Our beautiful Pecan Tree! (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Ever since I realized that 2015 was the sesquicentennial for what may the world’s most famous pecan tree, I’d planned to do a nice post worthy of such an occasion. Except that, as usual, time seems to be slipping away from me, and I have time today to post only a few photos of one of my very favorite local landmarks.
The pecan tree — or, the Pecan Tree (it deserves to be capitalized) — is in Highland Park on Armstrong Parkway at Preston Road, and if you grew up in the Dallas area, driving past the huge tree decorated with lights is an annual Christmas ritual. I remember when I was going through my sullen teen years how I always rolled my eyes when my parents said we were going to go see the Pecan Tree — but when we got to the tree and saw it … it was just wonderful.
The tree began life in 1865 (!) as a sprout in the middle of a cornfield owned by the Coles, one of Dallas’ pioneer families. In October of that year, young Joe Cole, just returned from the Civil War, was working the field and discovered the little plant in a furrow, crushed under the wheels of his wagon. The story goes that Joe, still overwhelmed from the horrors of war, got out of his wagon and replanted the sprig, taking pains over the years to make sure it grew into a large healthy tree. And it did.
I discovered recently that the very first house I lived in was Joe’s old farmhouse, part of which, somehow, was still standing across from North Dallas High School into the 1980s. I’ve always felt a kinship with that tree, and it’s nice to know that my very first home was the home of the man responsible for the tree that has given so much pleasure to so many people. Thank you, Joe!
Below, a short, six-and-a-half-minute film about the history of the tree, produced by KERA: “Million Dollar Monarch,” directed by Rob Tranchin.
UPDATE: Sadly, the Pecan Tree did not make it to its 154th Christmas. The Highland Park landmark was cut down in October, 2019, a victim of age and disease. The nearby “sister tree,” which was grafted from the older tree in the 1950s, has taken its place on center stage. Several articles on this sad development can be read on the Park Cities People website here.
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Sources & Notes
First two photos were reproduced as promotional postcards by the Park Cities Bank in the 1970s; thanks to the Lone Star Library Annex for allowing me to use these images. Source of other photos as noted.
Read about the tree on the Highland Park website, here.
More about the history of the tree can be found in a 1933 article from The Dallas Morning News, with memories from the then-92-year-old Joseph Cole: “Million-Dollar Tree of Dallas, Big Pecan Centering Parkway, Set Up by Hand of Man Now 92” (DMN, March 5, 1933).
A 2012 report on the aging tree can be found in a Dallas Morning News article by Melissa Repko, here.
This famed Pecan Tree was planted in the fall of 1865, which would make this its 150th anniversary. I haven’t seen any mention of this. I know the tree has been in bad shape at times throughout the years, but I’m pretty sure it’s still standing. I haven’t seen the tree this year, but it was still looking pretty impressive last year. Happy 150th, Pecan Tree!
Mad tree-trimming fun ahead (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Above, Woodrow kids with a Christmas tree crammed into their convertible, taking a moment to wave at someone in the distance, probably a classmate coming out of Harrell’s Drug Store. Next stop, wholesome 1950s tree-trimming fun, complete with mugs of warm cocoa and Perry Como singing about Christmas on the radio.
If you’re familiar with Lakewood, it might take a second to get your bearings, but this was Abrams Road. It’s now the short stretch known as Abrams Parkway, directly across Abrams from the Lakewood Whole Foods — it basically serves as a parking lot for the businesses now occupying these buildings.
Here is a list of the businesses seen in this 1951 photo, along with what currently occupies those same buildings:
2023 Abrams: then, Lakewood Sporting Goods; now, part of Curiosities
2025 Abrams (mostly out of frame): then, Teter Plumbing Co.; now, Curiosities (an emporium of eclectic antiques and overall super-cool stuff)
Just out of frame to the right, a couple of doors down, was the old El Chico restaurant, now Hollywood Feed.
A detail of a page from the 1952 Mapsco, which will be confusing to those who might not know about the weird “Abrams Bypass” that happened in the early ’80s (click for larger image).
Here’s what this strip looks like today (or recently, anyway — Legal Grounds is now The Heights):
Google Street View
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Photo from the 1952 Woodrow Wilson High School yearbook, The Crusader. Apologies for the quality — the photo appeared across two pages and was scanned at a pretty low resolution. It’s still pretty cool, though.
