Photographs | Flashback : Dallas

December 1, 2015

American Airlines, Planes-a-Plenty — 1951

american-airlines_russell-lee_briscoe-1 “Dallas Terminal” / ©Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

by Paula Bosse

A few photos of Love Field, hangars, and American Airlines airplanes, all taken in 1951 by Russell Lee for a story in Fortune magazine.

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american-airlines_briscoe-3

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american-airlines_briscoe-5

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Photos ©Dolph Briscoe Center for American History; all photos are by Russell Lee from the collection of his photographs at the University of Texas at Austin. I am unable to post links because I can no longer find them on the website (!).

This time pictures aren’t larger when clicked. All apologies to fans of the wonderful Russell Lee, for these less-than-crisp images.

4 Comments

November 22, 2015

Dealey Plaza and The Triple Underpass Under Construction — 1935

Cleared for construction…

by Paula Bosse

Dealey Plaza and the triple underpass were envisioned as an impressive “Gateway to Dallas” — for visitors arriving from the west, this attractive and welcoming sight would be their first impression of the city. Construction was completed in 1936 as the city was preparing for its mammoth Texas Centennial celebration. Little did anyone know back when these photos were taken in 1935 that “Dealey Plaza” and “Triple Underpass” would one day be place names known around the world and that the not-at-all remarkable Southern Rock Island Plow Co. building seen in both of these photos would become a must-see site for almost every out-of-town visitor to the city.

Triple Underpass and pedestrian tunnel under construction

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Sources & Notes

The top photo, showing the cleared land that will become Dealey Plaza is from The Hayes Collection, Dallas Public Library Texas/Dallas History and Archive Division; I found it in the book Dallas Then and Now by Ken Fitzgerald (San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2001).

Bottom photo showing the “triple underpass and south pedestrian tunnel under construction” was posted by M. C. Toyer in a very interesting Phorum discussion on this area (with a lot of great photos), here.

Below are related Flashback Dallas posts:

More on Dealey Plaza can be found here.
More on the Triple Underpass can be found here.
More on the John F. Kennedy assassination can be found here.

2 Comments

November 19, 2015

Selling Kidd Springs Heights, 1909-1910

The L. A. Wilson Co. is having a sale! (photo: SMU)

by Paula Bosse

The above photo shows a car-and-buggy convoy belonging to the L. A. Wilson Land, Loan & Investment Company, stretched out in front of the Gaston Building at Commerce and S. Lamar. There’s a “Sale To Day” and they’re really pushing property in the Kidd Springs Addition in Oak Cliff. The date “April 20, 1910” is written on the back of the photo, and if that’s true, the big show here might be rooted more in desperation than in enthusiasm. The Wilson company began selling the 30-or-so lots in the new Kidd Springs Heights neighborhood in July of the previous year. An ad that appeared seven months before this photo was taken announced that there were only ten lots left. It looks like this was an impassioned display to make Kidd Springs seem more exciting and move that remaining property. People love parades.

(This is another great photo to zoom in on to see the details. All images are larger when clicked.)

The L. A. Wilson Co. was a fairly large real estate company founded by Missouri-born Lewis A. Wilson (1851-1926); at the time of this photo, the company’s offices were in the Gaston Building at 213 Commerce. (In the photo immediately above, I think the man with the moustache is Mr. Wilson.)

Dallas Morning News, July 4, 1909 (ad detail)

The first ad announcing the sale of lots in the Kidd Springs Heights area of Oak Cliff appeared on July 4, 1909. It included the two blocks north of what is now W. Canty, bounded by Turner Ave. on the west and N. Tyler (and Kidd Springs Park) on the east.

DMN, July 4, 1909

Four weeks later, a huge half-page ad ran in The Dallas Morning News, full of wonderful reasons why life would be better in Kidd Springs Heights:

The newest theory of scientists is that one should sleep at least eighty or ninety feet above the level of the city – and thus escape the germs which are particularly active during the hours of darkness. Here then is the place for your home. Here then is the place for investment. Kidd Springs Heights is higher than the top of the court house. Up where the cooling breezes are found on the hottest of hot days; where the air is ozone-laden; where the nights are cool and refreshing and where insomnia soon becomes naught but a dim memory.

The effusive sales copy is definitely worth a read (click ad below to read the full sales pitch).

