Downtown | Flashback : Dallas

August 13, 2024

Telesign: Flashing News to Downtown Dallas — 1951

All the news that fits… on a moving sign

by Paula Bosse

Well, this is pretty interesting.

Once upon a time, downtown Dallas had one of those moving “tickertape” electronic news message signs. It debuted on the exterior of the First National Bank (and part of an adjacent building) at Main and Akard on December 11, 1951. It was Dallas’ version of the famous New York Times news-ticker-bulletin sign (“the Zipper”) in Times Square. The sign was comprised of 3,136 light bulbs; the crawling, flashing letters were 30 inches high, and the sign stretched 190 feet, with the moving message bending around the bank building. The “hot news” could be really “hot” — like only minutes old, unlike the NYT sign, which could take hours to get a constantly repeating message up and running. The sign flashed the news to downtown passersby from 7:30 AM until 10:30 PM.

This “traveling-message” sign was the creation of Irving Naxon, of the Naxon Telesign Corporation of Chicago. (Naxon, a prolific inventor, is perhaps best known as the man who introduced the Crock Pot slow cooker to the world.) See the 1929 patent application for his “traveling-message sign” here.

How did it work? Briefly, United Press wire copy received in the WFAA newsroom was punched onto a paper ribbon and then fed into a transmitter. Theoretically, a hot-off-the-wire newsflash could be racing across the Main Street sign in the amount of time it would take to type the message — seconds. (Read more about it the article at the bottom of this post.)

There is silent footage from December 1951 of the Telesign in action, with shots of inventor Irving Naxon demonstrating how his system works: see the WBAP-TV footage on the Portal to Texas History website here. (The accompanying news script is here.)

I don’t know how long this sign was operational, but I have a feeling it wasn’t very long — but at least through 1953. Imagine how frequently those 3,000 light bulbs burned out and had to be replaced! I had never heard of this sign — or seen photos of it — so this was a very interesting little discovery.

Dallas magazine, Dec. 1951

A 1953 ad for Federal Signs:

Dallas magazine, Jan. 1953

A couple of screenshots of the sign in action from a Channel 5 news clip (Dec. 12, 1951, Portal to Texas History). The first shows men in hats checking out the new sign as darkness falls:

And here’s what they were looking at:

UNT Libraries Special Collections

How it worked (click for larger image):

Dallas magazine, Dec. 1951

Excerpts from a couple of trade magazine articles:

The First National Bank in Dallas, Dallas, Texas has recently installed this telesign containing 3,136 individually controlled bulbs which form letters corresponding to those punched on tape as it is fed through a cigar-box size transmitter. Following formal dedication ceremonies, the sign flashed its first message: “UNCENSORED NEWS IS THE BASIS OF FREEDOM.”

The Telesign is operated continuously from 7:30 A.M. to 10:30 P.M., bringing to the people of Dallas, as a public service, news bulletins highlighting the latest developments in the big stories of the day, local, national and international. (Bankers Monthly, Feb. 1952)

Bank Installs Telesign: The first fast-moving line of words — “UNCENSORED NEWS IS THE BASIS OF FREEDOM: — chasing each other across First National Bank of Dallas’ new sign, echoed the dedicatory statement of President Ben H. Wooten. The telesign is operated as a community service to give downtown crowds a constant flow of news reports. Second in length only to that of the New York Times, it is believed to be the first ever installed by a bank. (Trusts and Estates, March 1953)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is from Bankers Monthly, Feb. 1952.

More about this can be found in the following article from the Dallas Morning News archives: “Bank Unveils Its New Telesign, Latest Word in News-Flashing” (DMN, Dec. 12, 1951).

In a related vein — as far as giant outdoor news signs downtown — check out the 2016 Flashback Dallas post “How Dallas Used to Get Election Returns.”

6 Comments

May 22, 2024

Rudolph Gunner: Dallas Bookseller and Emperor Maximilian’s “Best Friend”

238 Main, circa 1894

by Paula Bosse

For the past several years, I’ve been posting bookstore-related posts on the birthday of my late father, Dick Bosse, an antiquarian bookseller who began his career straight out of SMU at The Aldredge Book Store, a literary landmark to many, which he eventually ended up owning. This year’s offering goes back to 19th-century Dallas.

