by Paula Bosse
In honor of opening day of the 2016 State Fair of Texas, a poster from the 1951 fair. Proto-Big Tex imagery was being used well before the giant cowboy’s debut the following year (see, that hand thing is going on even back then…).
Welcome back, SFOT!
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Poster found on Pinterest.
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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
1948 State Fair ad: “Hey, Texans!”
by Paula Bosse
I stumbled across a State Fair of Texas ad a couple of days ago — a detail of which is above — and it made me wonder if it contained the precursor to our beloved Big Tex (whose annual hoisting-up occurred today). The ad is from 1948, four years before Big Tex’s debut at the 1952 State Fair. When I saw it I was immediately reminded of Big Tex and exclaimed to myself, “THAT’S what he should have been doing with his hands!”
I’ve always wondered exactly what Big Tex is supposed to be doing with his hands. It’s a sort of vague “welcoming” gesture, I guess, but I can remember when I had to draw Big Tex in school that I was confused by that right hand. Was he waving? Was it an Indian “How!” greeting sign? It didn’t really look like either of those, and it really irked me (I was an easily-irked child). And, actually, it has continued to bother me all these years! (I am an easily-irked adult.)
From early sketches, it seems that the right hand was intended to have the thumb hooked through a vest. Jack Bridges, Big Tex’s creator, wanted Tex to symbolize the larger-than-life Texan who wasn’t above indulging in good-humored bragging and tall-tale-telling, and that personality comes through in the sketch and the Big Tex illustration used in the 1952 ads, below.
By the time Tex debuted, however, the vest seemed to have been discarded (as best I can tell from old photos), but the position of the right hand remained in that weird position (probably just to torment me as a child having to draw him in school).
A hovering, winking head, via KERA
Speaking of that very first version of Big Tex, in 1952 he had one eye shut, in the middle of a wink. He also had a long nose and wore a huge hat referred to in newspaper articles as a “sombrero.” In a 1983 interview, Jack Bridges said that in later years SFOT officials “made us open his eyes to make a ‘pretty boy’ outta him.” The wink was gone, the brim of the hat was made smaller, and his ears were moved forward. Even though Tex began to “talk” the next year, Bridges said, “I liked him better myself like he was — rugged and more or less caricature.”
The drawing of the man in the ad at the top probably has nothing to do with Big Tex, but dang if it ain’t pretty close! And the position of both hands makes sense!
Here’s the full 1948 ad from the top:
1948
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You can listen to a short (13-minute) interview done with Jack Bridges in 1983 as part of a Dallas Public Library oral history project, here. One of my favorite tidbits is Bridges remembering that vandals once painted a “big brown moustache” on the resting, disembodied head of Tex one year. He said that the head and the hat were kept in the Centennial Building when the fair wasn’t in progress, and the rest of Tex was kept in storage in various places around Fair Park. He said it was like making sure the president and vice-president never traveled together — if something happened to part of Big Tex, at least the whole of Big Tex wasn’t affected. (91-year-old Jack Bridges died in 2001; thankfully he didn’t have to witness the fiery … “incident” … of 2012.)
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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
“Forward 1936…” (DeGolyer Library, SMU)
by Paula Bosse
With all the heated discussion currently going on about what the city is going to do with Fair Park, I thought this little pamphlet from 1934 seemed timely. Published by the “Centennial Fair Park Bond Committee” (comprised of all the Dallas movers and shakers one would expect), the get-out-the-vote brochure was issued to explain the $3,000,000 (about $54,000,000 in today’s money, adjusted for inflation) bond issue, the approval of which was essential in order to clinch the honor of hosting the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936. The entire pamphlet — part of the George W. Cook Collection in the DeGolyer Library — may be read on SMU’s website, here.
A couple of excerpts:
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The issue passed, overwhelmingly, by a 5-1 margin. It’s interesting to note that the voting restrictions on this referendum were … pretty restrictive. Not only was payment of a poll tax required to vote (…one had to pay for the “privilege” of voting…), but one also had to be a property owner — and that property owner was not allowed to vote until a “rendition” was signed downtown in the tax assessor’s office. Many property owners who had signed the necessary paperwork were still unable to vote as they had not paid (or could not afford) the poll tax. It’s pretty obvious here that a substantial number of lower income residents (i.e. non-property owners or property owners unable to afford the poll tax) — including many who lived in the area immediately surrounding Fair Park — were legally prohibited from casting a vote.
