Neighborhoods | Flashback : Dallas

June 4, 2014

The Texas Land & Mortgage Company — 1912

1912

by Paula Bosse

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

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

1908

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

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

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

Click pictures for larger images.

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June 3, 2014

Swooning Over Love Field — 1940

Art Deco Love Field!

by Paula Bosse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sources & Notes

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

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

9 Comments

June 2, 2014

The DFW Turnpike, Unsullied by Traffic, Billboards, or Urban Sprawl — 1957

The DFW Turnpike, 1957… (click for very large image!)

by Paula Bosse

Above, the Dallas-Fort Worth turnpike in 1957, before it opened for business. When this toll road was paid off in 1977, the toll booths were removed and it became I-30, a “free” highway. (This “toll-road-becoming-a-free-road” thing has happened only once in the history of Texas; I can’t imagine it will ever happen again.) This photo shows the turnpike heading west through Arlington, with Hwy. 360 crossing over it in the middle. Six Flags over Texas would be built in this wide open expanse four years later. And then … an explosion of development.

A Texas Highways article described the 30-mile stretch (“30 miles — 30 minutes!”) as being a blissful drive through “a landscape devoid of advertising signboards and commercial establishments” (!). In fact, the only businesses along the turnpike were two restaurants and two service stations. All the way from Dallas to Fort Worth … that was IT! You know, I’d gladly pay an obscenely exorbitant toll today if it meant I could drive that stretch of highway the way it was in this photo. A world without urban sprawl would be heaven.

I love this photo. The road ahead just disappears into the ether. And, Arlington, you’ve never looked better.

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Sources & Notes

Top photo from Oscar Slotboom’s book Dallas-Fort Worth Freeways, credited to TxDOT Travel Information Division, 1957. His caption: “The view looks west along the turnpike just before it opened in 1957 with the SH 360 intersection in the foreground…. Land on the left side of the turnpike just past SH 360 would soon be developed into Six Flags Over Texas…. The building alongside the turnpike was a Texas Turnpike Authority administrative office which was demolished in 2011.”

Postcards from around the internet.

For an informative read and LOTS of photos, I highly recommend Oscar Slotboom’s chapter on the DFW Turnpike, which you can access here (there are tons of historical photos). This chapter is from Slotboom’s exhaustive work Dallas-Fort Worth Freeways: Texas-Sized Ambition. The entire book has been made available online — for free (the home-page is here). You can read about Mr. Slotboom’s work in a Dallas Morning News interview by Robert Wilonsky here.

A fun read about the turnpike (yes, fun!) is an article from Texas Highways (Dec. 1957), here. (The article is spread over three web pages — don’t miss the links for all of the pages at the top of each page.)

By the way, when the turnpike opened, the toll was 50 cents. According to the Inflation Calculator, that would be equivalent in today’s money to just over $4.00. To drive from Dallas to Fort Worth quickly, through not-yet-developed green spaces and along a new highway uncluttered with billboards. A BARGAIN!

Click photo for larger image.

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June 1, 2014

Elm Street — 1909

Elm St. at N. Lamar, looking east (click for much larger image)

by Paula Bosse

In a sort of unfocused wandering around the internet yesterday, I happened across two photos of Elm Street in 1909 that were virtually the same shot, and I came across them on completely unrelated websites. Just a weird coincidence. And they’re pretty cool.

(Ever since I wrote about L. Craddock & Co. Liquors a few months ago, I swear I see that building everywhere now! It’s become a kind of landmark I use to get my bearings. It’s the building on the left with the little cupola on top — it was at Elm and Poydras, between N. Lamar and Griffin.)

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The first photo is a postcard, from Ebay.

Second photo is from Texas: A Southwest Empire (Chicago/St. Louis: Passenger Traffic Dept. Rock Island-Frisco Lines and Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, 1909).

To check out the businesses along this stretch of Elm, see the Worley’s 1909 city directory here. This page shows all the businesses in this photo, moving west to east. It will start with Sam Freshman Liquors right before you cross N. Lamar. On the east side of Lamar, on the right, E.M. Kahn’s. L. Craddock, on the left, is at the corner of Elm and Poydras.

The Worley’s and other criss-cross directories are invaluable in determining locations, especially at the time of this photo, because Dallas street numbers changed in 1911 and do not correspond to today’s street numbers (a surprisingly interesting topic, which I researched here). Besides, those directories are a lot of fun to play around with! (Then again, I was one of those kids who enjoyed reading the dictionary.)

Click photos for larger images.

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May 31, 2014

Deco Idealized: Fair Park Before the Centennial Exposition — 1936

by Paula Bosse

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

Text from the back of this postcard:

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

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Click picture for much larger image.