Above is a photo of the bookstore owned by Austrian immigrant Rudolph Gunner, located at 238 Main (later 1006 Main), between Poydras and Martin. Gunner (1833-1911) had, perhaps, one of the most impressive and colorful historical pedigrees of any Dallas resident. He served in the Austrian navy all over the world, but his most important service was as confidante and aide-de-camp to Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota of Mexico in the 1860s. That story is too big to tell here (Wikipedia is here to help), but it’s interesting that a man who was often referred to as “Maximilian’s best friend” eventually wound up in Dallas in 1885 and opened a bookstore, first on Elm Street, later on Main.

My father had a fascination with Mexico and used to talk about Maximilian quite a bit. I wonder if he knew Maximilian’s right-hand man lived out his days in Dallas, having spent several years as a bookseller?

Dallas city directory, 1896

In a sidenote, Gunner mentioned in several interviews that he had a LOT of historical documents and souvenirs from his military career serving in the Crimea, Egypt, Africa, and, especially, Mexico. I winced when I read this passage from an article by A. C. Greene in The Dallas Morning News (“Bookstore Owner Once Was Colorful General — He Headed Maximilian’s Mexico Palace Guard.” DMN, Apr. 18, 1993):

[A]t the time of his death in 1911 [his] home was at 1506 Fitzhugh. [His wife] was still living there, with a considerable collection of historic memorabilia, books, medals and military items, when the home burned, destroying everything but Gen. Gunner’s sword with the emperor’s crest.

Wow. All of that, gone. (And to answer my question above, I’m pretty sure my father would have known this, if only because he read A. C. Greene’s columns and probably even discussed this with him on a visit to the store.)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo by Clifton Church, from his book Dallas, Texas, through a camera: a collection of half-tone engravings from original photographs (1894) — from the DeGolyer Library, SMU, here.

Read a first-hand account of Gunner’s time in Mexico in a Dallas Morning News article from Jan. 14, 1886 here; his DMN obituary (Aug. 25, 1911) is here.

Read previous Flashback Dallas articles on Dallas bookstores here.

I would love you to join me over on Patreon, where I upload Dallas history posts daily for subscribing members (as little as $5 a month!). If you would like to support what I do, check out Flashback Dallas on Patreon.

3 Comments

May 15, 2024

Col. McCoy’s Residence, Commerce & Lamar — 1879

McCoy homestead… (photo: Dallas Historical Society)

by Paula Bosse

Imagine the “village” of Dallas in its very, very early days. 1852. That’s when pioneer Col. John C. McCoy (1819-1897) built the very pretty frame house seen in the photograph above. It had the honor of being the first frame house built in Dallas (and, in other firsts, McCoy had the distinction of being the first practicing lawyer in Dallas).

Commerce and Lamar streets, 1879. Col. John C. McCoy, one of Dallas’ first “leading citizens,” built this house at the corner of Commerce and Lamar in 1852, and it immediately became a landmark in the village — the one frame house in a colony of log cabins. The photograph, made in 1879, shows Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Taggart, Col. John C. McCoy and Miss Eliza McCoy on the porch. Standing at the gate are Capt. John M. McCoy (nephew of Col. McCoy and brother of Mrs. Taggart) and Cora and Laura Taggart, his nieces. (Southwest Business magazine, June 1940)

See what this view looks like now, here. Sadly, the Colonel’s white fence and grove of trees are gone.

When I was looking at this photo, I thought I should check to see what it looked like on the hand-drawn map of Herman Brosius from 1872. His maps were celebrated for their incredible attention to detail. I wrote about this map in a previous post (here), and… yes! The house seen in the photo has been realistically captured in Brosius’ map. As seen below — in the center of a detail from the map — it’s right there, at the southeast corner of Commerce and Lamar (facing Lamar), just south of the Methodist church. McCoy owned the entire block, and he did not skimp on the trees.

Read about the life of Col. John C. McCoy in Sixty Years in Texas by George Jackson at the Portal to Texas History, here, and in the Handbook of Texas entry on the Texas State Historical Society site, here. He is almost as important to the history of Dallas as his business partner, John Neely Bryan.

