Flashback : Dallas

A Miscellany: History, Ads, Pop Culture

Category: Parks

City Park, From the Air: 1948-1997

1948_city-park_aerial_dallas-municipal-archives_portalCity Park, 1948 (Dallas Municipal Archives)

by Paula Bosse

These eight aerial photos of City Park/Old City Park in The Cedars, just south of downtown, show the encroachment of an ever-increasing acreage of asphalt onto what was once the city’s most beautiful park. (All photos are from the Dallas Municipal Archives, and all are larger when clicked.) The one thing present in all photos is the late Ambassador Hotel (RIP).

Above, in 1948, before the cement mixers arrived (photo by Barnes Aerial Surveys).

Below, 1954.

1954_city-park_aerial_squire-haskins_dallas-municipal-archives_portal
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1954

1966:

1966_city-park_aerial_squire-haskins_dallas-municipal-archives_portalSquire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1966

1969:

1969_city-park_aerial_squire-haskins_dallas-municipal-archives_portalSquire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1969

1972:

1972_city-park_aerial_squire-haskins_1972_dallas-municipal-archives_portalSquire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1972

1975:

1975_city-park_aerial_squire-haskins_1975_dallas-municipal-archives_portalSquire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1975

Circa 1982:

1982-ca_city-park_aerial_dallas-municipal-archives_portalDallas Municipal Archives, ca. 1982

1997:

1997_city-park_aerial_reginald-d-loftin_dallas-municipal-archives_portalReginald D. Loftin, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1997

Today-ish (or at least before the Ambassador burned down in May, 2019):

city-park_google-maps_aerialGoogle Maps

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Sources & Notes

All photos are from the Dallas Municipal Archives Collection, via the Portal to Texas History; they can all be found here.

Read about the history of the Ambassador Hotel in the Flashback Dallas post “The Majestic Hotel/The Park Hotel/The Ambassador Hotel: R.I.P — 1904-2019.”

A few old postcards of City Park in its heyday can be found in the post “Iola Bridge.”

1948_city-park_aerial_dallas-municipal-archives_portal_sm

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Copyright © 2020 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Independence Day at Shady View Park — 1880s

4th-of-july_shady-view-park_FW-daily-democrat_061482Grand Fourth of July Celebration! (1882)

by Paula Bosse

A popular gathering place in Dallas for picnics and celebrations in the last couple of decades of the nineteenth century was Shady View Park, a sort of “private park” in which beer could be sold. It was out in the hinterlands — at the end of the San Jacinto streetcar line, at San Jacinto St. and N. Washington Ave. in Old East Dallas.

4th of July celebrations were often held there. Below is a breathless and comma-laden recounting of the 1884 event which throbbed with patriotism ‘neath the umbrageous branches.

At the Park.

Every car that rolled out to the park was crowded with people and hacks, and vehicles of every description drove a lively business in carrying out passengers. A band discoursed patriotic music and added life and pleasure to the assemblage of two thousand people that thronged the beautiful grounds and lounged ‘neath the umbrageous branches of the trees where only a few years since the so-called noble child of the forest roamed, so to speak. It was a great gathering and a great day in the history of our country and if there was a bosom on the grounds that did not throb with patriotism it was not manifest, for had there been and had it been known such a recreant would have been jack-ketched upon the spot.  

At 3 p.m. Dr. Schuhl, in a clear, distinct voice, read that remarkable document, the Declaration of Independence, and when he concluded the crowd made the welkin ring with the shouts of liberty. Several Russian exiles who were on the grounds and to whom friends had interpreted the meaning of the meeting, rushed up to an American flag near by, and raising their hands heavenwards as though they would bless the colors, kissed them reverentially. The English, our kinsmen, were there, and were by no means lacking in patriotism. They blessed this country, shook hands all around, but never forgot the Queen, and never once did the true American. England of 1776 is not England of 1884. “By golly!” said old Swamp Fox, an eccentric character, “if old Gen. George Washington and them boys what signed artikle of agreement could be here and see this I would be willing to die this minute and go to the bad.” When the enthusiasm was at fever heat Dr. Arch Cochran was called for and responded in a stirring speech. He was followed by Mr. J. M. Hurt, jr., the orator of the day, a son of Judge Hurt of the Court of Appeals, who delivered an address, which was well received, as evidenced by the rounds of applause that followed it. 
 