To see a magnified detail of the businesses on the left half of the photo, click here; for those on the right half, click here.
Since I don’t have access to a street directory showing this block’s info in 1951, here are the businesses that occupied that block per the 1948 and 1953 directories:
When in doubt, click pictures to see if they get bigger — they usually do!
I don’t know what the story is behind this photograph of Santa Claus riding on the back of a three-wheeled motorcycle (they were used by the Dallas Police Department to patrol downtown streets for parking violations). Maybe Santa’s sleigh has broken down and he’s thumbed a ride to get to a scheduled event at a department store. Let’s hope it wasn’t the result of said sleigh being parked in a No Parking zone and a rather too strenuous ticket dispute by Mr. Claus necessitating a visit to the station to discuss the situation further. (Look at the brick-paved street!)
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I’m not sure of the original source of this photo, but I want to thank reader Chris Walker for sending this to me. Thank you, Chris!
The 200 block of Central Ave., about 1937… (Dallas Public Library photo)
by Paula Bosse
I’ve seen this photograph of Deep Ellum for years, and I’ve always loved it. But for some reason, I always thought this showed Elm Street — across from the Knights of Pythias Temple, just west of Good-Latimer (probably because that’s where a recent club with the same name was located). In fact, this scene was captured a couple of blocks west, just north of Elm, on Central Avenue, sometimes referred to as Central Track, along the Houston & Texas Central railroad tracks — a part of Deep Ellum that’s been gone for more than 60 years.
After Central Expwy. replaced Central Ave. (1952 Mapsco)
This area — which many have described as being the very heart of Deep Ellum in the 1920s through the 1940s (and which was somewhat ironically referred to as “the gay white way of the Negro in Dallas” by an uncredited WPA writer) — was demolished to make way for the construction of North Central Expressway (which closely followed the H&TC Railway tracks). This photo was taken in the 200 block of North Central Avenue, looking south toward Elm (the building farthest in the background, jutting out to the left, is across Elm, on the south side of the street). To the immediate left of this photo (out of frame) was the old union depot (read about it here).
You can see that the Sanborn map from 1921 shows that same building jutting out. (See the full Sanborn map here; it might be more helpful to see this detail rotated to show the same view as the photo, here.)
1921 Sanborn map, detail (click for larger image)
Information about The Gypsy Tea Room is scant. The proprietor was a man named Irvin Darensbourg, whose family was from the black community of Killona, Louisiana in St. Charles Parish; they appear to have been of French Creole extraction, and the family’s last name was probably correctly spelled as D’Arensbourg.
The Darensbourgs were an interesting family (and not just because their mother’s maiden name was Louise Jupiter!). There were several children, and at least two of them were professional musicians: Percy Darensbourg (1899-1950) and Caffery (often spelled “Caffrey”) Darensbourg (1901-1940). Both played with several jazz bands, and Percy even made a few recordings, playing banjo. Below are a couple of promotional photos showing them at work in the 1920s, when they were still based in New Orleans, before they settled in Dallas. (These are cropped details — click pictures to see the full photos.)
Percy Darensbourg, with Lee Collins‘ band, 1925 or 1926:
Listen to Percy on banjo, here:
And, below, Caffery Darensbourg, with Manuel Perez’s Garden of Joy Orchestra (click photo to see full band — the other band members are identified here):
The first of the brothers to arrive in Dallas from New Orleans was Percy, in about 1929, and for the next few years he continued to make his living as a professional musician. Caffery followed in 1932 and opened the short-lived Frenchie’s Creole Inn on Boll Street. Their non-musician brother Irvin was here by 1935 and promptly opened the Green Tavern at 217 Central Avenue, just a few doors down from Percy’s drinking establishment, the Central Tavern Inn, at 223 Central. At about this same time, Percy was also running a club at 3120 Thomas called The Gay Paree — which The Dallas Morning News described as a “swanky negro night club” (April 12, 1938) in a short mention of Percy’s being fined for selling alcohol to an already-inebriated customer.