DMN, Aug. 1, 1909

Six weeks later the following self-congratulatory ad appeared. (It’s interesting to note that of the twenty lots sold, two of them had been sold to Mrs. L. A. Wilson, and one each had been sold to the two salesmen. The next year’s telephone directory showed that the Wilsons lived on Live Oak, and the two salesmen lived in boarding houses.)

DMN, Sept. 12, 1909

It wasn’t until 1921 that the tiny little Kidd Springs Heights was annexed to the city of Dallas.

DMN, May 14, 1921

Things may be different today, but in 1909, these were the boundaries of Kidd Springs Heights.

The most interesting odd thing about Kidd Springs Heights? There appear to be two brick archways placed (very awkwardly) across Turner Avenue from one another — each spanning the sidewalk. I can’t find any information about these, but it looks as if they were set right at the northern boundary of the Kidd Springs Heights Addition. Old maps (such as this one from 1919) show no development to the north of this boundary up into at least the ’20s (it doesn’t look as if this addition is even in Oak Cliff proper), so I guess they were there before those sidewalks and served as a welcoming gateway to a new development where germs did not dwell after nightfall.

900 block of Turner Avenue (Google Street View)

(Check out both of these markers on Google Street View, here. It’s pretty strange-looking.)

If anyone has information on these markers, please pass it along!

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is titled “L. A. Wilson Land Loan Investment Company, Gaston Building, Commerce Street” — the photographer’s name and the date are written on the back: W. R. Lindsay, April 20, 1910. It is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University, and it can be viewed here. I have adjusted the color.

Lewis A. Wilson’s biography can be read in A History of Greater Dallas and Vicinity (1909), here. His photo:

The Kidd Springs Wikipedia entry is here.

The Sanborn map from 1922 showing this tiny neighborhood at about the middle of the page on the right can be found here. Note how few lots actually have houses built on them. (Taft is now W. Canty; Edwards is now Everts.)

The Murphy & Bolanz map can be seen here. (If the link doesn’t work, you may need to download the plug-in — information on how to do that is here.)

2 Comments

November 16, 2015

The Beginning of the End for Ross Avenue’s Downtown Mansions — 1925

Mansions across from First United Methodist Church, Jan. 1925

by Paula Bosse

The First Methodist Episcopal Church, South (now First United Methodist Church of Dallas) was built in 1924 and 1925 at Ross and North Harwood. It was a large undertaking, and its construction meant that three of the four very large houses in the 1900 block of Ross Avenue, between North St. Paul and North Harwood, had to be demolished, including the house built by Mrs. Miranda Morrill in 1886 at the southwest corner of Ross and Harwood.

For many years, large houses like this — owned by the city’s wealthiest bankers, industrialists, and real estate men — lined Ross Avenue, just to the north of the central business district. But by the 1920s, more and more non-residential development began to encroach into this part of town.

The photograph at the top is pretty amazing, because it shows some of those grand houses in their last days. The north side of the 1900 block of Ross (the block now occupied by the Dallas Museum of Art) contained four lots. In the 1925 construction photo above, there are three houses and a business.

In the detail above, at the far left we see the home of land baron William Caruth (in the book Dallas Rediscovered, William L. McDonald called this little pied-à-terre his “townhouse”) — for decades it sat at the northeast corner of Ross and St. Paul (which had previously been named Masten). Next to it is something that looks like scaffolding or a tower (what is that? — is it a photographer’s perch to document the construction?). Next to it is another grand house, home of several wealthy occupants over the years. And then … a car dealership and garage. How this happened is a mystery, but this 1921 building — which replaced a beautiful house and which sticks out like a sore thumb — belonged to the Flippen Auto Co., complete with showroom on the ground floor and garage and repair facilities on the second floor — it may have had one of the first car elevators in town.

Next to the Flippen Auto Co. was the grandiose Conway House, with its columns and portico; it was built around 1900 at the northwest corner of Ross and Harwood and was the childhood home of pioneer female fashion illustrator Gordon Conway. In 1921 — after a few years as a music conservatory — it became the home of the Knights of Columbus.

Conway House, about 1902

And here’s a photo showing both the Flippen Auto Co. and part of the former Conway House.