The Dance. 
 
The grand pavilion was then cleared and the merry dancers glided over the waxed floor, keeping time with nimble feet to the sweet strains of music. It was resumed after supper and continued until far into the night. The park was illuminated with lanterns and presented a beautiful scene. Everything passed off pleasantly, and all left, carrying with them sweet memories of the festivities of the glorious Fourth of 1884 at Shady View park. 
 
The day was celebrated at Mayer’s garden and Meisterhans’ pavilion, and by private parties who went on excursions to the country to picnic. In the city there were pyrotechnic displays. (Dallas Daily Herald, July 5, 1884)

4th-of-july_dallas-herald_070584
Dallas Herald, July 5, 1884 (click for larger image)

Shady View Park/San Jacinto Park was around from at least 1881, possibly from the 1870s. Its main reason for existing seems to have been to attract people to the area to build homes (on land owned by Col. William J. Keller, who also, I believe, owned the streetcar). Here’s another breathless description of the park, possibly written by the same person who wrote the above article (or at least another person smitten with the word “umbrageous”).

shady-view_dal-herald_053181
Dallas Herald, May 31, 1881

The location of the park can be seen at the top of the circa-1898 map below.

shady-view-park_ca1898-map

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Below, a photo taken at Shady View Park on May 12, 1896. A caption identifies the people as “La Reunion Colony settlers”: Mrs. Louie Maas, Annie Gramatky, Paul Hartman, and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Gramatky.

shady-view-park_dpl

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Sources & Notes

Articles from the Dallas Daily Herald were found at the Portal to Texas History.

The ad at the top is from The Fort Worth Daily Democrat, June 14, 1882, which was also found at the Portal to Texas History.

Bottom photo from the collection of the Dallas Public Library.

4th-of-july_shady-view-park_FW-daily-democrat_061482_sm

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Copyright © 2020 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Highland Park’s Azaleas

azaleas_turtle-creek_spring_swb-phone-book_1968_ebaySpringtime in Dallas…

by Paula Bosse

I just realized I haven’t seen the azaleas this year. I don’t really hear about people doing it anymore, but when I was a kid, my mother always made a point every Spring to drive us around Highland Park, Exall Lake, and Turtle Creek to see the beautiful azaleas, which were in bloom everywhere you looked.

Local lore has it that the first big splash azaleas made in Dallas were in the early 1930s when Joe Lambert, Jr. (of the still-going-strong, 100-plus-year-old legendary Lambert’s Landscape Co.) imported 100 or more plants from Shreveport to Dallas — to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Walter W. Lechner in the 6900 block of Lakewood Boulevard. Azaleas apparently don’t grow well in Dallas soil unless you know what you’re doing, and Lambert knew what he was doing, because his azaleas thrived in Lakewood, and they were a huge hit with people who would drive from miles away to look at the exotic blooms.

That success led to numerous calls from residents of Highland Park, which, in turn, led to lots and lots of landscaping work for the Lambert family — so much so that they moved their business from Shreveport to Dallas.

Of particular note was the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Penn at the corner of Preston and Armstrong where azalea bushes were planted terrace-like to prevent soil erosion on the part of their property which sloped down to the banks of Turtle Creek. One newspaper report said there were more than 500 azalea bushes on the Penn estate. It caused a sensation — the plants began to pop up all around Turtle Creek, and people flocked to Highland Park to see them.

In a 1971 newspaper article it was estimated there were 50,000 azaleas in Dallas parks. I have no idea what the number is these days, but for two weeks every year, it is an absolute pleasure to drive around Highland Park and Oak Lawn — and every other part of town where azaleas bloom — and to enjoy Dallas’ brief, very pretty springtime.

