Photographs | Flashback : Dallas

February 19, 2015

“Everyday Life” on Elm Street — ca. 1905

Elm Street rush hour

by Paula Bosse

Automobiles would be rolling down Elm Street very soon, but even when the traffic was still mostly horse-related, there’s a lot going on here: horses, buggies, barrels, saloons, a bored kid on a wagon, a street car, and the Wilson Building.

(click for larger images)

And what was The Mint? The Mint was a saloon. I’m not sure when it first set up shop in Dallas, but it was listed in an 1877 directory, one of the city’s earliest.

Speaking of 1877, read about a typical frontier day at The Mint in two accounts of a stabbing, from The Dallas Herald in April, 1877, here, and the follow-up, here.

***

Sources & Notes

Photo is from a stereograph titled “Everyday Life, Elm Street, Dallas, Tex.” from the Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of Photography, University of California at Riverside; it can be accessed here.

Images larger when clicked.

2 Comments

February 17, 2015

Mardi Gras: “Our First Attempt at a Carnival Fete” — 1876

When cotton was Rex (click for much larger image)

by Paula Bosse

In the 1870s, if a Dallas resident wanted to celebrate the glitzy revelry of Mardi Gras with a parade and balls and didn’t want to travel all the way to New Orleans, the place to go was Galveston. Galveston had a lock on Texas Mardi Gras galas. But Dallas being Dallas, there were soon plans to stage a massive Carnival right here. The day-long celebration debuted on February 24, 1876, which, oddly, was on a Thursday. (Mardi Gras that year was actually on Tuesday, Feb. 29, and it was probably celebrated early in Dallas so as not to interfere with the hey-we-got-here-first celebrations in New Orleans and Galveston.)

It was estimated that the festivities cost the city more than $20,000 (which, if the Inflation Calculator is to be believed, would be the equivalent of almost $450,000 in today’s money). The city was cleaned up in preparation for the anticipated onslaught of visitors and was decorated with flags and bunting along the lengthy parade route of Main, Elm, and Commerce streets. Revelers had elaborate costumes made for the processions and the grand masked balls, some with fabric imported for the occasion from France

mardi-gras_dal-herald_021876 Dallas Herald, Feb. 18, 1876 (not 1676!)

The Dallas Herald and The Dallas Commercial were incessant in their whipping up of excitement for the big day. And it worked. People streamed into town from all over Texas. Hotels were packed, and it was estimated that over 20,000 spectators watched one or both of the day’s parades.

The following day, The Dallas Herald apparently devoted their entire front page to coverage of the event, under this wordy headline:

A Day in Dallas, Our First Attempt at a Carnival Fete. The City Aglow with Enthusiasm and Wild with Rollicking Revelry. Visit of King Momus — His Cordial Reception by the People — The Procession in His Honor. The Season of Merry-Making Brought to a Happy Close with Balls and Bouts — Well Done, Dallas!

(Sadly, this issue is not available online, perhaps because there were none found to scan as it sold out more than five editions and was probably the paper’s best-selling edition to-date.)

Dallas’ first Mardi Gras had been an unqualified triumph, and newspaper editors and city leaders were beside themselves with joy. The parade — and the city — had been covered enthusiastically and favorably by newspapers around the country, and the success of the huge celebration was seen as having been better advertising for the exuberant and growing city than could ever have been hoped.

Galveston? Pffft!

A few tidbits from that first Mardi Gras.

There were very few “incidents” reported surrounding the festivities. That’s not to say there weren’t a lot of incidents that occurred that day, just that not a lot of them found their way into the newspapers (apparently whiskey was free-flowing all day long, and one suspects there were “incidents” aplenty connected with that). Among the very few non-“jolly” things that happened on Carnival Day and the day following included the following:

A small boy had been run over by a carriage (“but not dangerously hurt”)
A child and a horse had been burned severely when a can of gasoline was thrown into a bonfire “to increase the flame”
A member of the Stonewall Greys who had participated in the noontime parade had fallen whilst “foolishly scuffling” and had “received a slight but painful wound from a bayonet”

Also, there was some sort of “fireball discharged from a rocket” which caused some consternation:

fireball_dal-herald_022676 Dallas Herald, Feb. 26, 1876

All residences and businesses along the parade route during the evening procession were “commanded” to be illuminated. Even if gasoline-fueled bonfires were raging along the parade route, the elaborate procession was probably poorly lit.