On the northeast corner of Ross and Harwood, we can see a large house facing Harwood. Forget the house — on that corner was a tiny little gas station. And glory be, I stumbled across a great photo of the Acme Oil & Supply Co. complete with Texaco pump — probably from around 1919 or 1920.

But back to the construction of what is now the First United Methodist Church of Dallas — a lovely building which still stands and faces the Dallas Museum of Art. Here’s a photograph of the construction from May, 1925.

And here is the postcard filled with an artist’s conception of people to-ing and fro-ing.

And, finally, an aerial view taken above the church in the early 1980s, looking north, showing the same block once bookended by the Caruth and Conway mansions, now leveled to make way for the Dallas Museum of Art.

I think I prefer the view from 75 years earlier.

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Sources & Notes

The two photos taken in 1925 during the construction of the church are from the book Church at the Crossroads, A History of First United Methodist Church, Dallas (Dallas: UMR Communications, 1997); the entire book has been scanned and may be viewed at Archive.org, here (all the photos are at the end).

The photo of the Morrill house is from Mark Doty’s book Lost Dallas (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2012).

Photo of the Conway House is from Dallas Rediscovered by William L. McDonald (Dallas: Dallas Historical Society, 1978).

Photo showing the Flippen Auto Co. and the Conway house from Diane Galloway’s book The Park Cities, A Photohistory.

Photo of the Acme gas station is from Dallas: The Deciding Years by A. C. Greene (Austin: Encino Press, 1973).

The construction of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, South was announced in a Dallas Morning News article on Oct. 5, 1924.

All that’s left of those grand homes is the Belo Mansion. It’s something!

Click pictures to see larger images.

19 Comments

November 14, 2015

Antique Row: The 3300 Block of McKinney Avenue — 1963

Mary Lee’s Antiques, McKinney & Hall, 1963 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

When I read a Facebook post from Big D History about an eBay collection of 75-or-so photos taken around Dallas in the 1950s and ’60s (links-a-plenty at the bottom of this post), I spent a substantial amount of time browsing though them. They’re just amateur snapshots, oddly framed sometimes and a little muddy, but the person who took them focused on what might seem to most of us as being fairly ordinary (sometimes downright mundane) buildings — and that’s great, because people always take photos of the big, important downtown skyscrapers, but hardly anyone takes a photo of an East Dallas apartment building or a suburban bank.

The two photos I was most excited to see showed buildings I recognized instantly, having seen them practically every day of my childhood, passing them on drives to and from my father’s bookstore. The one at the top of this post is my favorite. I knew immediately that it was the old antique store at McKinney & Hall — I never knew its name, but I knew that it had been around before I was born and that my mother had bought one of our family’s nicest pieces of furniture there and paid for it in ten-dollar installments.

I now know that the name of the crazy-looking antique shop my mother bought our hutch from was called Mary Lee’s Antique Center, at 3306 McKinney. It was in business at that location from 1956-ish to the end of 1971. A succession of antique shops moved in when Mary Lee moved out — I never knew the names of any of the businesses in this building, only that they all looked dauntingly FULL (how I managed to never actually go in any of them, I have no idea).

For many years, McKinney Avenue was lined with antique shops, many of which were in very old wood-frame houses which had been converted from homes into businesses.

1961

The old two-story house that Mary Lee was in was one of the largest. The house was built sometime before 1909, and, happily, this little remnant of the past is still standing (though with a weirdly updated exterior), next to its smaller companion building. Oddly situated on its lot, it’s been sitting for over a hundred years at the corner of McKinney and North Hall. Today it is the home of a leasing company; it faces Bread Winners and an eclectic-looking block of bars and restaurants.

Google Street View, 2015

Whether or not it’s true, Mary Lee claimed to have started “Antique Row,” which, in this case, meant the 3300 block of McKinney.

1968

Back in 1959, these dealers were calling themselves “The Antique Circle” and were describing their antique-packed block as “the poet’s row.”

1959

Mary Lee’s — which pretty much sat by itself on the south side of the street — was directly across from a block containing a strip of antique shops. I was glad to see in the same eBay collection a photograph of that north side of the block (probably taken at the same time as the photo at the top of this post).

3300 block of McKinney, north side, 1963 (click for larger image)

Seen above is part of that block, with Anna Belle’s Antiques (misspelled in the ad below) and Jackie’s Antiques (which was owned by Jackie Woods, a family acquaintance — her father had a clock shop, and my mother thinks that Jackie’s store may have been adjacent to it).

