Neighborhoods | Flashback : Dallas

December 24, 2020

“Christmas in Dallas” — LOOK Magazine, 1957

by Paula Bosse

Here are photos from a 4-page spread in the Dec. 24, 1957 issue of LOOK magazine — “Christmas in Dallas,” by David Zingg with photos by Frank Bauman.

“When Christmas comes to Dallas, the city of oil, boom and shiny limousines becomes a glowing land of magic. Even without snow, the Christmas spirit of Dickens, Bethlehem and Santa Claus seems to take on the 10-gallon dimensions of Texas. Here is a scintillating sampler of Christmas in the modern Southwest.

“In the early days of Texas, the arrival of Christmas was often greeted by a fusillade of pistol shots. In some areas, wizened mesquite bushes served as Christmas trees. Guns have since been silenced and trees are easy to get, but the exuberant Texas spirit remains. As always, a booming sense of cheer and joy seems to sweep across the Western plains to brighten Christmas in Dallas.”

Caption for the photo below: “Santa greets city from skyscraper roof, under gleaming tower.”

“Glittering headdress of store manikin typifies richness of Christmas in Dallas.”

“Double-exposure contrasts member of Dallas County sheriff’s posse with beacon and lighted-window cross of the Republic National Bank Building.”

“Photographer Frank Bauman captures himself and a window full of toys in a mirror’s golden frame.”

“At Neiman-Marcus, a stuffed tiger carries a fabulous burden of a million dollars in gems.”

“Children’s faces pressed against a toy-filled window express the age-old anticipation of Christmas morning.”

“Busy car lights of Christmas shoppers swirl a colorful pattern around Dallas’s oldest Christmas tree, in Highland Park.” (Sadly, our beloved Pecan Tree is no more.)

“A fairy makes Christmas come true as she throws candy to children at Oak Cliff Shopping Center.”

Merry Christmas, y’all!

***

Sources & Notes

All images from LOOK magazine, Dec. 24, 1957, from the collection of the author. Photos by Frank Bauman.

More Christmas posts from Flashback Dallas can be found here.

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December 22, 2020

Hoppy Holidays from Hop-a-Bus — 1984

Season’s Greetings from Dallas Transit System and friend…

by Paula Bosse

Aww, the Bunny Bus — surely Dallas Transit System’s most whimsical creation.

The earliest days of the DTS Hop-a-Bus saw a fleet of five, 19-passenger (non-whimsical) mini-buses which shuttled people back and forth across downtown. You could “hop on” and “hop off” for short trips, for a nominal fare (a dime), traveling along Main Street between Houston and Pearl, Monday-Friday, during working hours.

The service was very popular and quickly outgrew the mini-buses — in March, 1976 they went full-size, but ridership of these two large buses was disappointly slow to grow, mainly because people couldn’t tell the difference between the Hop-a-Bus and every other downtown bus. So, in October, 1978, someone, in his or her infinite wisdom, decided to paint the two special buses pink and add a bunny face and aluminum bunny ears (I seem to remember a tail, but I think I’ve added that in my own imagination). Voilà! Instantly recognizable!

At first, a lot of people hated them (describing them as “grotesque”), but pretty soon, downtown denizens fell for their charming appeal, and ridership increased substantially (seriously, you could see those things coming from blocks away!). Tourists loved them: they provided great photo opportunities, and they made getting around an unfamiliar city very easy — when lost, just jump on a pink bus and you’ll probably get to where you need to go.

Photos of the two pink “bunny buses” appeared in newspapers around the country. They even moonlighted at nights and on the weekends when DTS rented them out during off-duty hours — most notably to the pink-loving Mary Kay corporation and to the bunny-loving Dallas Playboy Club (which used the buses to ferry patrons from the Central Expressway club to Dallas Cowboys games).

The iconic (yes, “iconic”!) buses amused and delighted Dallasites until November, 1986. The bunny-bus fleet had increased to five 1966 GMC buses (at one point there had been as many as seven), and even though the fare had increased to 25 cents, they were still very, very popular with the public. But the pink buses were discontinued at the end of 1986 and sold. And, let’s face it, the streets of downtown Dallas have never been quite the same. Imagine if they were still around (and they SHOULD be!) — Instagram would be overrun with millions of bunny bus photos.