My favorite “float” was the huge wagon of lumber meant to draw attention to East Texas timber and the thriving lumber industry in Dallas. One report said “the immense moving forest of pine” was drawn by “32 yoke of oxen” — another said “nearly 100 Texan steers.” Whatever it was, that must have been spectacular to see.

oxen-team_dal-herald_022676 Dallas Herald, Feb. 26, 1876

The massive amount of publicity and praise that Dallas received quite clearly irked other cities. Austin seemed especially perturbed. There had been a small outbreak of smallpox in McKinney preceding the big day, and several digs at Dallas (like the one below) appeared in newspapers around Texas, accusing the city’s leaders of knowingly endangering the welfare of the entire state just so they could put on their little parade. The exaggerated furor passed fairly quickly, and the het-up schadenfreude expressed by rival cities was amusing.

small-pox_austin-weekly-standard_031676 Austin Weekly Standard, Mar. 16, 1876

An invitation issued by the Mystic Revellers:

Colton Greene Collection, Memphis Public Libraries

The photo at the top shows the parade wagons representing the brand new Dallas Cotton Exchange (which seems to have been organized the previous month). As described in The Galveston Daily News, the Cotton Exchange’s offering “represent[ed] King Cotton enthroned on six bales of cotton, with numerous subjects appropriately costumed, and occupying two cars” (Feb. 25, 1876). Below are a couple of magnified details of the photo. I’m not sure, but it looks as if the horse and rider in the foreground are covered with cotton. Like tarring and feathering … but fun … and with cotton. The King of Cotton is surrounded by what look like henchmen. The masked man on the right in the elaborate costume is both cool and kind of creepy. (Click both photos for larger images.)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo appeared in the book Historic Photos of Dallas by Michael V. Hazel (Nashville: Turner Publishing Co., 2006); photo from the Dallas Historical Society.

Newspaper clippings as noted.

To read the coverage of Dallas’ Mardi Gras parades and balls — “a grand pageant and general jollification” — see the front page of The Galveston Daily News (Feb. 25, 1876), here (third column, top of page — zoom controls are on the left side of page).

I wrote a previous post called “Mardi Gras Parade in Dallas — ca. 1876” which features a photograph which might be from this first Mardi Gras. That post and photo can be seen here.

Happy Mardi Gras!

mully-graw_dal-herald_022476 Dallas Herald, Feb. 24, 1876

Photos larger when clicked.

2 Comments

February 12, 2015

Views From a Passing Train — 1902

Pacific, looking west toward Bryan, 1902 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Franklin Davenport Edmunds (1874-1948) was a Philadelphia architect whose hobbies were travel and photography. A 1902 train trip to Mexico took him through Texas, during which there as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stop in Dallas.

Who’s Who in Philadelphia, 1920

On the way to Mexico, he stopped in St. Louis for a while (where he took several photos on Feb. 12), passed through Arkansas (on Feb. 13), apparently saw very little of Dallas as he rolled through, and then took a lot of photos when he reached San Antonio (by Feb. 14). He then continued on to a vacation of at least two or three weeks in Mexico, where his camera was never far from his side.

The two photos that were taken as he passed through Dallas (which I’m assuming were snapped from the train) were probably taken on Feb. 13 or 14, 1902.

The location of the photo above is not noted, but it appears to be Pacific Avenue looking west. Peter S. Borich’s sign-painting business was on the northeast “corner” of Bryan and Pacific (at the point of the diagonal intersection). The photo shows the back and side of his building. It’s hard to see them, but there is a wagon with a team of horses at the Bryan St. intersection. Behind Borich’s is a blacksmith shop, and across the street, there are several furniture stores. Straight ahead is an almost mirage-like smoke-spewing locomotive heading toward the camera. (Unless Edmunds was standing in the middle of Pacific, I’m guessing he was taking the photo from the rear of the train.)

Seconds later, the train would have pulled into the old Union Depot (located about where Pacific would cross present-day Central Expressway).

(click for larger image)

Even though not identified in the photo description, the distinctive old Union Depot is instantly recognizable (an unrelated photo taken from about the same spot can be seen in this one from the George W. Cook collection at SMU’s DeGolyer Library). Again, the photo appears to have been taken from the train.