1962

1961

The buildings in that block are also still there — they’re nowhere near as old as the house across the street, but it’s still nice to see some old and quirky structures still standing (and staying occupied) along a rapidly changing McKinney Avenue.

Google Street View, 2015

In the 1980s, the cute little houses which, for decades, had been occupied by a variety of businesses — antique shops, boutiques, clothing stores, salons, etc. — began to disappear from McKinney Avenue. Granted, some had seen better days and were in various states of disrepair, but, personally, I thought they were all charming, and I was sad to see them replaced by buildings conspicuously lacking in character. I had grown up seeing those houses and was especially fascinated by the cigar store Indians that seemed to stand in every yard and on every porch. (It’s pretty weird remembering that there were a LOT of wooden Indians along McKinney Avenue — almost as weird as remembering that there were once yards and porches along McKinney Avenue!)

Now, most of those houses are long gone. A handful survive. The one most people might know is the one at 3605 McKinney, at Lemmon Ave. East — I first began lusting after it when it was Jennivine, and it’s nice to see that it’s still around, now as Uptown Pub. From a quick-ish look at its history, it appears to have been built before 1902. I know there are a lot people who love the severely densely-packed 21st-century version of “Uptown,” but wouldn’t that area be a million times nicer if there were still a street full of places like this?

3605 McKinney (Google Street View)

There are also a couple of 100-plus-year-old houses in the 3400 block. Seen below, the one on the left (3403 McKinney, currently occupied by Cliff’s Bar & Grill) appears to have been built in 1897; the very cute house to the right was built before 1909.

Google Street View, 2015

Imagine McKinney Avenue lined with these houses — first as homes, later as funky little shops. It wasn’t that long ago, really….

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Sources & Notes

Both 1963 photos are from eBay, in auctions ending Monday night (Nov. 16, 2015). The top photo showing Mary Lee’s Antiques is here; the one showing Anna Belle’s and Jackie’s antique shops is here. See what the north side of this block looks like today on Google Street View, here; rotate it south and see what Mary Lee’s place looks like these days, and then head one block east to see the two old houses in the 3400 block. Look at what surrounds the wonderful house at McKinney & Lemmon (the old Jennivine), here — rotate the view at your own risk.

The entire eBay collection of Dallas snapshots — being offered in individual auctions which all end over the next couple of days — is here. The descriptions of these photos are written by an eBay seller in Ohio, and now that I’ve seen Big Tex described as “Big Tex Cowboy Man,” I’m all for an official name change. Consider it, SFOT!

I learned about these photos when I saw them mentioned in a Facebook post by the great BigDHistory. Like him on Facebook here, and/or follow him on Twitter @BigDHistory. Thanks, Miles!

For more on McKinney Avenue during this period, read the Dallas Morning News article titled “Poverty, Luxury, Art, Jazz — Changing Scene: The Many Faces of McKinney Ave.” by the always entertaining Helen Bullock (DMN, May 7, 1961).

Click pictures for larger images.

7 Comments

November 11, 2015

“Tough ‘Ombres on Main Street” — WWI Victory Parade, 1919

90th Infantry Division, 1500 block of Main Street (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

In my previous post “From the Vault: Armistice Day! — 1918” (seen here), commenter “Not Bob” linked to the above photo which was taken from almost the exact same vantage point as the photo I had posted previously. This one is much better! It shows the U.S. Army’s 90th Infantry Division (known as the “Tough ‘Ombres”), just back from Europe, marching past the 1500 block of Main Street, heading east. The white building in the center (“Thompson’s”) appears to be the same building currently occupied by Iron Cactus, at 1520 Main.

Great picture — thanks, Not Bob!

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Sources & Notes

This photo was posted by Bob Swanson on Flickr, here. The comments are very interesting and explain why this infantry division was marching in various Texas cities.

More on the 90th Division here and here.

My post “Armistice! — 1918” contains another parade photo taken at the same spot, here.