Below are a few photos and a video of our decades-gone transit pal, the cute, friendly Bunny Bus. RIP.

via Ad Valorem Infinitum (screenshot)

via CurbsideClassic.com

via Pinterest

Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, MI, Feb. 2, 1984

via “Bring Back the Bunny” Facebook page

Here’s a great history of the Hop-a-Bus in an article widely syndicated around the country in 1979 — it was written by Claudia Goad, spokesperson for the DTS (click for larger image).

by DTS’ Claudia Goad, wire story, April 1979

And, finally, a look at a 1976 Channel 8 story on the month-old Hop-a-Bus, before it was transformed into a bunny (from the WFAA News archives at SMU).

via Jones Film Collection, SMU

***

Sources & Notes

Top image is from the Dallas Transit System (DTS) 1985 calendar — the entire calendar can be found at the Portal to Texas History, here, from the DART Historical Archive.

There is a “Bring Back the Bunny” Facebook page, here.

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December 20, 2020

Holiday Greetings from Jefferson Tower — 1937

Christmastime in Oak Cliff…

by Paula Bosse

Jefferson Tower, on West Jefferson Boulevard between S. Bishop and S. Madison, looked pretty great in 1937 all decorated for Christmas. It was (and is) the tallest building on West Jefferson. This must have made quite the statement!

Here’s a zoomed-in detail (all images are larger when clicked):

And here’s the building a few years later — no Christmas-tree decoration and in the daytime, but still fantastic.

via McCoy Collaborative

And, I mean, look at how commanding this building is, even now:

I’d like to see a 21st-century return of a Christmas tree to the exterior of this building — it would still be impressive!

***

Sources & Notes

Christmas photos of Jefferson Tower are from the Private Collection of Mary Newton Maxwell, via the Portal to Texas History — more info may be found here and here.

Photo of Jefferson Tower in the daylight is from the McCoy Collaborative website — more on their work in rehabilitating this historic building may be found here.

See the building on Google Street View here.

More Christmas posts from Flashback Dallas may be found here.

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December 13, 2020

Take a Greyhound to the Texas Centennial — 1936

“Dallas, please…”

by Paula Bosse

Thanks to the promoters of the Texas Centennial, advertisements placed in national publications in 1936 showed Dallas to be quite the desirable destination. The Centennial — the World’s-Fair-that-wasn’t-quite-a-World’s Fair — made Dallas the place to be in 1936. This ad for Greyhound Lines (a company which, incidentally, is now headquartered in Dallas) need only show a fab deco poster on a wall for people to want to jump on a bus and head to Big D.

The full ad is below. Nary a mention of “Dallas.” (Click to see a larger image.)

***

Sources & Notes

Ad from Hollywood magazine, May, 1936.

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December 6, 2020

St. Mark’s Campus — 1960s

St. Mark’s chapel at dusk, 1961

by Paula Bosse

A few photos of St. Mark’s School of Texas campus buildings and history from various editions of Marksmen, the school’s yearbook.

Above the exterior of the chapel beneath a full moon. Below, the interior of the chapel (click for larger images).

1965

A photo spread from the 1963 yearbook, commemorating 30 years as an institution (see the St. Mark’s timeline here).

1963

1964

Decorated for Christmas:

1964

1967

1968

1961

1962

1963

***

Sources & Notes

All images from various editions of Marksmen, the St. Mark’s yearbook.

More St. Mark’s-related Flashback Dallas posts can be found here.

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December 6, 2020

St. Mark’s, Aerial Views — 1960s

Rendering of the campus by architect Hal M. Moseley, from the 1960 yearbook

by Paula Bosse

St. Mark’s School of Texas, the prep school for boys in North Dallas (10600 Preston Road, south of Royal Lane), has been one of the city’s finest educational institutions for decades. It opened in 1950 after the merging of the Cathedral School for Boys and the Texas Country Day School, both of which traced their roots to the legendary Terrill School, founded in 1906 (see the St. Mark’s timeline on the school’s website here).

Below are a few aerial photos of the ever-expanding campus from the 1960s. (Above is a drawing of the grounds by architect Hal M. Moseley from the endpapers of the 1960 Marksmen, the St. Mark’s yearbook.)

The campus in 1964 (click to see larger image):

1964

In 1965, plans had been drawn for expansion and renovation. Five of the existing structures would be renovated, and a new gymnasium and “individual study center” (including a 50,000-volume library) would be constructed:

1965

Two photos from 1966, with the caption “before the building of the new library and study center”:

1966

And a rather haphazard editing of mismatched endpaper photos from 1968:

1968

***

Sources & Notes

All images are from various editions of Marksmen, the St. Mark’s yearbook.

More about St. Mark’s School of Texas can be found at Wikipedia, here.

Other St. Mark’s-related Flashback Dallas posts can be found here.

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November 30, 2020

Victor’s Lounge — 1913 Commerce

Victor’s-sponsored bowling team

by Paula Bosse

My posting has been a bit erratic recently. My brother and I have been clearing out my late aunt’s home. It’s one of those inevitable tasks that no one wants to have to do, but as sad as it’s been, it’s also been comforting to see glimpses of my aunt’s life that I had only vaguely heard about — or had never heard about. Going through her photos, I see what a full life she had, how much she traveled, and that she had decades-old friendships.