But back to that 200 block of Central Avenue — the one pictured in the photo at the top. Between 1937 and 1939, Irvin also owned/ran a small restaurant or cafe — and later a pool hall — out of 219½ Central. The Darensbourgs had that block locked up.
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In 1935, a song called “In a Little Gypsy Tea Room” by Bob Crosby swept the country. It was a huge hit. Suddenly there were scads of places popping up all over calling themselves The Gypsy Tea Room or The Little Gypsy Tea Room. Some might have been actual tearooms, but there were also a lot of clubs and bars with the “tea room” name — the most famous of these was The Gypsy Tea Room in the Tremé district of New Orleans, at Villere & St. Ann, which opened the same year the song was being played incessantly by every dance band in the nation. This famous New Orleans nightclub booked the biggest jazz bands around and was a legendary musician’s hangout.
The Darensbourgs most likely knew the club, its owner, its patrons, and the musicians who played there. Perhaps Irvin Darensbourg decided to name his own little Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas in honor of the New Orleans landmark. Whatever the case, Deep Ellum’s Gypsy Tea Room appears to have come and gone fairly quickly (and one assumes there was more than tea being sipped inside).
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The life of a tavern and club operator could be a hard one, especially in those days, especially in the black neighborhoods of Deep Ellum and North Dallas. Irvin seemed to be forever sleeping on a relative’s couch and had a different address every few months. By 1940 he had moved to Fort Worth to open another bar, and after that … I’m not sure what became of him — but one hopes that he met a less violent end than his brothers did here in Dallas. According to Caffery’s death certificate, he died in 1940 after having been shot in the abdomen while “in a public place.” His death was ruled a homicide. Percy, who by all indications was the most stable and successful of the brothers, was also killed — in 1950 he was stabbed in the neck (!) while out on the street at 4:20 AM.
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As for the original photograph, I’ve pored over it and looked through directories, but I can’t pinpoint the exact year this photo was taken or determine what the actual address of the Gypsy Tea Room was. Since it was mentioned in the WPA Dallas Guide and History, which was written and compiled between 1936 and 1940 and contains the only contemporary mention of the Tea Room, my guess is that this photograph was taken about 1937, as this was the last year that Old Tom’s Tavern (209 ½ Central) seems to have been in business (although the bar that replaced it was owned by the same person, and the sign seen in this photograph could well have remained up for a while).
Craig’s Cafe, at 213 Central, was in business between 1929 and at least 1946 when property began to be demolished in order to begin construction on the expressway. The Gypsy Tea Room looks to be either two or three doors down from Craig’s place. My guess is that it’s 219 Central. The 1937 street directory has Irvin Darensbourg (whose name is constantly mangled and misspelled everywhere) listed as being the proprietor of both the Green Tavern (at 217 Central) as well as an unnamed restaurant at 219-A (sometimes written as 219 ½) Central. The 1938 and 1939 directories specify Darensbourg’s business at this address in those years is a pool hall, not a restaurant. So I’m going to venture that Irvin Darensbourg ran the Gypsy Tea Room at 219 Central Avenue in 1937.
1937 Dallas directory
That was exhausting!
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Sources & Notes
Photo of the Gypsy Tea Room at the top of this post is from the Texas/Dallas History & Archives Division of the Dallas Public Library: “Gypsy Tea Room Cafe located in Deep Ellum” is from the WPA Dallas Guide & History Collection of the Dallas Public Library — its call number is PA85-16/22.
Thanks to Bob Dunn of the Lone Star Library Annex for deciphering “Darensbourg” from this badly garbled printed name on the Gypsy Tea Room sign.
Here are a few of the numerous ways this Darensbourg’s family’s name is misspelled across the internet:
And I’m still not actually sure whether it’s “Irvin” or “Irving,” or “Caffery” or “Caffrey.”
When clicked, the photo of Percy Darensbourg above opens up to show the full band — the personnel is identified in a caption from the book Oh, Didn’t He Ramble: The Life Story of Lee Collins: “Lee’s band in Dallas, 1925 or 1926. From the left: Coke Eye Bob (Arthur Joseph?), Mary Brown, Freddie ‘Boo-Boo’ Miller, Octave Crosby, Henry Julien, ‘Professor’ Sherman Cook, Lee, and Percy Darensburg [sic].”
