part of the “Preparedness Movement” which was sweeping the country, in which citizens readied themselves for war. The idea for these drills came from Oswin K. King, a Dallas sportswriter, and they were organized and conducted by Capt. M. G. Holliday, with help from other officers of the Texas National Guard. The drills were held “in the rear of the old Santa Fe station, Murphy and Commerce streets. There is a vacant block there and the central location makes it ideal for the purpose” (“Military Drills for Business Men Planned,” Dallas Morning News, March 25, 1917). (See this location on a 1905 Sanborn map, here.)

Seems like a good time to insert a photo of the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe depot (when it was still in operation), behind which all this drilling activity was taking place:

ca. 1899, via Portal to Texas History

Military-style drills involving local civilians hadn’t really been done like this before, and news of this swept the country’s newspapers. It was a BIG story. Dallas became the city everyone copied. Cities all over the United States began their own drilling exercises, and Capt. Holliday was kept busy traveling around Texas to advise towns on how to establish such civilian units for themselves. There was a lot of marching in formation going on in April 1917.

Two weeks in, drill-mania had taken over Dallas. It was estimated that 600 men were showing up daily for the downtown noon drills, and that many more — perhaps as many as 2,000 — had joined smaller groups and clubs which were drilling on their own all over town. There was a large contingent in Oak Cliff, lots of students in high schools and at SMU, policemen, letter carriers, businessmen, etc. There was even a suggestion that women should form their own groups. Any way you looked at it, the endeavor was a success (or at least fervently supported). Capt Holliday said that, should the need arise, a large body of troops could be immediately organized in Dallas — perhaps two regiments’ worth.

This training lasted about a month, which seems like sufficient time for bank clerks and grocerymen and automobile mechanics and upholsterers to get the hang of doing whatever this was. By the spring of 1917, Dallas was prepared.

The April 1, 1917 Dallas Morning News article accompanying the photo above is transcribed here:

DALLAS BUSINESS MEN MOBILIZE FOR MILITARY TRAINING

First City in United States to Start New Drills in Rudiments of Soldier Knowledge

From Few Dozen the First Day to 600 or More Saturday, Shows Rapid Increase of Interest in the Noon Drills. Captain in U.S. Cavalry and Number of Non-Commissioned Officers Instructing Men and Rudiments of Knowledge of Soldier Life

Dallas enjoys the distinction of being the first city in the United States to inaugurate the new mobilization of business men for the purpose of learning the rudiments of military training. There were those who said it could not be done, but the movement has gotten under full swing and the attendance is increasing daily.

Oswin K. King, of the Evening Journal, originated the idea, and becoming enthused of the possibilities, Mr. King suggested the matter to Captain M. G. Holliday of the 12th United States Calvary. Captain Holliday at once took up the plan as suggested by Mr. King and agreed to supervise the work.

For several days now, hundreds of Dallas business men have been in line on the spacious vacant property to the south of the Commerce Street station of the Santa Fe Railroad. The site is convenient to hundreds of business offices and not over five minutes’ walk from the skyscraper district.

That interest is increasing in the movement is evidenced by the number of business men who are enrolling. From a few dozen on Wednesday, last, to 400 on Thursday, and probably 200 more Friday and Saturday, shows that Dallas men are anxious to learn the rudiments of military training.

The idea is to teach the rudiments of close-order formation, including everything in what is known as the “Soldier’s School Without Arms.”

The instruction will continue indefinitely. Captain Holliday is assisted by several non-commissioned officers and civilian military experts.

DMN, Mar. 25, 1917 (click for larger image)

DMN, Apr. 13, 1917

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Sources & Notes

Top photo from The Dallas Morning News, April 1, 1917, sent to me by Julia Barton (thanks, JB!).

Photo of the Santa Fe depot is from a Dallas Fire Department publication from 1899, provided by the Dallas Firefighters’ Museum to the Portal to Texas History — more information is here.

More Flashback Dallas posts on the WWI era can be found here.

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October 29, 2020

World War I Cadets, Commerce Street — 1918

Standing at attention in the 2100 block of Commerce

by Paula Bosse

Great photo by John J. Johnson showing high school cadets standing in formation in the 2100 block of Commerce Street — the view is to the west (the Adolphus Hotel can be seen all the way at the end of the street, on the right). Here are a couple of zoomed-in details (click to see larger images).