6,550 ballots were cast (5462-1088), which represented “little more than one-third of the 18,000 supposed qualified to decide this important issue” (Dallas Morning News, Nov. 1, 1934). It was declared to be “the largest majority ever cast for a bond issue in [the] history of Dallas” (DMN, Oct. 31, 1934).
The passage of the October, 1934 bond issue assured that Dallas would host the Texas Centennial Exposition, a statewide celebration which proved to be a huge success and was a tremendous economic boon to the city.
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The pamphlet “Texas and Dallas … Forward 1936: Why We Should Vote For Centennial Fair Park Bonds, Tuesday, October 30, 1934” is part of the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; the entire pamphlet is contained in a PDF which may be read and/or downloaded here.
More on this vote can be found in these two Dallas Morning News articles:
Payment of a poll tax was still required to vote in Texas elections until 1966, when the U. S. Supreme Court ruled such taxes were unconstitutional. More about that from the Dallas Public Library, here.
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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome to Dallas (and/or Fort Worth)!
by Paula Bosse
The Texas Centennial Exposition opened in Dallas at Fair Park in June, 1936 — 80 years ago this week. It was described in newsreels as “A New City, A Great City, A City of a Thousand Sights and a Thousand Wonders.” Which I guess it kind of was. I’ve written about the Centennial before, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned that my favorite part of the Centennial’s taking place in Dallas is that it seriously rubbed “Mr. Fort Worth,” Amon Carter, the wrong way. Carter’s distaste of Dallas was well-known, so it was no surprise, really, that this caused him to blow his top and, damn it, he created his OWN competing celebration: the Fort Worth Frontier Centennial Exposition. The Dallas-Fort Worth rivalry had already been going strong for years, but the Centennial pushed it into Hatfield-and-McCoy feud territory (although one gets the feeling that most of it was an act that generated a lot of great publicity for both sides).
Watch film footage of ol’ Amon’s blood pressure spike into the danger zone here, in a moment from a March of Time newsreel as he proclaims that Fort Worth will teach “those dudes over there” (in Dallas) a thing or two by outdoing Big D in sheer gigantic spectacle. …And sex. Or, “whoopee.” Nudity was on display absolutely everywhere at both Centennial expositions. Dallas had always planned on having the titillation before Amon Carter got into the act, but the involvement of Billy Rose on the Fort Worth side probably encouraged Dallas to, um … augment the fleshy offerings on display in Fair Park.
Broadway impresario Billy Rose was hired by Amon Carter to sex-up the Fort Worth expo and to do everything he could to draw more visitors to Fort Worth than to Dallas. Rose went so far as to have a HUGE electric sign (supposedly the second largest electric sign in the world) placed on top of a building on Parry directly opposite the entrance to Fair Park which read:
“Fort Worth Frontier — Wild & Whoo-pee — 45 Minutes West.”
Which is pretty hilarious. (Same view today?)
(See a giant image of this photo in the UTA digital collection, here.)
I’m not sure whether the Dallas Centennial organizers were miffed or amused, but one can only imagine that Amon Carter was thrilled to bits when he saw his sign appear (fleetingly) in the Gene Autry movie The Big Show which had been shot in Fair Park during the Centennial.
Fort Worth was all about the “whoo-pee,” and the tag-line to their show was “Come to Fort Worth for Entertainment, Go Elsewhere for Education.”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 14, 1936
The “feud” (i.e. the publicity machine) really cranked up when the producers of the March of Time newsreel sent their people to film in Dallas and Fort Worth. The result — a splashy look at the inter-city rivalry titled “Battle of a Centennial” — was shown in DFW-area theaters, and boisterous audiences either applauded for Dallas and hissed at Fort Worth (or vice-versa), depending on their allegiance. (Click ad below for larger image.)
June, 1936
In the end, the celebrations in both Dallas and Fort Worth were successful (although Dallas was the clear winner!), but the rivalry and competitive showmanship from the two cities probably made the shows much more entertaining than they might otherwise have been. So, thanks, Amon!
via Pinterest
July, 1936
July, 1936
Variety article reprinted in Decatur (Illinois) Herald, June 3, 1936
via oldimprints.com
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Source of postcard at top unknown.
Photo of the “whoo-pee” billboard is from the book Billy Rose Presents … Casa Mañana (Fort Worth: TCU Press, 1999) by Jan Jones. Jones writes that the billboard was on top of the building at Parry and First.
The shot of the billboard hovering over cowboys is a screengrab from the interesting-but-dull Gene Autry movie, The Big Show, shot mostly on the grounds of Fair Park during the Centennial. You can watch the full movie here.