Col. John C. McCoy

***

Sources & Notes

Photo from the Dallas Historical Society — it and the caption appeared in Southwest Business magazine, June 1940.

Detail of “A Bird’s Eye View of the City of Dallas, Texas” (1872) by H. Brosius is from the Dallas Historical Society and can be seen in a very, very high-resolution scan on Wikimedia Commons here (click map to really zoom in on the very precise details). I wrote about this map in the 2018 post “The Bird’s-Eye View of Dallas by Herman Brosius — 1872.”

Portrait of Col. John C. McCoy from Find-a-Grave. (McCoy and his family are buried in Oakland Cemetery. More on the family can be found in a video recorded at the grave site and posted on the Facebook group Friends of Oakland Cemetery Dallas, here.)

2 Comments

April 30, 2024

Hotel Rodessia

“First-class style…”

by Paula Bosse

I’ve seen SO MANY postcards of Dallas through the years that when I come across one that is completely new to me, it’s pretty exciting. Especially turn-of-the-century-ish cards, like the one above. This is the first I’ve ever heard of the Rodessia Hotel, which opened in Oct. 1904 at 361-363 Elm (the address later became 1601½ Elm). The hotel proprietor (as well as the proprietor of the street-level saloon underneath it) was German immigrant Joseph F. Rode (1858-1911).

Dallas Morning News, Oct. 2, 1904

And, because it’s so unusual to be able to note something like this, I must mention that Rode’s wife, Victoria Virginia “Nannie” Rode, was also a business owner.

DMN, Oct. 7, 1894

Even though I hadn’t heard of the hotel, I did know about the building. In fact, I wrote a whole post about it: “S. Mayer’s Summer Garden, Est. 1881.” It would have been a building everyone knew at the turn of the century. Here’s what it looked like when it was a young whippersnapper:

It was built in 1881 by Simon Mayer and was the site for many years of his very popular beer garden. Around 1902 it became the Clifton Hotel, and in Oct. 1904, J. F. Rode opened his interestingly named Rodessia Hotel, which remained in business until about 1920 (it was run after his death by the Widow Nannie and her second husband). Around 1920, another hotel — the La France — opened. See the building at various times in the post mentioned above, here.

So. The Rodessia was in business for at least 15 years. I still can’t believe I haven’t seen it pop up in at least one Elm Street postcard or photograph until now. Better late than never!

(Note: In the postcard at the top, just to the right of the hotel, is the David Hardie Seed Co., which I believe continues today as Nicholson-Hardie stores.)

***

Sources & Notes

Postcard from eBay.

Photo of Mayer’s Garden from the Dallas Public Library: “[Mayer’s Beer Garden, Dallas, Texas”], Call Number PA87-1/19-27-1.

This post originally appeared in a shorter version on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page, which I enthusiastically invite you to subscribe to!

3 Comments

December 18, 2023

“This Month In Dallas” — Aug./Sept. 1962: The Clubs

Club Dallas, Browder Street

by Paula Bosse

Downtown Dallas was a cool place for entertainment and dining in the early 1960s, from high-class clubs and lounges to famous and infamous strip joints (some of which were higher-class than others). A few months ago on eBay, someone scanned a bunch of pages of a magazine called This Month in Dallas (“Where to Go, What to Do”), which seems to have been aimed at the conventioneer or out-of-town visitor. (I’ve never heard of this publication, but I would LOVE to see more!)

As far as image quality, I’m at the mercy of the person doing the scanning, but here are several of the ads featured in the eBay listing. All appeared in the Aug./Sept. 1962 issue of This Month in Dallas. (At the top, a detail from an ad for Club Dallas — the full ad is below.)

Let’s just do them alphabetically.

ARAGON BALLROOM, 1011 S. Industrial Blvd. (now S. Riverfront). Featuring the Aragon Red Jackets Western Swing Band, the “Over 30” Club Dance, and Chuck Arlington and His Orchestra.