A couple of other versions of “In a Little Gypsy Tea Room,” if you must:
The version by The Light Crust Doughboys (no strangers to Deep Ellum), recorded in 1935 in Dallas at 508 Park, is here.
The at-least-peppier version by Louis Prima and His New Orleans Gang, also recorded in 1935, is here.
See what the area once occupied by the vibrant street life of Central Track looks like now, here. The expressway overpass is now planted about where the photo was taken. It’s a shame this important part of town — in a way it was Dallas’ second downtown — was bulldozed into oblivion.
Here’s what 7:18 PM looked like at the old five-point intersection of Ervay, Live Oak, and Elm streets on January 7, 1953, a Wednesday night. All that neon — especially that Coca-Cola sign, which was probably flashing and strobing like crazy — gives this scene a sort of mini-Times Square feel. Imagine this intersection on a Friday or Saturday night when the streets and sidewalks would have been packed with people heading to theaters, restaurants, and night clubs!
On the left, at the street light (I love those street lights!) and the Walgreen’s sign, is N. Ervay. To the left of the Coca-Cola sign is Live Oak, which used to come through to Elm. To the right, Elm Street, heading east.
So many interesting things here: the Mayflower Coffee Shop (with its “Anytime Is Donut Time” clock and its animated Maxwell House Coffee sign), that incredible neon sign above the Lee Optical store which gave the forecast, that Fred Astaire Dance Studios sign (with “Astaire” in a fantastic neon font), and the Tower and Majestic theater signs lit up for moviegoers who ventured to the movies on a school night. Unseen: the public restrooms (or “public comfort stations”) hidden beneath the street, with the entrance (I think) on the Lee Optical triangular “corner.”
I love all the neon, but this quiet little vignette of a woman carrying some sort of sack or parcel down a chilly downtown street is why I wish I had been around back then — it’s weird to feel nostalgia for a time and place you never actually experienced.
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A map showing that this intersection once had five points.
1952 Mapsco (click for larger image)
A listing of the businesses along Live Oak, between N. Ervay and N. St. Paul, from the 1953 city directory (click to read):
And the businesses along Elm, between N. Ervay and the old Dallas Athletic Club:
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Sources & Notes
This photograph — an untitled night scene — was taken by Squire Haskins on Jan. 7, 1953; from the Squire Haskins Photography, Inc. Collection at the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections, accessible here.
See this same view during the DAY in the post “Tomorrow’s Weather at Live Oak & Elm — 1955-ish,” here.
Above, a wonderful photo showing Highway 67 (now East R. L. Thornton Freeway and I-30) splitting off into Highway 80, just east of Loop 12/Buckner Blvd., surrounded by lots and lots of open land. At the top right, along Buckner, you can see the Buckner Drive-In, above it the original location of the Devil’s Bowl Speedway, and farther over, to the left, White Rock Airport. Part of the sprawling property belonging to the Buckner Orphans Home can be seen at the bottom left. Today, this is right about at the Dallas/Mesquite border. Except for the highways, this is pretty unrecognizable today!
Here is a second photo, dated Jan. 4, 1951, with Oscar Slotboom’s caption below (from Slotboom’s exhaustively researched book and website, Dallas-Fort Worth Freeways).
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The Buckner Orphans Home was founded in 1879; it was both a home for orphaned children and a working farm, and at its height, it occupied some 3,000 acres of land (!). Take a look at a 1911 photo here to give you an idea of the size of the place. The buildings seen at the bottom left of the photo above were houses used by Buckner staff; the Home itself is out of frame.
Buckner Children’s Home
White Rock Airport opened about 1941 and was in use until 1974. Here is a photo of it soon after it opened.
White Rock Airport
(Several more photos and memories about this airport can be found here.)
Devil’s Bowl Speedway opened in March, 1941. If you wanted to see jalopy races, you headed to Devil’s Bowl. (DBS is still around, nearby, at a different location.)
The Buckner Boulevard Drive-In opened on June 4, 1948. It was the first drive-in in Dallas to have individual car speakers that one placed in one’s car. (More on the Buckner Drive-In can be found at Cinema Treasures, here.)