Edmunds took a ton of photos on this trip, but, sadly, he seems to have merely passed through Dallas without wandering around to explore its streets (which I would think would be interesting — if not downright exotic — to a Philadelphia architect) — I’m not sure he even got off the train to stretch his legs! But I’ve never seen these two photos, and they’re pretty cool. So, thanks, Frank — you should have hung around a little longer.

***

Both photos by Franklin Davenport Edmunds are from the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Pacific Avenue photo can be accessed here; the Union Depot photo, here. Other photos he took in Texas during the 1902 trip (and a few from a previous 1899 trip) can be viewed here.

A biography of Edmunds can be read at PhiladelphiaBuildings.org here.

A detail from the 1905 Sanborn map showing the businesses located at Pacific and Bryan, with Borich’s business circled in red and the camera’s vantage point in blue, can be seen here.

Below, a detail from a map (circa 1890-1900), showing the locations of the two photos, with the Pacific Ave. location circled in green and the Union Depot location in yellow.

(click for larger image)

And, lastly, a present-day image showing the same view as the top photo (from Google Street View).

My previous post, “The Old Union Depot in East Dallas: 1897-1935” — a history of the station with several photos — can be found here.

Images larger when clicked.

8 Comments

February 11, 2015

South Pearl, In the Shadow of Downtown — 1950s

Skyscraper vs. paper hat (click for much larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Great shot of the Farmers Market area, showing the 400 block of South Pearl. South Pearl intersects with Canton at the light, halfway up the photo. Just past the intersection on the left is the IOOF Oddfellows Temple. And the Republic National Bank Building — which, until 1959, was the tallest building in the city — looms at the top left. (I think this is the same view seen here a decade or so earlier.)

Below, a map of the area today, with an X marking the spot seen in this photo. This area — where all the wholesale produce markets used to be — is now, largely, condos. Call me crazy, but I will always prefer gritty street corners to sterile condos. …Always.

(click for larger image)

***

Photo from the Dallas Farmers Market — Henry Forschmidt Collection 1938-1986, Dallas Municipal Archives; it can be viewed via the Portal to Texas History, here (with a not-entirely correct description).

Map from Bing.

Previous Flashback Dallas posts on the Farmers Market area can be found here.

9 Comments

February 10, 2015

University Park’s Monarch Butterfly Wrangler

Carl Anderson & friends (John Dominis, Time-Life Pictures/Getty Image)

by Paula Bosse

Carl Axel Anderson (1892-1983) was a mild-mannered internal revenue executive by day and a mild-mannered Monarch butterfly expert by night (and weekend … and probably every waking second). Anderson had been interested in insects and butterflies from an early age, and he studied entomology at the University of Minnesota and Columbia. When he was away from the office, he was raising, tagging, tracking, and, perhaps, training Monarch butterflies at his University Park home on Centenary Avenue, which writer Frank X. Tolbert dubbed “the Butterfly Ranch.” Even the neighborhood children — who called themselves The Centenary Monarchs — joined in and learned all about Monarchs from Anderson, their butterfly mentor.

Anderson’s primary interest was studying the migration patterns of the Monarch butterfly, and, conveniently, Dallas was on their pathway, twice a year, so he had a front-row seat. Not only did he observe them passing overhead, he also raised them from eggs laid on the underside of his milkweed plants, enjoyed them as caterpillars, and when they became butterflies, he “branded” their wings painlessly (see below) and released them into the wild, hoping to be able to track their migration from fellow butterfly spotters around the country. He wrote letters to newspapers around the country and mailed hundreds of postcards to groups and individuals, hoping to get his message out. His message, in part:

Monarch butterflies raised from the egg are being released. A number is placed on their wings before they are released. Members of the public are invited to join the observers on the magic carpet of these wings to see where it will take us. Invite your friends and associates to come along, too…. Examine the wings of the Monarch…for numbers or other marks. Allow the butterfly to go on its way after your observation. Please report any observation where marked wings are found….”

In 1950, big news was made when one of his butterflies — one with the number “9” on its wing — was reported to have been seen in California by a 10-year old boy named Ben Harris in Santa Monica, California. That must have been one of the happiest moments of Anderson’s life.