3 Comments

November 6, 2015

Snag Boat Dallas — 1893

Snag Boat Dallas of Dallas, Trinity River

by Paula Bosse

“Snagboat.” It’s a great word. And if you’ve taken even a glancing look into the history of the Trinity River, you’ve probably come across it. What is it? According to the Wikipedia entry, it is “a river boat, resembling a barge with superstructure for crew accommodations, and deck-mounted cranes and hoists for removing snags and other obstructions from rivers and other shallow waterways.” If you’re from Dallas, “shallow waterway” will immediately bring to mind our very own Trinity River, which, unless it’s flooding, you probably rarely even think of as being an actual river. But Dallas money-men have tried their damnedest for what seems like EVER to make the Trinity do what they wanted it to do.

In the late 19th century, a group of Dallas businessmen organized the Trinity River Navigation and Improvement Company and began to sink large sums of money into it. The goal was to make the Trinity navigable for large boats between the Gulf of Mexico and Dallas. They knew that if they could open this waterway to vessels carrying all manner of freight that they could make a lot of money. A lot.

In order to make the Trinity navigable, it first had to be cleared of all sorts of impassable debris in it, on it, over it, and along it. The stretch of the river around the soon-to-be inland port of Dallas was particularly snarled with all sorts of things making passage of large boats through its waters impossible. A snagboat was needed, and construction on the Snag Boat Dallas of Dallas began in November of 1892.

Dallas Morning News, Nov. 26, 1892

The construction of the boat was followed closely in the Texas papers, and giddy ads/editorials like this one were filling the pages of Dallas newspapers.

ad-water-rates_dmn_011593 DMN, Jan. 15, 1893

“Water rates” — charges for freight shipped via boat — were lower than the rates charged by railroads. Were the Trinity able to support freight traffic, this new competition would mean that railroads would lower their rates, and the savings for manufacturers and builders would be substantial. As a result, manufacturing and building in the city would boom, and before you knew it, Dallas would become “the greatest city ~~on Earth~~ in the South”!

A few days before the official launch of the boat, reporters, businessmen, and the public were invited to a preview. An interesting account in The Galveston Daily News described the boat’s machinery (which included a “liquid battering ram”) and took the reader on a tour of the crew’s quarters (which had separate sleeping and dining areas for black and white crew members, per the “Separate Coach Law” of 1891).

Galveston Daily News, Feb. 19, 1893

The boat began its snagging work in February, 1893, and, in order to keep readers abreast of all Snag Boat Dallas developments, there were almost daily updates on its progress in the newspapers, and (in lieu of photographs) Dallas Morning News illustrators provided scenes of the boat’s important work.

DMN, Feb. 12, 1893

DMN, Feb. 26, 1893

The celebrity snagboat succeeded in clearing the debris, and in May, 1893, the steamer H. A. Harvey, Jr. arrived in Dallas, having, yes, navigated the Trinity River from the Gulf, even though it had faced two months’ worth of difficulties along the way (problematic water levels, low bridges which had to be dismantled in order for it to pass under, underwater impediments which had to be dynamited into oblivion, etc.). When it finally pulled into Dallas — accompanied by the hard-working snagboat that had paved its way — the city shut down and had a massive celebration. The Dallas Morning News went so far as to print several of its pages in red ink (!). This proof that the Trinity River was, in fact, navigable, meant that the city was on the cusp on becoming “the greatest city in the South.” The DMN (which was not shy in its almost rabid boosterism of this project) published an editorial for those Dallasites who might “not fully comprehend” the significance of why they were celebrating.

DMN, May 22, 1893

Dallas would become an important inland port. “It can be done.”

Except that we know that it couldn’t be done. Too many other natural forces were working against the Trinity River entrepreneurs. The Harvey and the snagboat didn’t actually do much after that tumultuous reception in 1893. Sure, they moved some small loads back and forth along the Dallas stretch of the river, but that grand vision of taming the Trinity never came to pass. Even now, more than 120 years later, it still has yet to happen. Dallas has done pretty well without the Trinity River being truly navigable, but people can’t seem to stop trying to somehow monetize it. It’s probably time we just appreciated our little section of the Trinity River for what it is: a little trickle of a river that has (so far) survived everything we’ve tried to do to it in the name of “progress.”

For closure, snagboat fans: the hard-working little Dallas had an ignominious end. It was tied to an old pier and left to rot on the water before it was eventually cannibalized and slowly picked apart. Its end came in January of 1898 when it was finally “broken up.”

rip_dmn_052897 DMN, May 28, 1897

RIP, Snag Boat Dallas of Dallas — we hardly knew ye.