May 30, 2014

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

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

by Paula Bosse

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

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

Dallas Morning News

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

1905 ad (click for larger image)

marsalis_sanitarium_dmn_010109 DMN, Jan. 1, 1909

Worley’s City Directory, 1909

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

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

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

Such a sad ending for such a beautiful house!

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Sources & Notes

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

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

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

Click pictures for larger images.

5 Comments

May 29, 2014

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

kessler-theater-after-tornado_1957

by Paula Bosse

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

kessler_tornado_sherrod

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

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

And in a survey of the clean-up:

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

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

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Sources & Notes

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

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

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

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

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May 28, 2014

The Statler Hilton: Dallas Has It All … Again

by Paula Bosse

It’s alive!

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

Click picture for larger image.

May 28, 2014

“There Are Eight Million Stories in the Naked City…” — ca. 1920

by Paula Bosse

The photograph above, by George A. McAfee, shows Ervay Street, looking south from Main, in about 1920. Neiman’s is on the right. I’m not sure what the occasion was (I see special-event bunting….), but the two things that jump out right away are the number of people on the sidewalks and the amount of congestion on the streets. In addition to private automobiles (driven by “automobilists” or “autoists,” as the papers of the day referred to them), the street is also packed with cars standing in the taxi rank (cab stand) at the left, and a long line of hulking streetcars. This busy intersection is jammed to capacity.

The city of Dallas was desperately trying to relieve its traffic problems around this time, and there were numerous articles in the papers addressing the concerns of how to manage the congestion of streets not originally designed to handle motor vehicle traffic. Dallas and Fort Worth were working on similar plans of re-routing traffic patterns and instituting something called “skip stop” wherein streetcars would stop every other block rather than every block. Streetcars, in fact, though convenient and necessary, seemed to cause the most headaches as far as backing up and slowing down traffic, as they were constantly stopping to take on and let off passengers. There was something called a “safety zone” that was being tried at the time. I’m not sure I completely understand it, but it allowed cars to pass streetcars in certain areas while they were stopped.

That traffic is crazy. But, to be perfectly honest, it’s far less interesting than all that human activity — hundreds of people just going about their daily business. It’s always fun to zoom in on these photos, and, below, I’ve broken the original photograph into several little vignettes. I love the people hanging out the Neiman-Marcus windows. And all those newsboys! Not quite as charming was all that overhead clutter of power lines and telephone lines; combined with the street traffic, it makes for a very claustrophobic — if vibrant — downtown street scene. (Click photos for larger images.)

My favorite “hidden” image in the larger photograph. The only moment of calm.

I love this. The woman in front of the Neiman-Marcus plaque looking off into the distance, the display in the store window, the newsboy running down the street, the man in suspenders, the women’s fashions, and all those hats!

A barefoot boy and litter everywhere.

The congestion is pretty bad above the streets, too.

Cabbies, newsboys, and working stiffs.

I swear there was only one streetcar driver in Dallas, and he looked like this! Those motormen had a definite “look.”

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Sources & Notes

Original photograph attributed to George A. McAfee, from the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University, accessible here.

For other photos I’ve zoomed in on the details, see here.

11 Comments

May 27, 2014

The Rolling Hills of Highland Park — 1911

Armstrong Avenue (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Highland Park in its early days of development. The postcards above and below show Armstrong Avenue, looking east, from about Preston Road.

An even earlier view can be seen in the postcard below (ca. 1908), which shows “Berkeley Avenue,” the original name of Armstrong (see newspaper clippings at the bottom of this post for more on Berkeley Ave.).

All of these postcards show what looks to be the bridge over a stretch of Turtle Creek then called Lake Neoma.

I’m not sure when the name “Lake Neoma” ceased to be used (I believe it’s now Wycliff Ave. Lake), but here is a nifty little drawing of it from a 1915 map from the Flippen-Prather Realty Co., the developers of Highland Park.

Berkeley Avenue was renamed Armstrong Avenue around 1908 or 1909 in honor of John S. Armstrong, who developed the land that later became Highland Park (East). Below is a photo and paragraph of an article from the Sept. 13, 1908 edition of The Dallas Morning News (the Argyle Avenue mentioned was later renamed as an extension of Oak Lawn Ave.)

Dallas Morning News, Sept. 13, 1908 (photo and excerpt)

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Postcards from Flickr. “Berkeley Avenue” from Flickr, here (it is suggested that this shows Berkley Ave. in Oak Cliff, but this is incorrect — it is definitely Highland Park).

Map is a detail from the Flippen-Prather map of 1915, which can be viewed here.

Click pictures for larger images (top image and map are HUGE).

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