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A Channel 5 news story from 1979 (which you can watch here) says that azaleas was first brought to Dallas by the La Reunion settlers, which would have been in the 1850s. The earliest mention I could find was in an 1886 ad in The Dallas Morning News — there were several other ads before the turn of the century offering the exotic “imported” plants for sale.

azaleas_dmn_031386
March, 1886

In the 1950s there was an explosion of interest in people heading to Lakeside Drive every spring in order to commune with nature and gaze lovingly at the profusion of azaleas. I mean, lordy, read this breathless ode to the azalea in this detail of a Neiman-Marcus ad. (These little essays by “Wales” appeared regularly in N-M ads — I always suspected they were written by Stanley Marcus,  but “Wales” was apparently Warren Leslie, a Neiman’s executive and spokesperson who later wrote the controversial book Dallas Public and Private.) (Click for larger image.)

azaleas_032753_neiman-ad-det
March, 1953

And here’s evidence of the bumper-to-bumper traffic along Lakeside Drive and the mass of humanity armed with cameras converging on the banks of Turtle Creek in (silent) footage from Channel 8, shot on April 10, 1960 (it seems almost criminal, though, that the film is in black and white!) — the pertinent clip begins at the :43 mark. (From the WFAA Newsfilm Collection, G. William Jones Collection, Hamon Library, SMU.)


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Here’s a Lambert’s ad, from 1963:

azaleas_041763_lamberts-ad
April, 1963

Another WFAA clip, this one from 1972, which shows azaleas in COLOR — not in Highland Park, but in downtown Dallas during the 3rd annual Azalea Festival:


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Here’s a postcard view:

turtle-creek_azaleas_ebay

And here’s a photo I took a couple of years ago of my favorite searingly hot-pink variety (seen here before the peak of the blooming period — note the still bloomless bush to the right):

azaleas_turtle-creek_2018_paula-bosse

Sorry I missed you, azaleas. Next year, for sure.

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is from the cover of Southwestern Bell’s 1968 Dallas phone book.

Bottom photo by Paula Bosse, taken March 29, 2018.

azaleas_turtle-creek_spring_swb-phone-book_1968_ebay_sm

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Copyright © 2020 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

A Few Random Postcards

methodist-hospital_postcard_1944_ebay

by Paula Bosse

Here are a few totally random postcard images, pulled from bulging digital file folders.

Above, an unusual postcard for Methodist Hospital — “An Autumn View From a Window.” The hospital was located in Oak Cliff at 301 Colorado Street — built in 1927, demolished in 1994. The card is postmarked 1944. Below are two other images.

methodist-hospital_rppc_ebay

methodist-hospital

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Below, the Lemly Chiropractic Clinic of Dr. F. Lee Lemly at 808 N. Bishop in Oak Cliff (this was also the residence of his family). The house is still standing.

lemley-chiropractic_808-n-bishop_ebay

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A circa-1910s pretty view of City Park (part of which still hangs on as the site of Dallas Heritage Village in The Cedars):

city-park_postcard_clogenson_ebay

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Another postcard from The Cedars/South Dallas, once home to a large, vibrant Jewish community, this one shows the Colonial Hill home of insurance man Sidney Reinhardt (1864-1924) at 277 South Boulevard (now renumbered as 1825 South Blvd.). The house was built around 1907, and this postcard appeared before 1911. The house — in what is now designated as the South Boulevard-Park Row Historic District — still stands.

south-blvd_now-1825_sidney-reinhardt_postcard_1910_ebay

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Here’s the Flower-A-Day Shop at the corner of Knox and Travis; the building is still there, but it’s nowhere near as charming today as it was when this postcard was mailed in 1955.

flower-a-day_knox-and-travis_postmarked-1950_ebay

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And, lastly, “Highland Park Lake,” now Exall Lake. In fact, it was originally Exall Lake, as it was on the property of Henry Exall, who created the lake by damming Turtle Creek. The lake was a favorite recreation spot way out of town. It seems to have become “Highland Park Lake” after John Armstrong had taken over the property with an eye to developing what eventually became Highland Park. I’ve actually never heard of “Highland Park Lake,” but it was still being referred to as that in the 1960s — I’m not sure when it reverted to “Exall Lake” (or where exactly this photo was taken), but it remains one of Highland Park’s beauty spots. 

highland-park-lake_postcard

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Sources & Notes

Most of these postcards were found on eBay.

methodist-hospital_postcard_1944_ebay_sm

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Copyright © 2019 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Casa View Elementary/Casa View Park — 1954-1974

casa-view-elementary_park_aerial_squire-haskins_1954_dallas-municipal-archives_portalCasa View Elementary and next-door park, 1954 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

I wrote about Casa Linda Park not long ago, so today … Casa View Park (and its neighbor, Casa View Elementary School).