The Harvey (which quietly left town when it was sold to a Louisiana company in 1898) has gotten the lion’s share of the historical attention, but the snagboat is the one that did all the work. Here are two more photos of the Dallas and its crew taking a break from snagging to pose for posterity.

The photo below shows just what the crew of the snagboat was up against. The caption was written by C. A. Keating, president of the Trinity River Navigation Company.

And, finally, what prompted me to find out more about the snagboat in the first place: this ad for the Dallas Lithograph Company from the 1893 city directory. It featured an illustration of a little boat chugging along on the idyllic (and blissfully snag-free) Trinity River, with the Old Red Courthouse in the background and a little tent pitched on the bank. I wasn’t all that familiar with snagboats, but that’s what I thought it looked like. I’m sure it’s supposed to be something grander, but I’ll think of it as a snagboat anyway.

1893 Dallas directory

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Sources & Notes

I came across the top photo (which is from the archives of the Dallas Public Library) on the web page for the 99% Invisible podcast, here. I was so enthralled with the pictures on this page that I didn’t even realize until just now that there was a podcast to listen to, called “The Port of Dallas” — about this very topic! Listen to it at the top of the page — it’s very entertaining. I think Julia Barton and I were separated at birth!

There are lots of other photos on that page, including a photo of the H. A. Harvey, Jr. and a photo showing what the Dallas Morning News looked like printed in red.

Second photo of the Snag Boat Dallas is from the DFW Urban Wildlife blog, here. More great photos there!

The final photo of the Dallas and the photo’s caption are from C. A. Keating’s autobiography, Keating and Forbes Families and Reminiscences of C. A. Keating (Dallas: self-published, 1920).

All other clippings, as noted.

To read about how people have tried and tried and tried over the years to make the Trinity River do what they wanted it to do — and failed — read the article “Navigating the Trinity, A Dream That Endured for 130 Years” by Jackie McElhaney (Legacies, Spring 1991), here.

UPDATE: I swear I was completely unaware of Julia Barton’s podcast about the “Port of Dallas” when I wrote this post, but I’m happy to report there is ALSO a video, from a presentation she did at the TEDxSMU talks in October. Watch it here. (Thanks, for alerting me to that this, Julia — my “internet twin”!)

7 Comments

November 2, 2015

The Dallas News Special: Fast Train to Denison — 1887

The Dallas Morning News, full speed ahead! (Belo Collection, SMU)

by Paula Bosse

In October 1885, The Galveston News decided to launch a sister publication in Dallas, The Dallas Morning News. They sent 26-year-old George Bannerman Dealey to run it. Before that first month was up, go-getter Dealey had made a special arrangement with the Texas & Pacific railroad — “at considerable expense to The News” — to extend its route and pop into Dallas to pick up papers destined for its subscribers west of the city. (The photo at the top may or may not show that very first “Special Mail train.”)

DMN, Oct. 27, 1885 (click for larger image)

A year and a half later, The News one-upped itself and made the announcement that it would operate a special train to Denison — again, “at a vast expense.” This train would transport editions of the paper in the wee small hours in order to assure that The Dallas Morning News would actually BE a morning newspaper for as many of its subscribers as possible, whether they lived “within a block of the press” or a hundred miles away (DMN, Sept. 30, 1888). News-hungry Denisonians could read their papers over breakfast at the same time their Dallas counterparts did.

DMN, May 22, 1887

The train was dubbed by some “The Comet” (not to be confused with the MKT’s later Katy Komet). It was a “fast train” that carried passengers as well as newspapers along the Houston and Texas Central rails.

ad-special-news-train_dmn_052287-det

DMN, May 22, 1887

Not only was this a clever way to extend its reach and expand its circulation, but, as the Handbook of Texas notes, it also “enabled the paper to meet the threat of the St. Louis newspapers, which in 1885 had a larger circulation in North Texas than did any state paper.”

A rousing account of the first Dallas-to-Denison run appeared in the pages of both The Dallas News and The Galveston News (which often shared content). A link to that full story is below, but here are a few passages from an article written the next year, touting the wondrous success of the News Special, written as only a nineteenth-century newspaperman could write it (and the writer might well have been G. B. Dealey himself).

First, one encounters a mention of Plano in a more grandiose combination of words than one might expect, as the writer describes his pleasant pre-dawn train trip along the route.