The clip of Amon Carter shaking his fist at “those dudes” in Dallas is from the 1936 March of Times newsreel, “Battle of a Centennial.” I have been unable to find the entire film streaming online, but you can watch a whole bunch of clips (about 13) from Getty Images, here. The full thing appears to be available for purchase here, but only if you are affiliated with a school or institution. (If anyone has access to the full newsreel, let me know!)
Watch a different newsreel/film on the Centennial Exposition — the 11-minute Texas Centennial Highlights, shot and produced by Dallas’ Jamieson Film Co. — at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image site, here.
For more on Fort Worth’s horning-in-on Dallas’ Centennial, read the entertaining article “Makin’ Whoopee — Amon Carter Couldn’t Make Either the Depression or Dallas Go Away, But He Sure Tried” by Jerry Flemmons (D Magazine, April, 1978), here.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to embed the video I linked to above of Amon Carter sputtering about Dallas hosting the state’s Centennial, but I encourage everyone who’s ever been amused by the Dallas-Fort Worth “feud” to watch it here — it’s well worth 17 seconds of your time! As John Rosenfield wrote in the Dallas Morning News review of this March of Time newsreel, “The best actor from across the river is Amon Carter, long a leading man among Texas political Thespians” (DMN, “Centennial Fight in ‘Time’ Release,” June 21, 1936). Newspaperman Carter knew how to parlay outrageous remarks about exaggerated competition into sweet, sweet publicity for himself and his newspaper. Check out the photo of a smiling Carter with his arm around “bitter rival,” G. B. Dealey of The Dallas Morning News, here. Amon knew a thing or two about a thing or two….
Pictures and clippings are larger when clicked.
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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
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.
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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Aztec sacrifice with a warrior, not a virgin, on the official postcard
by Paula Bosse
The Greater Texas and Pan-American Exposition at Fair Park was a four-and-a-half-month extravaganza which opened in June, 1937 as a follow-up of sorts to the previous year’s Texas Centennial Celebration. According to promotional material, its goal was to celebrate the Americas and “to promote the feeling of international goodwill between the twenty-one independent nations of the New World.” (It was also hoped that the city could rake in some more Centennial-sized cash.)
One of the biggest attractions of the Pan-American Expo was a huge production called Cavalcade of the Americas, which presented highlights from the history of Latin America and the United States. There were scenes from ancient Mexico, Columbus’ landing, the Revolutionary War, Stephen F. Austin’s arrival in Texas, the settling of the Old West, etc., right up to FDR’s participation in the Inter-American Peace Conference in Argentina in 1936. Utilizing much of the same infrastructure as the previous year’s Cavalcade of Texas, it was staged outdoors, in the old racetrack, with a 300-foot stage and elaborate scenery depicting an ocean, mountains, and a smoking volcano. Horses, wagons, “ships,” and a cast of hundreds took part in the production.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 6, 1937
It was quite elaborate. The postcard view below will give you an an idea of the scale of what was being billed as the world’s biggest stage.(I believe the whole thing revolved — or at least part of it did — with another stage on the side facing away from the audience; the scenery, cast, and perhaps the donkeys, would change out before revolving to face the audience.)
The opening scene featured an Aztec sacrifice and an angry volcano. Start big! This relatively brief portion of the show caused a lot of headaches (and/or much-welcomed publicity) for the producers, State Fair organizers, and, probably, the image-conscious Dallas Chamber of Commerce. But why? As originally written (by the remarkably prolific Jan Isbelle Fortune), the Aztec sequence involved the sacrifice of a struggling young maiden atop a blood-stained pyramid. Two months before the opening of the Expo, a rather sensationalistic photo of this historical reenactment appeared in the pages of newspapers across the country, no doubt resulting in raised eyebrows and whetted appetites. (Click to enlarge!)
Greencastle (Indiana) Daily Banner, 1937
The star of this scene was 17-year-old Geraldine Robertson, who had been crowned Queen of the Centennial the previous year and who played a multitude of roles in the current production, including Cortés’ “lover and interpreter,” a young woman in a Boston Massacre scene, Martha Washington, and the wife of Jim Bowie. Here she is in real life in 1936, with Jean Harlow platinum-blonde hair, posing for one of a seemingly endless number of publicity photos.
Geraldine Robertson, 1936
And the thing that caused so much trouble? Probably not what you would assume.