After World War II, there was a severe housing shortage in Dallas, and developers began looking to areas which offered new land to build on and were ripe for annexation. One such area — east of White Rock Lake and beyond the city limits — was eyed as a prime site for a new residential neighborhood: it didn’t take long for the area now known as Casa View to pop up.

One of Casa View’s neighborhoods was Casa View Heights (which, roughly, is bounded by Garland Road, Centerville Road, Shiloh Road, and … maybe Barnes Bridge? — see ad below) — it was a development spearheaded by Carl Brown, whose nearby Casa Linda development had been a big hit. The land this addition was built on was annexed by the City of Dallas in 1949. In mid-1950, it was announced that “ten acres of pasture land north of Centerville Road in the Casa View area” had been purchased by the Dallas School Board, a tract which “some day may be the site of a school […] though the school building program has no project scheduled for the area” (“Sizable Land Plots,” Dallas Morning News, July 16, 1950).

About half that parcel of land became Casa View Park sometime in 1950; the other half became the campus of Casa View Elementary School. The school (designed by premier Dallas architect Mark Lemmon) began construction in 1952 and was ready for use by the opening of the new school year in 1953 (enrollment on the first day was an impressive 870 students).

Below are four aerial photos showing the Casa View park and school, taken over a 20-year period by Squire Haskins. (All images are larger when clicked.)

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At the top: a photo from 1954, with the year-old Casa View Elementary School on the left (in its original square shape, with an unusual-for-the-time open courtyard in the center); the fairly bleak-looking, treeless Casa View Park is on the right. The view is to the west, with Farola at the top, Monterrey on the left, and Itasca at the bottom and right.

Below, from January, 1966 — a view toward the south:

casa-view-elementary_park_aerial_squire-haskins_jan-1966_dallas-municipal-archives_portal

November, 1969 — looking west:

casa-view-elementary_park_aerial_squire-haskins_nov-1969_dallas-municipal-archives_portal

August, 1974 —  looking east:

casa-view-elementary_park_aerial_squire-haskins_aug-1974_dallas-municipal-archives_portal

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Below, with annexation under their belt (and assurance of city services, schools, etc.) developers’ ads like this one began appearing in local newspapers, hoping to entice prospective homeowners to the brand new “Casa View Heights” addition. (The description of these modest homes as “luxury” was a bit of a stretch….) 

casa-view-heights_103049_adOctober, 1949

Here are a couple of interesting pages from the 1952 Dallas Mapsco. Take a look at all that empty white space just waiting to be gobbled up by an ever-sprawling Big D. (The location of the park and school is marked in the second image.)

casa-view_mapsco-1952a


casa-view_mapsco-1952b_marked

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Sources & Notes

The aerial photos are from the Dallas Municipal Archives, and are included in the collection “Dallas Parks Aerial Photographs” provided to UNT’s Portal to Texas History site; all photos above can be found here.

The location of the school and park can be seen here. A present-day aerial view from Google is here.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

Casa Linda Park — 1947-1977

casa-linda_aerial_baseball-diamond_squire-haskins_072047_dallas-municipal-archives_portalThe idyllic Casa Linda countryside, 1947…

by Paula Bosse

Here are several aerial photographs, taken over a 30-year span, showing Casa Linda Park, located east of White Rock Lake — most (if not all) were taken by noted Dallas photographer Squire Haskins. When the little 6.3-acre park opened in 1947, it was described by The Dallas Morning News as “rustic and picturesque” (DMN, Aug. 19, 1947), a description which could be used for the whole Casa Linda area which was being developed at the time by Carl Brown.