The official Records of the U.S. War Department description of this photo:

The buildings in the foreground are, amazingly, still standing — over a hundred years later (a rarity for downtown Dallas buildings). See the same view today on Google here.

The Ajax Rubber Co. building the cadets are standing in front of is the “Waters” building (2117 Commerce), which has been very nicely restored by the East Quarter people:

Google Street View, Feb. 2020

Below, a clipping from the 1917 Dallas directory, showing the businesses on Commerce between Pearl and Preston (now Cesar Chavez):

Two years after this photo was taken — in 1920 — the Magnolia gas station (better known as the KLIF building) was built on the spot the cadets were looking at. See that building in the post “Magnolia Gas Station No. 110 — 1920.”

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Sources & Notes

This photo, titled “Dallas High School Cadets,” was taken by Dallas photographer John J. Johnson (usually seen as Jno. J. Johnson) on June 11, 1918. It is from the American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs 1917-1918, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs 1860-1952, National Archives — more info on this photo can be found on the National Archives site here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on World War I can be found here.

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March 12, 2020

Influenza Pandemic Arrives in Dallas — 1918

In line at the Love Field “spraying station” (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

I write this as the U.S. is bracing for the spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus which has just been declared a world-wide pandemic by the World Health Organization — this inescapable news item reminds me of a previous post I wrote about the local response to another major epidemic. In 2014, Dallas (of all unlikely places) was ground-zero in the U.S. for a feared Ebola outbreak — back then I wondered how Dallas had handled health crises in the past, specifically the spectre of the Spanish Influenza, which, like the coronavirus, swept around the globe. So I wrote “When the Spanish Influenza Hit Dallas — 1918,” and I have to say, it was pretty interesting. The flu first hit the regional military bases during World War One: Love Field, Camp Dick at Fair Park, and Camp Bowie in Fort Worth. It wasn’t long before people beyond the WWI camps were contracting the Spanish Flu, and then it just spread and spread and spread.

The photo above, from December, 1918, shows Love Field military personnel waiting in line to be “sprayed” — the caption reads:

Love Field, Dallas, Texas: Preventative Treatment against influenza.
The line at the spraying station.

Here’s the throat-sprayer waiting inside the tent:

Love Field, Nov. 6, 1918

Dallas Morning News, Oct. 1, 1918

I’m not sure how effective this spraying was, but the advice given to Dallasites in 1918 is still good today: wash your hands, keep your surroundings clean, and do not spit in streetcars!

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is from the National Archives at College Park; more info is here.

Second photo, showing the inside of the “spraying station,” is from the Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine; more info is here.

For a more detailed post about how Dallas dealt with the Spanish Influenza, read the 2014 Flashback Dallas post “When the Spanish Influenza Hit Dallas — 1918.”

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March 9, 2020

Marching to Mess — 1918

Not your typical boot camp setting… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Above, Camp Dick, an Air Service training camp which took over Fair Park during World War I. The War Department caption of this 1918 photo:

Camp Dick, Dallas, Texas: Men marching to mess after evening parade. Roof in foreground is the Officers’ house.

At the right is a roller coaster, a popular ride when the State Fair of Texas (rather than the U.S. military) is occupying the park.

Here’s a photo from 1911:

When Preston Sturges trained at Camp Dick — well before he became a legendary Hollywood writer and director — he and his fellow cadets did not let that roller coaster go to waste. He wrote this in his autobiography, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges:

Out on the parade ground, boys fell over from [the intense heat] all the time and had to be revived with cold water and a sponge. Nights we would climb up the shaky apex of the large roller coaster in the corner of the fairgrounds to try to find a breeze.

An unexpected perk of basic training.

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is from the National Archives at College Park; more info is here.

State Fair photo is a real photo postcard, taken by John R. Minor, and is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU Libraries, Southern Methodist University; more info is here.

More Flashback Dallas posts on Camp Dick can be found here.

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December 28, 2019

Orphaned Factoids: Year-End Grab Bag, 2019

“Looks crooked but smokes straight…”

by Paula Bosse

As another year crawls to an end, it’s time to collect the odd bits and pieces that have piled up over the past few months which struck me as interesting or funny or… whatever. I had nowhere else to put them, so they’re going here! (Most images are larger when clicked.)