CAROUSEL CLUB (or “New” Carousel Club), 1312½ Commerce, at Field. Jack Ruby, proprietor. “Dallas’ Newest and Most Intimate Burlesque Nite Club.” This ad (the first of several) features stripper Peggy Steele, “America’s Suzie Wong.”

More CAROUSEL. “Dallas’ only burlesque nite club with a continuous girl and comedy show. No stopping, 9:00 PM ’til 2:00 AM.” “America’s Suzie Wong” is back, now spelled Peggy Steel. MC’d by comic Wally Weston.

More CAROUSEL. Here’s Mili Perele, “the Little French Miss.”

More CAROUSEL. Heck, let’s throw in another Peggy Steel/e mention.

More CAROUSEL (Jack’s advertising budget was impressive). Tammi True, then in the midst of a pinching brouhaha.

Pat Morgan’s CLUB DALLAS, 206½ Browder (just south of Commerce). I love this ad, but I’m not familiar with the establishment or Mr. Morgan. Looks like it opened in the summer of 1962 (“Owner Pat Morgan has eliminated the semi-nude waitresses and aims for the family trade” — Dallas Morning News, July 27, 1962), changed its name in September 1962 to simply “Pat Morgan’s,” and finally closed in February 1963. I bet he rued the day he dumped those semi-nude waitresses….

CLUB VEGAS, 3505 Oak Lawn. Yes, there was swinging nightlife beyond downtown. Club Vegas was famously owned by Jack Ruby’s sister, Eva Rubenstein. This club booked a lot of Black and Hispanic bands (for mixed audiences), including Joe Johnson and Trini Lopez. (I’ve been meaning to write about this place for the past 10 years!)

CLUB VILLAGE / ITALIAN VILLAGE RESTAURANT, 3211 Oak Lawn. Another happening place in Oak Lawn. I wrote and wrote and wrote about Sam Ventura’s Italian Village here.

COLONY CLUB, 1322½ Commerce. Abe Weinstein, proprietor. The “high-class” strip joint. Also featured acts like Deacon & Co., King and Queen of the Limbo.

More COLONY CLUB. An unnamed exotic.

GUTHREY’S CLUB, 214 Corinth, at Industrial (now Riverfront). Very popular back in the day. “Girls! Girls! Girls! Set-ups, beer, wine.” This ad features Dave Martin’s Tom Toms (James McCleeng, Glenn Keener, Gene Summers — vocalist, Charlie Mendian, Melvin Robinson, and Dave Martin).

THE SPOT, 4906 Military Parkway. This ad features Joe Wilson & The Sabers.

THE SPOT, the “other” location, 10635 Harry Hines. House band The Spotters.

THEATER LOUNGE, 1326 Jackson, at Akard. Barney Weinstein, proprietor. “Glamour Girls Galore.”

TOWN PUMP, 5021 Lovers Lane. “Dallas’ Original and Largest ‘Sing Along’ Piano Bar.” That is one scary sentence.

***

Sources & Notes

All ads from the Aug./Sept. 1962 issue of This Month in Dallas.

4 Comments

November 23, 2023

Colony Club Billboard in Beautiful Kodachrome — Early 1960s

Downtown Dallas has it all… (watermark removed with AI)

by Paula Bosse

This. Is. A. Fantastic. Photo.

If only for the great, great, great Colony Club (“the best of the undressed”) billboard featuring Chris Colt (“the girl with the 45s”).

See this same view of the (one-time) intersection of Elm, Ervay, and Live Oak here and here. (The dazzling animated neon Coca-Cola sign was once where Chris Colt is showing off her 45s.)

I don’t know the seller of this color slide. I have no affiliation with the person. I get no cut in any sale. But I want someone reading this to BUY IT! Let’s keep this with someone who loves Dallas history! (And if you DO buy it and would like to send me a digital copy… well, I wouldn’t say no!) See this slide currently on eBay HERE. (HURRY!)

To see a naughty photo of Chris Colt, you can click on an antique collectors’ website here.