One of the places she talked about with great fondness was, of all things, a bar: Victor’s Lounge, which was at 1913 Commerce Street, directly across from the Statler Hilton. The Dallas Morning News described it as “a favorite with the downtown office crowd.” My aunt worked for an insurance company in the Mercantile Building, and nearby Victor’s was the place where she and her co-workers gathered after work (and, I think, for lunch). She even participated in a ladies’ bowling league on a team sponsored by her favorite hang-out. The photo at the top shows the team of fun-looking women (my aunt Bettye Jo is on the far right). She still had the crisply-ironed shirt in her closet!

Victor’s was opened by Victor Ballas (who later opened the Purple Orchid a block away at 2016 Commerce). Born in New York, Ballas arrived in Dallas as a child, went to Forest Avenue High School, and had several businesses, one liltingly called “Ballas of Dallas.” My aunt said he always looked after his customers, especially the single women when they were being aggressively hit on by male patrons. Ballas died on Christmas Day, 1971 of a heart attack — he was only 53.

Victor’s opened as a cocktail bar in 1957 or 1958 with a regular piano player (for many years it was Tony Rizzo), but ads indicate that it became more of a restaurant than a bar in the 1960s.

1959

The Commerce Street location closed in 1971 — it was replaced at the end of that year by the Wild West Saloon, another cocktail bar (but one which included topless entertainment).

I heard so much about Victor’s over the years from my aunt that when I recently stumbled across odd shots of the place in random film footage I was pretty excited.

I wish we could have gotten a drink there together, Bettye Jo. And maybe hit the lanes at your favorite alley and bowled a few frames.

1962 (click to see larger image)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo and photo of bowling shirt from the collection of Paula Bosse.

The three color images are screenshots from films in the G. William Jones Film Collection, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University. The first is from the WFAA NewsFilm Collection, the second and third from a promotional film for The Dallas Morning News; all are from the 1960s.

Map is a detail from a 1962 map featured in the Flashback Dallas post “Map of Downtown Dallas, For the Curious Conventioneer — 1962.”

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November 22, 2020

Kennedy Memorial and the County Courthouses — Early 1970s

by Paula Bosse

A view of the new John F. Kennedy Memorial, the not-new Old Red Courthouse, and the not-old-but-not-really-new “new” County Courthouse, in a postcard photo by Bob Glander.

The text on the back of the postcard reads:

The old and the new County Courthouses with the Kennedy Memorial. The new Courthouse was dedicated Feb. 4, 1966 and the Kennedy Memorial June 24, 1970, Dallas, Texas. Photo by Bob Glander.”

See the same view — from Main and Market — today, via Google Street View, here.

***

Sources & Notes

Postcard found somewhere online.

Previous Flashback Dallas posts with images to compare imagined and actual views of the “Courthouse Complex”:

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.”

***

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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October 25, 2020

Highland Park High School: Photos from the 1964 Yearbook

HPHS senior cyclists after school…

by Paula Bosse

A few random of photos of extra-curricular activities featured in the 1964 Highlander, the yearbook of Highland Park High School.

Above, the caption in the yearbook reads: “Senior cyclists Gay Crowell, Carol Webster, and Margaret Paxson prepare to pedal home.”

Below, “ROTC cadets salute the inspecting officers at the annual federal inspection.”

Below, “Ralph Cousins gives Donna Guest and Rick Sable a doubting look as Eloise Hancock tells of her adventures on the Midway during High School Day at the State Fair.”

Below, “Maintaining an international atmosphere, French teacher Neil Jarrett leaves his Volkswagen in the teachers’ parking lot.”

“Early morning finds girls repairing damage caused by gusty March winds.”

Below, a before-and-after photo featuring a student with the amazing name of “Kitten Quick” (!): “Vice-President Joe Tom Wood, Treasurer Kitten Quick, Sponsor Mrs. Rita Palm, Secretary Susie Urquhart, and President Lewis McMahon resist the temptation to play in the snow-filled schoolyard…”

“…but finally succumb to testing the depth of Dallas’ record snowfall.”

And, lastly, a huge snowman! “‘Seniors ’64’ marks the 14-foot snowman, built during Dallas’s record 7-inch snow.” (A record 7.4 inches of snow fell on Dallas in January, 1964.)

***

Sources & Notes

All images from the 1964 Highlander, the yearbook of Highland Park High School.

Other Flashback Dallas posts featuring items from HPHS yearbooks can be found here.

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