Plano was reached before the drowsy god of day had wiped his eyes at the first yawn. He rolled over in his couch by the time it reached McKinney, and he was sitting on the side of it when the train was at Melissa. And here the mocking birds, with no ruddier iris upon their breast, but moved with the spirit that makes the burnished dove mourn out his love, made the air resonant with their chatter and their songs. Into Sherman and Denison the train plunged and the trip was done.

Um, yes. Then he breaks it down in a little more specifically. Actually, a LOT more specifically.

It starts. Two minutes are consumed at the Missouri Pacific crossing five miles out, two minutes at Caruth’s, five minutes for water, two minutes at Richardson, two minutes at the Cotton Belt crossing, three minutes at Plano, two minutes at Allen, three minutes at McKinney, two minutes at Melissa, fifteen minutes at Anna for a meeting point, three minutes at Van Alstyne, two minutes at Howe, five minutes at Sherman. Total forty-eight minutes. The distance between Sherman and Dallas is sixty-four miles. The time card calls for two hours and five minutes from Dallas to that point. Forty-eight minutes is consumed in stoppages. Anyone can make the calculations, sixty-four miles in seventy-seven minutes, and see the terrific speed that this train makes, has made for over a year, and made it without a single accident, and it is a good road — an awful good road — to make it over.

And then he congratulates his employer on giving even its most distant readers “an even whack.”

Is there anything like this in the history of newspapers? True, some of them in the north run special trains on special occasions, but THE NEWS stands without a rival in this sustained work of giving its remote patrons an even whack with its people of the city. (–The Dallas Morning News, Sept. 30, 1888)

Below, a train identified as this H&TC News Special to Denison, even though it looks remarkably similar to the T&P train (in the photo above) which may or may not have been that earlier 1885 mail train to Fort Worth. Dealey is identified as the man in the light-colored suit, standing on the steps (he also resembles the man in the top photo, but now with a full beard).

The train would slow down as it neared a small-town depot, and, without stopping, a man would toss bundles of papers from the train into the waiting arms of another man on the platform, who would then divide them up and hand them off to men and boys on horseback who would race to deliver them to stores and homes before breakfast.

The Dallas Morning News ran its hot-off-the-presses newspapers up to Denison for several decades on this train until, presumably, cheaper trucks were pulled into action. But did the rather less romantic trucks, rattling up to Grayson County, inspire the mockingbirds to “[make] the air resonant with their chatter and their songs” as had the noble locomotive speeding the news through the night? I think not.

Dallas News offices, via DeGolyer Library, SMU

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Sources & Notes

Top photo, titled “The Dallas Morning News special train,” is from the Belo Records, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be viewed here. It’s a bit confusing, but this may show the inaugural run of the DMN’s special train to Fort Worth on May 22 ,1885, along the Texas & Pacific Railway. If anyone has suggestions on where this photo may have been taken, please let me know.

I came across a cropped version of the second photo in the March 1976 issue of Texas Historian, with the caption: “The Comet, Dallas News special train operated between Dallas and Denison in 1887. G. B. Dealey, then Dallas News business manager, stands on first car platform.” The version seen above is from the George A. McAfee photographs collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University here; it is titled ”The Dallas News Special (H&T.C.).”

If you’re into trains (and even if you’re not), you might enjoy reading the following three stories from The Dallas Morning News:

“Special Mail Service, Observations of a Staff Correspondent Along the Route” (DMN, Oct. 27, 1885), describing the new Fort Worth route and how The News convinced (i.e. paid) the Texas & Pacific Railway to include a stop in Dallas to load up on newspapers and haul them westward, can be read here.
“The News in North Texas, The Special Mail Train Service” (DMN, May 23, 1887), a rousingly written ride-along narrative, is here. (I would advise more fragile readers to skip to the next paragraph when they come across mention of a cute little calf — nineteenth-century journalism is not for the overly sensitive.)
“News Special Train, Between Dallas and Denison Before Day, Remarkable Record, But the Following Cheerful Narrative Tells the Whole Story, Extending Over Sixteen Months, Over Fifty Miles An Hour” (DMN, Sept. 30, 1888), another genuinely exciting and poetic account of the special train and its crew, again, probably written by Dealey, can be read here. The few sentences that are illegible at the bottom of the first column: “He rang it with jerks in town, he rang it clangingly at crossings, but away out in the solitudes of the country, softly and gently he would peal it slowly, as if he had quit; softly as if his head had dropped upon his bosom. Lyerly is promoted now. Lasher is on the regular passenger train, and R. R. Roe has beautifully and [evenly?] taken his place. But Gentry still sits upon his old seat on the right hand side and watches growing into beefhood the….”