Every year during Monarch migration over Texas, Mr. Anderson was a reliable go-to story for the local media. Particularly fascinated by Anderson and his “butterfly ranch” was Dallas Morning News writer Frank X Tolbert, who wrote about him numerous times. A very early profile by Tolbert rhapsodized about Anderson’s “pet” butterfly Pete which set the tone for all his very sweet subsequent articles about Anderson that appeared over the years. (Next time you’re wandering around in the Dallas News archives, check out Tolbert’s story “An Affectionate Fellow Was Pete the Butterfly” published on May 16, 1948 — but if you like happy endings, beware of the last two paragraphs of the story: personally, I’d advise readers to stop reading when Pete sets off on his journey.)

Anderson was the subject of newspaper and magazine articles all over the country, but the high point was, undoubtedly, his appearance in the pages of Life magazine in 1954, accompanied by the striking photo of him with several of his butterfly pals resting on his face.

The caption for this photo reads: “Mottled with Monarchs, butterfly breeder Carl Anderson stares serenely ahead as the domesticated insects swarm all over his face.” (That is NOT a “swarm,” Life!)

The two-page photo spread was titled “Monarch Man: Texan Breeds Bushels of Them To Help Map Butterfly Migration.”

Each spring Mr. Anderson raises hundreds of Monarchs in cages. If released, they flutter about him, looking for a sip of sugar water. When the Monarchs mature, he brands them and turns them out, alerting friends across the U.S. to watch for them. One of Anderson’s butterflies turned up 1,200 miles away. But instead of clarifying the northward migration it added another enigma by flying cross-country and winding up almost directly west of Dallas. (Life, May 24, 1954)

monarch_life_052454-b

monarch_life_052454-c

Anderson died at the age of 91, having spent the bulk of his long life engrossed in the study of his beloved Monarch butterflies. This excerpt from a 1955 interview shows a glimpse of the wonder and enthusiasm that kept him fascinated by the butterflies his entire life:

“Just at dusk on Oct. 26, the wind shifted to the north with a velocity of 15 MPH. It brought in a huge cloud of Monarchs riding ahead of the cool front. The cloud changed into the shape of a tremendous, brown, moving carpet of unusual surging design. A signal from some leader or leaders in the great flight designated a grove of our hackberry trees as the resting place for the night. Down came the flying carpet of thousands of butterflies. And in a few minutes every twig was bent by the weight of Monarchs. They took off in small groups the next morning, leaving our Dallas hackberries bare of leaves.” (DMN, May 3, 1955)

Thanks, Carl. I wish I’d known you.

Below, a short clip from Oct. 1973 featuring an interview with Carl Anderson by Arch Campbell of Channel 8 News (Campbell mistakenly refers to the park as being Tenison Park — it is Lake Cliff Park).

***

Sources & Notes

Color photo of Carl Anderson by John Dominis (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image). It is from the same session that produced the slightly different black and white image featured in Life magazine.

The profile of Anderson (which includes the text and photos reproduced above) appeared in the May 24, 1954 issue of Life; it can be accessed here.

The Channel 8 film clip is from the WFAA Collection, G. William Jones Film & Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, SMU; the direct YouTube link is here.

Read another profile of Anderson from the Bakersfield Californian, “Lepidopterist Traces Branded Butterflies” (July 11, 1949), here.

A bunch of Monarch butterfly sources:

“The Monarch Butterfly’s Annual Cycle” from the Monarch Butterfly Fund, is here.
“The Monarch Butterfly Journey North News,” a regularly updated blog on the current (overwintering/leading-up-to-Spring 2105) migration, is here.
A regularly updated map of Monarch sightings (currently at Winter 2015, showing Monarchs warming up in the bullpen along the Texas coast) is here.
An animated map of 2014’s Spring migration is here. UPDATE: An animated map of the Fall/Winter 2015 migration is here.
“Monarch Butterflies Could Gain Endangered Species Protection,” from the Scientific American blog, is here. (“Populations of the iconic and beloved Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus plexippus) have dropped an astonishing 96.5 percent over the past few decades, from an estimated 1 billion in the mid-1990s to just 35 million in early 2014.”)
Information on the Monarch butterfly conservation program — and some beautiful photographs — can be found on the World Wildlife Fund site, here.

Keep your eyes peeled — they’ll be on their way soon

4 Comments

February 8, 2015

“Happy Days,” SMU-Style — 1958

Oh, the Fifties… (click for larger image) (DeGolyer Library, SMU)

by Paula Bosse

Ralph and Potsie are just out of frame.

I love these girls’ faces. And hair! (click for larger image)

And their shoes!