The land for Casa Linda Park was purchased by the City of Dallas in March, 1947, and it is bounded by Old Gate Lane on the southwest, the curving San Saba Drive on the north, and what used to be the Santa Fe Railway railroad tracks on the southeast, between White Rock Lake and Buckner Blvd. I’m not exactly sure where Little Forest Hills ends and Casa Linda begins, but both neighborhoods could claim this cute little park as their own, I suppose.

These aerial photos are from the Dallas Municipal Archives, via the Portal to Texas History (links can be found at the bottom of this post). All photos are larger when clicked. See your house?

At the top, the earliest photo of the park in this collection, taken in July, 1947 by Squire Haskins.

Below, the second Haskins photo, from 1954:

casa-linda_aerial_baseball-diamond_squire-haskins_1954_dallas-municipal-archives_portal

Below, another Haskins photo, from January, 1966:

casa-linda-park_aerial_baseball-diamond_squire-haskins_jan-1966_dallas-municipal-archives_portal

Another Haskins photo, from July, 1970:

casa-linda_aerial_baseball-diamond_squire-haskins_july-1970_dallas-municipal-archives_portal

And lastly, a photo by an unidentified photographer, from July, 1977 — 30 years to the month after the photo at the top was taken:

casa-linda-park_aerial_july-1977_dallas-municipal-archives_portal

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An aerial Google view of the park today can be seen here.

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Sources & Notes

These photos are from the Dallas Municipal Archives, and are included in the collection “Dallas Parks Aerial Photographs” provided to UNT’s Portal to Texas History site; all photos above can be found here.

See aerials of nearby Casa View Park — taken by Squire Haskins between 1954 and 1974 — in the Flashback Dallas post “Casa View Elementary/Casa View Park — 1954-1974,” here.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Cowtown Extra: Fort Worth Zookeeper Ham Hittson and His Forest Park Friends

FW-zoo_hamilton-hittson_fawn_062937_UTAZookeeper Hittson and tiny friend…

by Paula Bosse

Today, Fort Worth. I was looking for photos of the old Forest Park in Oak Cliff (which was renamed Marsalis Park in 1925) and came across photos of the Forest Park Zoo. A search on the internet showed me that there was also a Forest Park Zoo in Fort Worth. I’ve never actually been a big fan of zoos, but I saw the photo above and was won over by its sheer cuteness. So let’s just take a little trip westward and enjoy some photos of cute animals, most of which feature zookeeper Henry Hamilton (“Ham”) Hittson.

Ham Hittson (1912-1966) began working as a zookeeper at the Forest Park Zoo in the early 1930s — if his obituary is correct, he became the zoo’s director in 1933 — at the age of only 21! During World War II he served for two years in the Coast Guard, assigned to work with sentry and attack dogs and with patrol horses. After the war he returned to the zoo (he was the director of the zoo for 21 years) and eventually became the director of the Fort Worth Park Department. His 1966 obituary (he was only 54 when he died) noted that he was instrumental in forming the Fort Worth Zoological Association. And, well, these photos are very sweet.

(All photos are from the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. Click pictures to see larger images; click the link below each photo for more information.)

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The photo at the top is my favorite — it shows Hittson with a tiny fawn born the previous day. The photo above and the one below were taken on June 29, 1937.

FW-zoo_hamilton-hittson_fawn_062937-b_UTAMore info here

Below, Hittson with a new baby lion cub named Will (June 29, 1939).

FW-zoo_hamilton-hittson_lion-cub_062939_UTAMore info here

Actor Jimmy Stewart stopped by the zoo on May 22, 1953 to check out the zoo’s new rhinoceros, Marilyn Monroe. F. Kirk Johnson, zoological board president, is at the left and Hittson, then park department director, is at the right.

FW-zoo_jimmy-stewart_052253_UTAMore info here

Back to Ham’s zookeeper days: in the photo below (taken on August 2, 1940), he’s standing with one of the zoo’s top attractions, an elephant named Queen Tut. He’s bidding her farewell as he is about to leave for New York where he will pick up a baby elephant to be her companion. (Hittson and the zoo’s veterinarian brought the one-year-old elephant back with them in a trailer — they must have attracted a lot of stunned looks along the highway as they drove back from New York.)