Before the Exposition opened, the Dallas-based Mexican Consul, Adolfo G. Dominguez, became aware of this casting choice. And that was when the mierda probably first hit the ventilador. Dominguez was adamant that the virgin be replaced with the more historically accurate male warrior. He probably said much the same thing to the Cavalcade producers when confronting them about his concerns before the Expo began as he did when he said this in a Dallas News article on the topic weeks later:
“We Mexicans feel that use of a girl in the role can bring nothing but racial prejudice and misconception of the true meaning of the Aztec human sacrifice as it was performed, not thousands of years ago, as has been wrongly represented, but as late as 1521.” (DMN, July 28, 1937)
The producers acquiesced, and when the Exposition began its run on June 12, 1937, the opening scene of the Cavalcade did, in fact, feature a sacrificial warrior. But on Sunday, July 25, the producer of the extravaganza brought the scantily-clad virgin back and nixed the warrior, hoping the added sex appeal and pizzazz would increase audience numbers. (Interestingly, when the Exposition opened, tickets to Cavalcade of the Americas cost 50⊄ — about $8.00 in today’s money — but on July 18, it was announced that, except for 600 reserved seats, admission to the show would be free. Promoters said this was being offered as a gesture of goodwill to Expo visitors, but one wonders if they weren’t having a hard time filling the 3100-seat grandstand.)
Señor Dominguez was not amused by this sexed-up revamping and protested. A. L. Vollman, the Cavalcade’s producer-director pooh-poohed the diplomat’s protestations and responded in true impresario fashion: “What history needs is more sex appeal.” That didn’t go over particularly well with the consul, who thought he’d already dealt with the problem weeks before. (Click to see larger image.)
Waxahachie Daily Light, July 27, 1937
Dominguez complained to Frank K. McNeny, Director General of the Exposition, saying that the scene was historically inaccurate and was an injustice to the founders of Mexico. McNeny disagreed, saying that the scene involving the plunging of a dagger into the breast of a sacrificial virgin was “a very lovely historic scene.” He declined to bring back the warrior, because, as Vollman noted, the revamping had increased attendance: “It’s packing them in the aisles.” An exasperated Dominguez said that if the change from maiden back to warrior was not made, he would take the matter to the Mexican government.
FWST, July 28, 1937
At this point, a disagreement over the gender of a character in what was, basically, an oversized school history pageant was dangerously close to setting off an international incident. It was also causing embarrassment for local civic leaders who were looking upon the Exposition as a major marketing tool for the city as well as a symbolic display of Pan-American solidarity and goodwill. Can’t we all just get along, amigo?
The refusal of the Cavalcade to UN-revamp the show did not deter the Mexican Consul who, by now, was probably more het-up than ever. Dominguez decided to go over McNeny’s head. He pulled out the written agreement he had made with fair officials back in the spring — which clearly stated that a male warrior and NOT a young woman would feature in the theatrical human sacrifice — and he took it to the top man, State Fair president Fred F. Florence. Florence discussed the matter with his board of directors who voted “to a man” to uphold the original agreement.
The warrior would be reinstated as the writhing victim on the bloody sacrificial stone. The sexy maiden would have to hand over the 30-foot-long robe, which had been made from 9,000 feathers and which had trailed behind her as she was carried up the great pyramid at Tenochtitlán. The actor playing the warrior was probably happy to get back in the spotlight. Geraldine Robertson, the virgin who had trailed that robe, was relegated to a role as a daughter of Montezuma.
Presumably the dagger kept plunging into the flailing warrior’s heart twice nightly for the remainder of the show’s run, and the memory of that short-lived international squabble was quickly forgotten (…until now).
And they all lived happily ever after. / Vieron felices por siempre.
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Hey! If you’ve read this far, here’s a little reward. A Universal Newsreel titled “Pan-American Exposition Is Opened For 1937, Dallas, Tex.” — which contains 20 whole seconds of the Aztec (warrior) scene! — can be viewed on the T.A.M.I. (Texas Archive of the Moving Image) site, HERE. The entire short newsreel is interesting (sadly, it has no sound), but if you want to jump to the sacrifice scene, it begins at the :49 mark. (If you’re watching on your desktop, make sure to click the little square just to the left of the speaker icon beneath the viewing area to watch it full-screen.
Super-grainy screenshot from the Universal newsreel, 1937
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Postcards of the Pan-American Exposition are from “the internet.”
Color souvenir program image from the Watermelon Kid site; background on the Pan-American Exposition can be found on the same site, here.
All other clippings as noted.