Colony Club ad, Nov. 22, 1962

And below is a photo of Colony Club owner Abe Weinstein in his younger years counting his moolah.

photo: Dallas Jewish Historical Society

***

Sources & Notes

Top image is from a color slide in a current eBay listing here. (Seller’s title: “Original Slide Dallas St Scene Colony Club Coca Cola Billboards Southland Life.”) There is no date, but Golden Steer Barbecue opened at 1713 Live Oak sometime in 1961.

Update, August 2026: I originally posted this as it appeared on eBay, with a watermark across it (seen here), but because this photo is pretty spectacular, I removed the watermark, and, as you can see in the lower left corner of the photo posted at the top of this page, this image contains “AI-generated content.” This is a first for this blog, and I do not intend to make this a regular thing!

Abe Weinstein photo — from his days as the co-owner of Abe’s and Pappy’s — is from the Facebook page of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society.

7 Comments

November 23, 2023

An Elegant Thanksgiving Dinner at the Windsor Hotel — 1877

by Paula Bosse

Behold, a feast of yesteryear (and this is just the game and fish dishes):

Dallas Herald, Nov. 25, 1877

AN ELEGANT DINNER

The champion dinner of the season will be served at the Windsor to-day. Colonel Whitla is anticipating Thanksgiving day in this dinner, but he tells us that he will not forget the occasion, which will be remembered in a suitable manner at his hotel. The bill of fare to-day is the most elaborate one yet presented to the patrons of the Windsor.

The manager took time by the forelock and made his orders by telegraph for the particular edibles for the occasion. Last night we were shown a bill of fare for the dinner, by Mr L. J. Faessler, chief cook of the hotel. We have neither time nor space to mention the same entire, but can say that among the game and fish appears green sea turtle, black and red groupper and the sheep’s head, venison, antelope, quail, wild turkey, jack rabbit, opossum, oysters on shell, deviled crabs, and red-headed and canvas-backed ducks, etc.

Hava a Happy (Possom-Free) Thanksgiving!

***

Sources & Notes

Top ad for the Grand-Windsor Hotel from the 1878 Dallas directory. Originally two hotels (the Le Grande Hotel and the Windsor Hotel), they were joined by a little “sky-bridge” over Austin Street when they merged. See the Grand-Windsor on the 1885 Sanborn map here. (The room rates of $2-$3 back then would be the equivalent of about $60-$90, if you trust inflation calculators.)

Article is from the Nov. 25, 1877 edition of the Dallas Daily Herald, via the Portal to Texas History.

More Flashback Dallas posts on Thanksgiving can be found here;

4 Comments

October 23, 2023

Elm Street Store: Whiskey, Brooms, Cigars

Everything one needs…

by Paula Bosse

What more do you need in life than a gallon of whiskey, wine, or gin? And maybe some brooms. And a butter churn. The essentials. I don’t know anything about this photo, except that it does appear to be Dallas — you can see “Elm St.” on the brick wall at the left, just above an ad for Dallas cigar king P. P. Martinez. Not sure when the photo was taken — 1890s-ish? Below is a P. P. Martinez ad from 1908.

It’s hard to make out the “Special Prices” sign above the doorway, but some of the items you could purchase were rock and rye whiskey ($1.25 a gallon), port wine ($1.25 a gallon), and Holland gin (“only $1.50 per gallon”).

I had never heard of “rock and rye” whiskey until a few minutes ago. It was a whiskey cordial made with rock candy (!) and some sort of citrus or other flavor. So I’m guessing it was pretty sweet and powerful. It was often sold as a “tonic” because taxes were substantially less on medicines than on spirits. So goodbye, saloon staple, hello cough medicine! “Rock and rye” has made a recent comeback among whiskey-quaffing hipsters.

***

Sources & Notes

I have no idea where I found this photo back in 2014, but it’s great!

This post appeared in a slightly different form on my Patreon page a few months ago. If you’d like to receive daily Dallas-history postlets, check it out!

8 Comments

September 25, 2023

1500 Block of Elm — 1920s

1500 block of Elm Street, south side…

by Paula Bosse

This is a great photo by Frank Rogers showing businesses on the south side of the 1500 block of Elm Street, between Stone and Akard (see it today on Google Street View here — some of these buildings are still standing). Mid-1920s? Back when Elm ran two ways, and you could park your rumble-seated roadster at the curb.