FW-zoo_hamilton-hittson_elephant_080240_UTAMore info here

The arrival of this new elephant was big news — there were almost daily updates in the pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In order to buy the elephant, the zoo had had to take out a loan from the bank, and in what was both a speedy way to pay off the debt and a clever way to garner publicity, there followed a successful drive to raise money to pay off the “mortgage”: countless school children happily did their parts by contributing pennies, nickels, and dimes in the fundraising effort and then flocked to the zoo to see the newest member of the zoo family and welcome her to Fort Worth.

And here’s Queen Tut with her new little pal, Penny, on September 10, 1940.

FW-zoo_queen-tut-and-penny_091040_UTAMore info here

Awww.

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Sources & Notes

There are tons of photos of the Forest Park Zoo in the UTA Libraries Special Collections, here (20 pages’ worth!).

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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Girls’ Softball in Dallas, Hugely Popular

girls-softball_WPA-GD_dallas-park-rec-deptSoftball in the park… 

by Paula Bosse

Around 1938, softball suddenly became very, very popular in Dallas. Absolutely everyone seemed to be playing it: boys, girls, moms, dads, kids, businessmen, college students, and senior citizens. By 1939, The Dallas Morning News was calling the sport “the newest Dallas crazy custom.” There were more than 18,000 players playing on more than 300 organized teams, which meant that most of the roughly 100 softball diamonds in the city were constantly in use. It was estimated that more than 700,000 spectators had filled softball bleachers in 1938. These were all, of course, non-professional teams and players,  but there was some concern that this new-found softball enthusiasm might be cutting into attendance for the professional baseball games.

…[B]ut the fact remains that softball is cutting into the gate receipts of professional baseball. When more than 100 softball teams play almost every night in Dallas and hundreds of fans watch the games there certainly must be vacant seats at the stadium where professionals are doing their stuff for the Texas League. (Dallas Morning News, June 16, 1939)

Most interesting about this “fad” is that girls’ softball league games became extremely popular. These teams were often affiliated with local companies (Metzger’s Milk, Dunlap-Swain, etc.), and their sponsored games drew very large crowds, usually more than the men’s games did. The Dallas Morning News reported that attendance at the regular Friday night games in 1939 was something like five or six thousand. Some of the girls even became minor local celebrities.

baseball_teammates-of-fort-worth-cats_william-langley_nd_portal
Fort Wort at bat (via Portal to Texas History)

Coverage of the women’s games by the local press was solid, but coverage of the women themselves seemed more like a good excuse to run photos of the “girls” in skimpy uniforms rather than focus on their athletic ability. But I’m sure the girls shrugged it off and were just happy to be playing a sport they loved.

girls-softball_1940

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Below, the 1943 Dallas Girls’ Softball League champions, the Metzer Dairy Maids. I love their names so much I want to type them out:

Tinker Tarker
Mutt McFanning
Aubrey Ray
Thelma Lowe
Pat Bell
Faustine Riley
Beatrice Draper
Flo Dyer
Opal Ritter
Annie Jo Floyd
Alma Floyd
Genevieve Dobbins
Pud Adams

girls-softball_dmn_071843
DMN, July 18, 1943

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Sources & Notes

Top photo from the WPA Dallas Guide and History.

Second photo by Dallas photographer William Langley, from the collection of the Birdville Historical Society, via the Portal to Texas History.

Even though these company-sponsored teams were often in city- and state-wide leagues, they were all comprised of amateur players. That’s not to say money wasn’t being made. A lot of tickets were being sold, and companies got a lot of publicity for their winning teams. In fact, companies often scouted for players and hired them solely based on their athletic prowess — this is exactly how Babe Didrikson, generally considered one of the greatest all-round athletes in history, ended up working for an insurance company in the Interurban Building in downtown Dallas. (Read all about that in my previous post, “Babe Didrikson, Oak Cliff Typist.”)