Related Dallas Morning News articles:
Below, an interview with Jan Fortune on her Cavalcade of the Americas; it appeared in her hometown newspaper, The Wellington (Texas) Leader on March 18, 1937. She also wrote the Centennial’s big production, Cavalcade of Texas, the previous year, in 1936.
And, speaking of Aztec human sacrifices in DFW (a phrase I don’t believe I’ve ever written…), the following tidbit was contained in an article about Six Flags Over Texas’ 1970 season.
FWST, May 21, 1970
Promotional material about Los Voladores — a group of aerialists from Mexico — informs us that in their show “a beautiful maiden’s life is given as tribute to Tlaloc, the rain god.” Those beautiful maidens can’t catch a break. Sorry, Adolfo.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Official SFOT-produced movie (via Texas Archive of the Moving Image)
by Paula Bosse
TAMI — Texas Archive of the Moving Image — is a great repository of old films shot in and around Texas. Its site boasts streaming newsreels, PSAs, commercials, home movies, etc. — one of these films is the 11-minute short “A Day at the State Fair,” an “official” film produced by the Jameson Film Co. of Dallas for the State Fair of Texas, directed by Curt Beck and starring two young local actors, Charmayne Smith and Harry Bleeker. The SFOT made these short movies primarily to promote the fair, and they were often shown in theaters around Texas and in neighboring states, sandwiched between other cinematic entertainment. They were also used for educational purposes and were shown to both students and civic groups. This official film was shot at the 1941 state fair for the purpose of promoting the fair the next year, but it may actually never have been shown anywhere, as the 1942 State Fair of Texas was cancelled “due to war.”
I am unable to embed the film here — to view it in its entirety on the TAMI site, click here. (Make sure to click the “full screen” square just to the left of the speaker icon below the frame.)
Below are some (admittedly grainy) screenshots from the film. It’s fun to see these pre-War shots of the fair in color (inconsistent though that color is). Click pictures for larger images.
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The film follows two young people who meet on a blind date and tour the fair. The young woman was played by Charmayne Smith, a Forest High School graduate who became both Miss Dallas and Miss Texas, and, at the time of this film, was studying acting at the Dallas Little Theater.
Her date was played by Harry Bleeker, also an actor with the Dallas Little Theater. (I like the peek at Parry Ave. in the background.)
They “met cute” at a Fair Park bench.
They went to the Midway.
They looked at rides and made pithy observations.
They bought tickets to an “aeroplane” ride, a ride so exciting it made Charmayne go “Whee!”
They listened to a freak show barker.
Which, the closer you got, didn’t look all that freak-filled, unless you count the sight of a sullen girl holding a snake as being terribly “strange and unusual.” (I’m a sucker for sideshow banners, and this was my favorite shot of the film. The man in the crowd who has turned around to face the camera is more unsettling than anything on that stage — including the accordion!)
Harry and Charmayne went in and out of buildings, looked at different exhibits, rattled off facts-a-plenty, and extolled the greatness of Texas. And no way were they going to miss the livestock events. A state fair’s gotta have livestock. Like this almost perfectly rectangular Beef Shorthorn.
And these parading Herefords.
Also seen: tractors, tractors, tractors.
They took in a “petroleum exhibit” and exclaimed how fabulous it was. (In real life, Charmayne Smith and Harry Bleeker and other Dallas Little Theater actors were part of this exhibit during the 1941 fair.) If only this little car were real and had been seen at the automobile show!
They moseyed through the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and viewed the art in the Texas General Exhibition. (Eugene Trentham’s cloud-filled painting, “August Landscape” — winner of the year’s top prize — can be seen here.)
Then, tuckered out, Charmayne tells Harry it’s probably time that she should head home. Harry offers to drive her home and suggests they return that night for more fair fun!
They leave, happy, headed for Parry Ave. (and, perhaps, whiskey, across the street).
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This wasn’t all that Harry and Charmayne saw. There was also a monkey, goats, sheep, horses, the Ice Capades, a beauty contest, jars and jars of preserved fruit, a lady handing out Hi-Ho crackers, the Hall of State, and more. Watch the film. It’s great to see 70-plus-year-old footage of Fair Park — and it’s also nice to hear people talk with Texas accents (something getting rarer every day in Dallas). Again, you can watch the film here.
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The TAMI home page is here; the page featuring this short film is here. Thank you, TAMI, for uploading and sharing this and all the other cool stuff on your site! (The film is currently identified as being made in 1939, but everything points to this being filmed at the 1941 State Fair of Texas.)