Mostly out of frame at the left is the W. A. Green department store (1516-18 Elm), then, moving east to west, Leelands women’s fashions (1514 Elm), Fields Millinery Co. (1512 Elm), part of the Marjdon Hat Shop (1510 Elm), and, above the hat shop, Neuman’s School of Dancing. (“Marjdon” must be one of the most annoying and hard-to-say business names I’ve come across.)

The block continues in the photo below, in another photo by Rogers (this building has been replaced and is now a parking garage).

We see a full shot of Marjdon (that name…). Previously (1916-1924), that street-level space was occupied by the Rex Theater. Next door is Thomas Confectionery (1508 Elm, one of the company’s several downtown locations), which, according to the promotional postcard below was the “largest confectionery in the state.”

via Portal to Texas History

Dallas High School yearbook, 1916

March 1, 1924

April 21, 1922

March 1, 1925

Elm Street, 1925 Dallas street directory

Check out this block in the 1921 Sanborn map here.

***

Sources & Notes

The two photographs were taken by Dallas photographer Frank Rogers for real estate developers McNeny & McNeny; they were found on eBay.

8 Comments

July 30, 2023

The Sumpter Building — 1912

by Paula Bosse

Behold, the Sumpter Building and a partial view of its little buddy, the Edwards & Phillips Building, which were built simultaneously. (See them on a 1921 Sanborn map here.) Both were designed by Dallas architect C. D. Hill, whose spectacular Municipal Building would be built a couple of years later, two and a half blocks away.

Guess what? Both are still standing — part of the Joule empire. See what they look like today — at 1604-1608 Main Street — on Google Street View here. (The shorter building has been through a multitude of renovations over the years, but at some point, by at least 2007, someone had restored it — however briefly — to its original design, as you can see in a 2007 Google Street View here — look how tired and dirty the Sumpter Building looked back then, before its recent scrubbed and rejuvenated revitalization.)

The Sumpter Building served primarily as office space over the years — architect C. D. Hill had a “penthouse” office on the top floor (I wonder if he knew that when he was drawing up the plans?) — and the smaller building was retail space on the ground floor and office space above. It might be remembered as the home of Linz Jewelers for several decades.

Dallas Morning News, Dec. 17, 1911 (click to read)

DMN, Mar. 7, 1912

DMN, Aug. 25, 1912

Dallas Historical Society, 1912

The smaller building debuted as home to retail tenant Matthews Brothers. (It is presently the home of another fashion mecca, Traffic Los Angeles (1608 Main).

April 1912

In 1940, Linz took over the shorter building. Articles in The Dallas Morning News described “construction” and a new design by Lang & Witchell, but I think the building was just gutted and (weirdly) refaced.

Linz Bros. Jewelers (Lang & Witchell, 1940)

Here it is in living color, in 1970.

WFAA-Channel 8 News, Jan. 1970 (Jones Film Collection, SMU)

By the end of 1970, the building had undergone another (weird) “facelift” (and an expansion).

WFAA-Channel 8 News, Jan. 1971 (Jones Film Collection, SMU)

(The two screenshots above are from Channel 8 news reports about a fantastically successful jewelry heist in January 1970. Linz would never reveal the value of jewels stolen in the massive theft, but it was estimated at the time to be between $1.6 million and $3.5 million (the equivalent in today’s dollars of $12.5 million to $27 million!). It was the biggest burglary in Dallas history, and it was estimated to have been the biggest in the South. As far as I can tell, the crime was never solved. A great report on how it happened — with interesting little tidbits such as the fact that the robbers emptied a safe and took everything except for a few pieces of costume jewelry and that the burglars stopped for a break to brew a cup of coffee in the adjacent shoe store — can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives in the story “Gem Loss $3 Million?” by Robert Finklea (DMN, Jan. 13, 1970). It reads like a movie!

I’m always surprised to find these century-old buildings still standing downtown. Poor things have been through a lot.

Thank you to Chad K. for asking on Patreon if I knew anything about the history of these buildings. As it turned out, I knew NOTHING about the history of these buildings. I do now! Thanks for asking, Chad!

***

Category: Downtown

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