The Big Men on Campus appear to be enjoying the attention.

That print is kind of … busy. Is it a cowboy motif? Are those horses? Is that Peruna?!

***

Photo titled “Gazing Adoringly,” 1958, from the collection of the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; photo can be viewed here.

UPDATE: Yes, the photo does look odd, doesn’t it? Thanks to a commenter on the Flashback Dallas Facebook page, I now realize that this is a strange superimposition of separate images. The fountain is much closer to Dallas Hall, and the image of the students at the fountain has been superimposed over a long shot up Bishop Blvd., with Dallas Hall way in the distance. I’m pretty sure this photo originated at SMU — it might have appeared in a yearbook or promotional material for the university. Or maybe someone was just having fun in the darkroom. If anyone knows more about this photo — or who any of the students are — let me know!

All images larger when clicked.

5 Comments

February 6, 2015

Back at the Ranch with Yves Saint Laurent — 1958

YSL & friend… (photo: Eric Swecker)

by Paula Bosse

Even if you had no idea who the man with the glasses was, this would be an attention-grabber of a photo. But if you do happen to recognize the man as international fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent, then it’s even more of an attention-grabber. Yes, that is 22-year-old Yves Saint Laurent, head of the legendary House of Dior.

…In a pasture with a longhorn steer.

…Wearing a Stetson (or something Stetson-like).

..In Carrollton, Texas! What could be more unexpectedly perfect?

The UPI/Telephoto caption:

9/5/58-DALLAS: Yves-Mathieu Saint Laurent, 22-year-old master of the House of Dior, got a taste of Texas tradition on his first trip to the US. Saint Laurent, in Dallas to receive an award from Neiman-Marcus, stopped off at a cattle ranch near here before departing for France and was presented a Texas-style hat and introduced to a real “Texas Longhorn” steer.

YSL (who had not yet jettisoned the “Mathieu”) was the wunderkind fashion designer who — at the unbelievable age of 21 — had succeeded Christian Dior as Dior’s head designer. His first collection was a hit, and he was 1958’s fashion superstar.

That was the year that YSL was invited to Dallas by Stanley Marcus to receive the 21st Annual Neiman-Marcus Fashion Exposition Award — known throughout the industry as the “Fashion Oscar.”

He has had many offers to come to America to accept awards but the Dallas honor was the only one he accepted. He had a sentimental reason. His late master, Christian Dior, came to Dallas to accept the Neiman-Marcus award in 1947 after he had created the New Look in his second collection. (Dallas Morning News, Sept. 4, 1958)

While in Dallas, the young Saint Laurent — whom the fashion editor of The Dallas Morning News described as looking “like a serious young man who might be coming to enroll at SMU” — soaked up a little local color: he was taken to the Orleans Room downtown to see the Dixieland jazz band The Chain Gang, and — apparently at his request — he was taken to a Texas ranch.

Saint Laurent had been quite keen to see a real Texas ranch, so Stanley Marcus’ son Richard took him out to the nearby Josey Rancho — the large ranch owned by Dallas oilmen brothers Clint and Don Josey in then-rural Carrollton. The fashionably dressed, Cartier-watch-wearing dudes took a bumpy ride in a pickup truck across the large ranch, and there was much gawking of longhorn cattle and herds of buffalo. YSL seems to have enjoyed himself and must have found the whole thing very “Texan”: he got closer to a longhorn than I’d ever get (and he squatted like a real cowboy!), he watched some calf roping, and he ate some barbecue. And he was probably the most stylishly-dressed visitor the ranch ever had (there aren’t a lot of tailored suits and French cuffs out on the lone prairie).

He headed back to Paris later that afternoon with, I’m sure, plenty of exotic stories to share with those back at the atelier. He also had a new hat. And maybe some indigestion.

via Stanley Marcus Papers, SMU

Josey Rancho

josey-rancho-buffalo_1950s Josey Rancho

Josey Rancho

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo by UPI/Telephoto. This wire photo is from the collection of my old friend Eric Swecker. Thank you for use of this fantastic photo, Eric!

Photo of longhorns at the Josey Rancho from a trade magazine called The Lufkin Line (Jan./Feb., 1956). Photo of Josey Rancho buffalo and the aerial photo are from the book Carrollton by Toyia Pointer, with photo credit given to Linda Sollinger; more on the book here. More information on the ranch from the book is here.