These SFOT-produced films were an important promotional tool to entice visitors to the fair. In the months leading up to the opening of the SFOT, these films were shown in hundreds of Texas movie theaters, in theaters in contiguous states, and in thousands of schools throughout the Southwest.
Charmayne Smith (1921-1965) entered and won a lot of beauty contests while in high school and during her time at both the University of Texas and at SMU. An Oct. 12, 1941 captioned photo of Miss Smith mentions that she had been participating in the filming of (color) footage shot around the 1941 SFOT which would be used “for educational and promotion purposes before next year’s exposition.”
I was unable to find anything about Harry Bleeker, other than a mention in a 1941 Dallas Morning News article about the petroleum exhibit seen in the film. Chances are pretty high he served in World War II.
In the film, Charmayne and Harry visit the Third Texas General Exhibition (1941) at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The grand prize in the oil painting division went to Eugene Trentham, a UT art instructor at the time, fresh off a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Click pictures for larger images!
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
Today is the last day of the fair. If you haven’t been yet, you should go! Have fun — and watch your moolah drain from your wallet at an alarming rate. It’s a tradition!
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Postcard from eBay. Click it to see a REALLY BIG image!
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Look at this 1923 typeface!
by Paula Bosse
Here we are again in the final days of another State Fair of Texas. Why not take a look at a few random images of the fair over the years. (Click pictures for larger images.)
First, from 1900, the entrance to the fairgrounds. (It appears to be the same view as the top postcard seen in a previous post, here, just a few steps inside the archway.)
Fort Worth Public Library
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A cartoon from The Dallas Morning News in 1912 — “The People’s University.” Remember, it’s not just about Ferris wheels and candy apples.
DMN, Oct. 20, 1912
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1921. Don’t miss The Whip.
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From the Texas Centennial in 1936, a shot of a remarkably spotless Midway. (Am I the only one who would have paid to see the “28-Ft. Monster” do battle with whatever freakish specimens were ensconced within the walls of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not building?)
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During World War II, no fair was held between 1942 and 1945. “Not until the boys come home, will there be another State Fair of Texas.”
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By the ’50s, everything was back to normal. Big Tex had arrived, and this ad promises “She’s a LULU in ’52.” Martin & Lewis and whatever a Thrillcade was!
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And, lastly, an aerial view of the Midway from 1966. Now this IS all Ferris wheels and candy apples. (To watch a short collection of color footage from the damp 1967 SFOT — including a sad, rainy parade downtown — click here.)
University of North Texas
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1900 photo of the entrance to the fair is from The Bohemian magazine (1900) in the collection of the Fort Worth Public Library (those perforations in the photo are the FWPL’s).
1921 photo — I’m afraid I have no source on this one.
1936 postcard of the Centennial Midway is from eBay.
Patriotic WWII ad is from the 1945-1946 Texas Almanac.
Photo of the 1966 Midway is from the University of North Texas University Libraries blog, here.
My previous collection of SFOT photos over the decades appeared in the post “So Sorry Bill, But Albert Is Taking Me To The State Fair of Texas,” here.
Other Flashback Dallas posts on the State Fair of Texas are here; posts specifically on the Texas Centennial are here.
Again … some of these pictures are pretty dang big — when in doubt, click ’em!
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Another beautiful day at the fair!
by Paula Bosse
Students’ Day at the Fair? There are a lot of unaccompanied kids in that photo eating food on sticks.
I could be wrong, but I think the round structure to the right of the entrance is The Rotor (part of the sign is visible at the far right). The Rotor resembled a large barrel inside. You’d stand with your back to the curved wall, and then the walls would begin spinning around. Eventually the spinning got faster and you’d be pinned against the wall with centrifugal force as the floor dropped out. …Which could be a big mistake after too many corny dogs and cotton candy.
The Rotor debuted at the State Fair in 1952, imported from England. The British company would be sued later that year by the man who invented the ride, Ernst Hoffmeister. Hoffmeister sued several people who were operating similar rides internationally, but all was resolved by the following year, and the Rotor ride was an extremely popular fixture of the State Fair of Texas midway for many years.
Below, the ride in action.
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Postcard from eBay.
For more on this, head to the Dallas Morning News archives and read an interview with the men who brought the Rotor to the State Fair of Texas in the article “‘Bloody Sensation’ — Britons to Supply Ride on State Fair Midway” by Frank X. Tolbert (DMN, Sept. 25, 1952).
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved
Flashback : Dallas 