First up, the ad above for the “Cyclone Twister” 5-cent cigar, distributed by Dallas wholesaler Martin L. Richards in 1928. Note the shape of the cigar. “Looks crooked but smokes straight.” Probably looked a little strange when smoked. I guess it might help break the ice at parties. Found on eBay.

Here’s a nice little crest for SMU I’ve never seen — I’m not sure how long this lasted. From the 1916 Rotunda yearbook.

M. Benedikt & Co. was the “Headquarters for Hard-to-fit-men” — in other words, they specialized in “Right-Shape clothing for Odd-Shape Men.” Here are a couple of examples of what they might consider “odd-shape men” in an ad from 1899.

This is an interesting selection of ads from a 1968 edition of the Yellow Pages: Dewey Groom’s Longhorn Ballroom, Louanns, El Zarape Ballroom, the It’ll Do Club, the Bamboo Room at the Tower Hotel Courts, the Chalet Club, and the Tamlo Show Lounge (a couple of these show up in the…um… informative story “The Meanest Bars in Dallas” (D Magazine, July, 1975).

I’ve been working in the G. William Jones Film and Video Archives at SMU for the past few months, and this was something I came across while viewing a 1960 WFAA-Channel 8 News clip which made me really excited (it’s an awful screenshot, but, what the heck): while covering a car wreck at Corinth and Industrial, the Ch. 8 camera panned across the scene, and in the background, just left of center, was a very tall sign for the Longhorn Ranch, which I’d never seen before. Before it was the Longhorn Ranch it was Bob Wills’ Ranch House, and after it was the Longhorn Ranch it was the Longhorn Ballroom (more history of the legendary honky-tonk is in a Texas Monthly article here). So, anyway, it’s a fuzzy screenshot, but I think it’s cool. (The footage is from June, 1960 but the clip hasn’t yet been uploaded online.)

Speaking of WFAA footage in the Jones Film collection, there was some sort of story about comely young women in skimpy outfits handing out samples of some sort of food to passing pedestrians on Commerce Street (the one-minute clip is here). In addition to seeing sights associated with downtown streets in 1962 (including businesses such as Sigel’s and the Horseshoe Bar, as well as a large sign advertising the Theatre Lounge), I was really happy to see a few Braniff Airways posters in a window — I love those late-’50s/early-’60s Braniff travel posters! So here’s another screenshot and, below that, the Texas-kitsch poster I was so happy to see in color.

I don’t have an image for it, but I was amused to learn that in 1969 the powers-that-be at the Texas Turnpike Authority nixed the suggestion that the Dallas North Tollway be renamed in honor of president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had recently died — the idea was turned down because 1) new signage would have been very expensive, and 2) officials were afraid that “irreverent motorists” would inevitably refer to the toll road as the “Ike Pike” (I know I would have!).

Not Dallas, but there’s always time for a little love for Fort Worth: here’s a nice ad from 1955 for a 22-year-old Fort Worth DJ named Willie Nelson, back when he was gigging out on the Jacksboro Highway with his band the Dumplin’ Eaters.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sept. 9, 1955

Apparently there was a time when ladies were uncomfortable patronizing an establishment in which m*n served them ice cream, so this ad from 1899 made sure to note that “lady clerks” were in attendance. (See the back side of the Willett & Haney Confectioners parlor a couple of years before this ad, when the “cool and cozy parlor” was located on Main Street — it’s at the far left in this circa-1895 photo detail from this post.) The parlor was owned by John B. Willett and John S. Haney, and in addition to ice cream and candy, their specialty was oysters, and I can only hope that there was some experimenting with new food combos involving mollusks, ice cream sodas, and crushed fruit.

This is an odd little tidbit from The Dallas Morning News about a couple of cadets from Camp Dick (at Fair Park) and what happened to them when they attended a lecture on “social diseases.” (The jokes write themselves….) Who knew singing and whistling were so therapeutic”

DMN, Aug. 17, 1918

The caption for this photo (which appeared in the article “Going Downtown to Shop” by Jackie McElhaney, from the Spring, 2009 issue of Legacies): “In 1946, Sanger’s introduced a portable drapery shop. Two seamstresses sewed draperies in this truck while parked in the customer’s driveway.” Now that’s service!