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Iola Bridge

iola-bridge_city-park_ca-1908“Looks like California…” — City Park, ca. 1908

by Paula Bosse

Old postcards of (Old) City Park always seem kind of mysterious to me. I’m fascinated by photos of what was, for many years, Dallas’ only park. It was very big and beautifully landscaped — and it was one of the things about the city that those of earlier generations were most proud of. The postcard views above and below are from the early days of the twentieth century, and, sadly, those views don’t exist anymore — it’s hard to believe they EVER existed here. Even though there’s a hint of what you might see at Reverchon Park, there’s little else about these images that looks like the Dallas of today. What a shame!

But what’s the story behind the attractive little “Iola” bridge? Built in 1905, it was, apparently, Dallas’ first (or possibly second) concrete bridge. The Iola bridge was far sturdier than the wooden bridges around Dallas, and a concrete bridge also required very little upkeep. In fact, this little bridge “of ornamental design” is actually kind of important — it was often cited by city planners and commissioners when discussing the construction of future bridges around the city.

concrete-bridges_dmn_081005Dallas Morning News, Aug. 10, 1905

It seems wooden bridges were being washed away almost as often as Dallas courthouses were burning down. In a letter that appeared in The News on Feb. 21, 1911, it was noted that, while wooden bridges were “under constant repair,” the concrete Iola bridge “has not required one dollar of outlay […] during its six years of existence.” So … cheaper and sturdier. Bye-bye, wooden bridges!

But “Iola”… where did that name come from? I thought it might have been the name of a wife or mother of a mayor or planner, but I suspect it was merely the name of the company that donated the cement for the bridge’s construction, the Iola Portland Cement Company. The company’s canny “civic donation” ultimately paid off BIG for them in the end. Not only did they supply the cement to build that first very pretty little bridge in a very pretty park, they also, ultimately, got whopping new orders from the city for all those new concrete bridges that began to be built — including, less than ten years later (when the Iola company’s West Dallas plant had been sold to the TEXAS Portland Cement Co.), the Trinity River-spanning Oak Cliff/Houston Street viaduct, which, when it opened in 1912, was the longest concrete bridge in the WORLD! And it all began with that unassuming bridge in scenic City Park, just south of the central business district.

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iola-bridge_watermelon-kid

iola-bridge_dmn_100921aDMN, 1921

Below, a couple of views showing the charming and rather more rustic wooden bridges in the park.

bridge_city-park_watermelon-kid

wooden-bridges_city-park_watermelon-kid

iola-cement_directory-1905Ad from the 1905 Dallas directory

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Sources & Notes

Top postcard found somewhere on the internet. All other postcards from The Watermelon Kid — here.

Black and white photo by Victor H. Schoffelmayer appeared in The Dallas Morning News on Oct. 9, 1921; it was one of several photographs of the Iola bridge, taken by members of the Dallas Camera Club.

A Dallas Morning News article from July 14, 1905 detailing the new improvements to City Park (including the concrete bridge) can be read here. (I don’t think the really wonderful-sounding “cascade” was ever built — and that’s a pity, because it sounds like it would have been beautiful!)

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Easter Egg Hunt at City Park — 1924

easter-egg-hunt_dmn_041924-photoHunters and their patrons, 1924… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Happy Easter! Here’s what was going on at about this time, 91 years ago.

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Osteopathic Clinic Fetes Children With Easter Egg Hunt

The church committee of the free osteopathic clinic at the First Unitarian Church, Ervay and St. Louis streets, entertained seventy-five children of the clinic at an Easter egg hunt in City Park Friday afternoon. Real Easter eggs were hidden by the ladies of the committee about the park, and where the close-cropped grass did not provide good hiding places about the tree trunks, nests were made in the sand.

After the youngsters had been released to hunt, they pursued the quest vigorously, to the accompaniment of shrill cries of delight, until all the eggs were found, the members of the committee distributed Easter baskets filled with candy eggs for the children to eat. Later they were taken to the church, where refreshments were served.

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Sources & Notes

Photo and caption from The Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1924.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.