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Sources & Notes
Top photo is from the TxDOT Photo Files and can be viewed on the Texas State Archives’ Flickr page, here; the date is given as “circa 1940,” but as the drive-in didn’t open until 1948, the date of the photo is probably closer to 1950. (The second aerial photograph — from Oscar Slotboom’s fantastic Dallas-Fort Worth Freeways — is dated 1951, so I’ve updated the title of this post.)
Thanks to Mark’s comment below, I’ve found this detail of a 1957 topo map from the United States Geological Survey. It’s a few years after the photo above was taken, but it shows the layout of the Buckner Children’s Home more fully. (The east-west highway called “East Pike” here is now known as Samuell Blvd.) Click map for larger image.
The Dallas/Mesquite city limits boundaries have moved over the years, but a current view of the boundary — which involves the area seen in this photo (seriously, this exact area) — can be seen here.
Below, a current Google Maps view of this interchange:
And, if like me, you need some helpful guidance:
Thanks to members of the Dallas History Facebook group for helping me figure out what I was looking at, especially David and Chuck — thanks, guys!
Above, Dallas lunch ladies shelling what looks like black-eyed peas for an unidentified school’s midday meal. I can’t say I’ve ever imagined lunchroom employees ever doing something like this. In the 1920s and ’30s, schools used fresh foods when they could, but they were definitely using a lot of canned fruits and vegetables, too. All this effort — and all these women — for peas.
In a quick search for what school lunch menus were like in the late ’20s and early ’30s, here were a few delicacies that would never be found in a school cafeteria these days:
Roast veal
Sardine sandwiches
Creamed onions
“Italian hash”
Banana and peanut salad
Salmon loaf
Tongue salad
Stuffed dates
Prune whip/prune salad/prune pudding
Yummy!
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Sources & Notes
Photo from the Texas/Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library.
The Oak Cliff church’s first pastor? (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
I stumbled across this photograph tonight and was really taken with it. It shows a man standing in front of the Winnetka Congregational Church in Oak Cliff, located at W. Twelfth and S. Windomere streets — on land now part of the property of the W. E. Greiner school. The church was organized in 1914, but by 1925 they were making plans to expand. A new church was built in 1929, just across W. Twelfth, facing Windomere.
The new building still stands, but Winnetka Congregational Church doesn’t seem to have made it past the 1950s.
Nice though that newer church is, I think I prefer the smaller one from 1914 with the uncomfortable-looking man standing in front of it.
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Sources & Notes
Top photo from the Tulane University Digital Library (with the name of the church misspelled as “Winnietka”), here.
I love Sanborn maps. Here’s one from 1922 which shows what the neighborhood looked like then. The original small wood frame church can be seen just north of a neighborhood completely undeveloped, except for the Winnetka School. Check out the very large map, here.
Background on the church can be found on the Oak Cliff Yesterday blog, here.
If you REALLY want to learn about this church’s history, there is a book, History of Winnetka Congregational Church, Dallas, Texas by Sarah E. Johnson (1935). Looks like the Dallas Public Library has a copy, here.
And, lastly,here’s what the church built in 1929/1930 looks like today. (The original church was built in the area seen in the background, now part of the Greiner campus.)
The girls’ basketball (or “basket ball”) team of Dallas High School (later known as Crozier Tech) had a great season in 1915! They won 7 of their 8 games, losing only to Fort Worth’s Polytechnic High (by one measly basket). Most of their opponents were trampled by the DHS team, several managing to score no more than a mere 2 or 4 points (!). And, let’s face it, without the drag caused by those elaborate and cumbersome uniforms and … um … headgear, DHS would no doubt have scored even higher.
Below, the roster (containing some great names like Helmo, Valliant, Floy, and Ollie).
And the wrap-up of the season, from the yearbook, with more than a hint of bitterness toward the Fort Worth team:
And the boys’ team? Oh dear. They won only 4 out of 8 games. But at least their uniforms were better suited to the sport.
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Sources & Notes
From the pages of the 1915 Dallas High School yearbook — the “Dal-Hi” annual.
I think this is the Carousel Club. It might not be. The source of this photo is a bad, bad, bad, spammy site with loud commercials. They get no credit from me. “No soup for you!”
Our beautiful Pecan Tree! (click for larger image)
Flashback : Dallas 