“Forward with Texas,” 1947 ad detail

Two more. This first was a real-photo postcard I found on eBay. It shows the Pink Elephant cafe on Hwy. 80 in Forney (not Dallas, but pretty close!). I love the idea of Forney having a place called the Pink Elephant — it was quite popular and was in business from at least the 1930s to the 1950s. The card below was postmarked in 1936.

This photo of the interior is from the Spellman Museum of Forney Museum Facebook page.

I wondered if the place was still around (sadly, it is not), and in looking for info about it found this interesting article from 1934 about outlaw Raymond Hamilton, the escaped killer who grew up in Dallas (…there’s the Dallas connection!) and was notorious for having been a member of Bonnie and Clyde’s “Barrow Gang.” (Click to read.)

Austin American, Oct. 22, 1934

And, lastly, a photo of a young woman which appeared in a German-language magazine, captioned simply “Eine Texas Schönheit (A Texas Beauty).” Is the hair wearing the hat, or is the hat wearing the hair?

***

Previous installments of Flashback Dallas “Orphaned Factoids” can be found here.

Until next year!

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3 Comments

November 11, 2018

Armistice Day Centennial

by Paula Bosse

Today we observe the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, with sincere hopes we never again see a war with such devastating loss of life. Read how Dallas celebrated news of the armistice in the Flashback Dallas post “Armistice! — 1918,” here. More posts on Dallas and WWI can be found here.

***

Sources & Notes

“Liberty and the Flag go well together in Dallas, Tex.” postcard is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU Libraries, Southern Methodist University; more information on this item may be found here.

November 13, 2016

Preston Sturges: Camp Dick’s Most Famous Former Cadet? — 1918

Preston Sturges playing dress-up, Camp Dick, Dallas, 1918

by Paula Bosse

While researching my Veteran’s Day post on Camp Dick cadets, I came across a 1941 Dallas Morning News article about Hollywood screenwriter and director Preston Sturges, whose latest movie The Lady Eve was about to open at the Palace. The article mentioned that Sturges had been stationed at Camp Dick, the WWI aviation boot camp for the U.S. Signal Corps, located in the old racetrack at Fair Park. Preston Sturges — a master of the screwball comedy — is one of my favorite writer-directors (in addition to The Lady Eve, everyone should watch Sullivan’s Travels), so I was interested to find out more about his time in Dallas. I didn’t think I’d find anything but a passing mention of it anywhere, but, surprisingly, it turns out Sturges himself wrote about his Camp Dick days — in a book I actually own and had started but had never finished!

Sturges was sent to Dallas in March, 1918. He was 19 years old. Born in Chicago, he had spent much of his childhood in France, tagging along with his eccentric four-times married bohemian mother who seems to have known every intellectual and artiste of the day (not only was she a close friend of dancer Isadora Duncan and Marcel Duchamp, she had also been romantically involved with Aleister Crowley — you can’t get much more bohemian than that!).

Sturges’ account of his time at Camp Dick (which appeared in Chapter 28 of the posthumously-published Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges) is amusing, describing such things as the heat (“the midday temperature of a Texas summer wasn’t really intended for human beings”), the latrines, and the food. He also remembered the nightmare of the Spanish Influenza pandemic, which was particularly deadly in the close quarters of military camps. (You can read the entirety of Sturges’ memories of his days at Camp Dick here.)

The heat was a real problem for the cadets. One of my favorite images conjured by Sturges’ chapter on the camp is this one:

One of his memories stumped me a bit, though. He wrote the following about the buildings that stood around Fair Park:

In Dallas, we were sent to a place called Camp Dick, then known as a concentration camp. In a later war, such a facility was called a boot camp. Camp Dick was actually the Dallas fairgrounds with a fence thrown around them. Most of the buildings on the fairgrounds were huge reproductions of the products for sale within them in the prewar days when the fair was open. There was a building in the shape of a gigantic Mazola bottle; another like a huge Gulden’s mustard pot; an enormous Log Cabin Syrup edifice; a massive chili bowl; buildings representing almost anything edible or potable that one could think of….

My last memory of Camp Dick is of standing retreat against the hot sunset, the cadets at attention against the silhouetted background of the massively enlarged Sanka coffee pot, Bromo Quinine bottle and Coca-Cola bottle buildings, and in front of us Lieutenant Pennypacker, more or less at ease on the back of the fiery steed presented to him by the grateful citizens of Dallas.