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October 31, 2015

Dunking For Apples at a Halloween Night “Spooks’ Party”

Kids used to really have to WORK for those treats!

by Paula Bosse

In an effort to steer young revelers to safe Halloween festivities, the Dallas Park and Recreation Department organized parties in community centers around Dallas in the 1930s and ’40s. One of those parties (in an unidentified location) can be seen above, in a photograph titled “Dunking for Apples — Hallowe’en Night — October 31 at Spooks Party.”

The party’s apple-bobbing is in full swing. All eyes are on the dunker, who has obviously been hard at work, dunking down well past his shoulders. A couple of young hobos appear to be in attendance, both with prominent five o’clock shadows. Even though the party is for children, the adults seem to be having more fun than the kids, but perhaps this is early in the evening. And the party’s not just for the small-fry — there’s a pool game going on in the background, providing dunk-free entertainment for dads (and other men who might have wandered in).

Happy Halloween! Dunk responsibly!

***

Sources & Notes

This photograph comes from the Dallas Municipal Archives, accessed through the Portal to Texas History, here. The photographer is Harry Bennett. The photo is undated, but it looks like it is from the early 1940s. These city-sponsored parties appear to have started in the late-1930s as a way to keep children out of mischief and away from the riotous celebrations downtown (which I wrote about previously, here).

More Halloween photos from the Dallas Park and Recreation Department collection, taken by Harry Bennett — perhaps taken the same year, perhaps at the same location — can be seen here.

Click picture for larger image.

October 27, 2015

Horses, Carriages, Horseless Carriages: Commerce Street — 1913

West on Commerce, from about St. Paul (click for larger image) / SMU

by Paula Bosse

The photo above is from the indispensable collection at SMU’s DeGolyer Library. It shows a very busy Commerce Street in 1913, taken from the top of the YMCA building at St. Paul, looking west. The two landmarks at either end of Commerce are the first location of the Majestic Theatre at 1901 Commerce (northeast corner of Commerce and St. Paul), seen in the bottom right corner, and the Adolphus Hotel at the top left. I love this photo, mostly because it shows horse-drawn conveyances and automobiles sharing the streets in an already car-crazy Dallas, something that might not be that noticeable at first glance until you start zooming in to see magnified details. Let’s zoom in. Way in. (All images much larger when clicked.)

Dallas has begun to look like a big city.

Below, the building on the right with the steep steps is the old Post Office/Federal Building at Ervay. The Mercantile Bank Building was built on that site in 1942.

I love the detail below for a couple of reasons: first, the car at the curb at the lower right is parked next to what is purported to be the first gas pump in Dallas (the sign next to it that looks like a stop sign says “Oriental Oils” — more below); secondly, the ratio of cars to horses is pretty even.

A block east of the Oriental Oil gasoline feuling station is the Pennsylvania Oil Company feuling station, at 1805 Commerce. When I first saw this last year, I was so excited to discover this seemingly mundane little detail that I wrote an entire post about these early curbside gas pumps (read “Oriental Oil Company: Fill ‘er Up, Right There at the Curb” here).

And a couple more close-ups of this exotic thing which I still find inexplicably fascinating.

So many wires, and tracks. The Harwood streetcar is cool, but that streetlight is cooler.

Below, a listing of most of the businesses seen along this stretch of Commerce, from the 1913 Dallas directory.

***

Original photo is titled “New Skyline from Y.M.C.A., 1912 & 1913,” taken by Jno. J. Johnson, from the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be viewed here. I have corrected the color.

The current Google Street View of Commerce looking west from St. Paul can be seen here. Very different.

UPDATE: This photograph is from 1913. The Busch Building (later the Kirby Building) began construction on the steel superstructure of the building at the end of December, 1912. The building had reached 13 stories by May, 1913 and was completed in November or December, 1913. I have updated the title from “ca. 1912” to “1913.”

All of these images are really big. Click them!

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