I’ve never heard of any Fair Park buildings shaped like these things. (There was that giant cash register at the Texas Centennial….) Perhaps Mr. Sturges misremembered? Or indulged in a little fanciful poetic license? Or maybe these buildings DID exist? (And if they did, I’d love some corroboration, ’cause that would be cool.)

Sturges was at Camp Dick only a few months. From there he was sent to the School of Military Aeronautics in Austin and then to Park Field in Millington, Tennessee. He was in the middle of flight training there when, anti-climactically, the war ended. After several years of working in a family business, he became a successful Broadway playwright and was soon whisked off to Hollywood, where, in 1940, he won the first Oscar ever awarded for screenwriting (The Great McGinty). He was considered then — and is considered now — to be one of Hollywood’s greatest comedic screenwriters.

If you’d like to read Preston Sturges’ memories of training at Camp Dick, mosey on over here. Among other tidbits, you’ll read the amusing story behind the be-goggled photo of Cadet Sturges at the top of this post.

***

Sources & Notes

The romanticized photo at the top (the one Sturges wrote about in the book) was taken at Camp Dick in 1918. The quoted passage is also from the book, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges, His Life In His Own Words, adapted and edited by Sandy Sturges (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1991). I highly recommend getting this book if you’re a fan of classic Hollywood. You can browse through it on Google Books, here, and purchase it here.

November 11, 2016

Children and Cadets: Junior Red Cross Parade — 1918

Cadets from Camp Dick march down Elm… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Today is Veteran’s Day, a national day of observance which originally began as Armistice Day in 1919 to mark the end of hostilities in World War I. I was thinking of posting something non-WWI-related, but I stumbled across this wonderful photo showing a WWI-era parade down Elm Street and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share it. The parade was comprised almost entirely of children who had contributed to the war effort through the Junior Red Cross. The parade was described as “the first parade of children war workers ever held in Dallas.” The number of children (said to represent every school in Dallas) was estimated at up to 8,000 marchers, from kindergarteners to high school seniors.

The parade — which took place on February 22, 1918 — also featured 1,000 or so men based at Camp John Dick, the Air Service training camp at Fair Park. Seeing this parade must have been quite a novelty for Dallasites, as cadets had begun to arrive at Camp Dick only 16 days previously (airmen had been stationed at Love Field a little longer, but only by a couple of months).

Below, I’ve taken the photo from the top and broken it into two halves and then magnified them. The parade was heading west on Elm Street and can be seen here passing Cullum & Boren (1509-1511 Elm), a downtown sporting goods mainstay just a few doors east of Akard. (See a similar view of Elm Street from later that year — in September — from a Dallas Times Herald photo, here.)

And the children.

Dallas Morning News, Feb. 23, 1918

DMN, Feb. 22, 1918

DMN, Feb. 23, 1918, photo and article

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo titled “Cadets From Camp Dick in Red Cross Parade, Feb. 22nd, Dallas, Texas” found on the site War Untold, The Collection of Andrew Pouncey, here (click “continue reading” at bottom of post).

More on the Camp John Dick Aviation Concentration Camp from The Atlantic in the article “What America Looked Like: Bayonet Practice During WWI” (with a great photo), here.

Other Flashback Dallas WWI-related posts here:

Armistice Day Wikipedia page is here.

All pictures and clippings are larger when clicked.

1 Comment

November 11, 2015

“Tough ‘Ombres on Main Street” — WWI Victory Parade, 1919

90th Infantry Division, 1500 block of Main Street (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

In my previous post “From the Vault: Armistice Day! — 1918” (seen here), commenter “Not Bob” linked to the above photo which was taken from almost the exact same vantage point as the photo I had posted previously. This one is much better! It shows the U.S. Army’s 90th Infantry Division (known as the “Tough ‘Ombres”), just back from Europe, marching past the 1500 block of Main Street, heading east. The white building in the center (“Thompson’s”) appears to be the same building currently occupied by Iron Cactus, at 1520 Main.

Great picture — thanks, Not Bob!

***

Sources & Notes

This photo was posted by Bob Swanson on Flickr, here. The comments are very interesting and explain why this infantry division was marching in various Texas cities.

More on the 90th Division here and here.

My post “Armistice! — 1918” contains another parade photo taken at the same spot, here.

3 Comments

Category: WWI

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