More on YSL’s visit can be found in the Dallas Morning News article “N-M Awardees Get Glimpse of Texas” by Gay Simpson (DMN, Sept. 6, 1958).

YSL wiki, here.

“When Coco Chanel Came To Dallas — 1957” — my post about Mlle. Chanel’s visit to Dallas to accept the previous year’s Neiman-Marcus award — is here. (Let’s hope Saint Laurent liked the BBQ more than Coco did.)

1 Comment

January 29, 2015

The Wilson Building Under Construction — 1902

Slowly but surely…. (DeGolyer Library/SMU)

by Paula Bosse

The Wilson Building is one of Dallas’ most beautiful buildings. Designed by the immensely influential Fort Worth firm of Sanguinet & Staats, the building opened in 1904, with its most notable tenant being the Titche-Goettinger department store, which occupied the basement and first two floors.

From the Dallas Public Library’s website:

“J. B, Wilson, a wealthy Dallas cattleman, built this French Renaissance/Second Empire (Beaux Arts) style building, modeled after the Paris Grand Opera House. Craftsman from all over the country came to contribute to the building finish, exterior and interior, with a mahogany and marble interior finish. It was the first eight-story building in Texas. The building originally housed the Titche-Goettinger department store on the bottom floor, with the upper floors used as office space. In 1911, Sanguinet & Staats built a twelve-story annex to the building, which was raised five floors in 1957.”

It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

The photo above is part of the incredible George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection at SMU’s wonderful DeGolyer Library (see note below). Below are a few enlargements of parts of the original photo to see more details. (Click for larger images.)

wilsonbldg-det

Here it is today. Beautiful. Click photo for an image so colossally large that you can easily check out all the fabulous intricate architectural details. (Photo by Joe Mabel.)

***

Sources & Notes

This photo (titled “Building Construction at the Intersection of North Ervay and Elm Street”) is from the incredible George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, housed at the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be viewed here. ~~It is not currently identified as being the Wilson Building.~~ (UPDATE: The photo is now titled “Wilson Building Construction, Intersection of North Ervay and Elm Street.” And this post is actually cited in the description! Thank you, DeGolyer Library!) (I have altered the color of these images as they were appearing harshly yellow in my photo editor — please see DeGolyer page for correct color of the original gelatin silver photograph.)

The DeGolyer Library is one of Dallas’ very best repositories of important historical images and papers, and just knowing that they are scanning this fantastic collection of Dallas ephemera is making me a little dizzy. So many incredible images!! An exhibit of selected items from the collection opens TOMORROW (Jan. 30, 2015) — details are here.

Credit and photo info for the gigantic present-day photo by Joe Mabel is here.

Read about Sanguinet & Staats here.

More on the Wilson Building from the Dallas Public Library, here. Check out the photo of the excavation of the site before construction began at the top of the page.

And what does Wikipedia say? See here.

17 Comments

January 27, 2015

Love Field, The Super-Cool 1950s Era

Welcome to Dallas Love Field!

by Paula Bosse

Above, fantastic drawing, 1957.

Below, fantastic photo, 1957.

And, below, fantastic-er photo. 1959. Just too cool.

***

Sources & Notes

Top two images completely lifted from a blog post by architect Jacob Haynes, here.

Bottom image from … somewhere else, long forgotten.

11 Comments

January 23, 2015

Reverchon Park Flyover

Reverchon Park — photo by Squire Haskins (click for VERY large image)

by Paula Bosse

Another of photographer Squire Haskins’ fantastic aerial shots, this one taken over Reverchon Park, looking northeasterly: the Katy tracks are running up and down on the right side, what is present-day Harry Hines is at the bottom, squiggly Turtle Creek Blvd. runs up the middle from the park, Fairmount and Maple run across the photo near the top, and Hood St. runs along the very far left edge. What looks like a date of “6-13-56” is on the back of the photo.

A present-day map of the area, looking north (to zoom out or in, click here):

A couple of questions. What are the two large buildings in the crops below?

The first one is the large white building on property bounded by Fairmount, Enid, Turtle Creek and a street that no longer seems to exist (an extension of Brown?):

The second is on Maple, near Hood — across from the amphitheater in the park, where the Heritage Auctions building is now:

reverchon_det1

The top one appears to be a (large!) home (I’d love to know who owned it), but I’m not sure what the one at the bottom is. Anyone know? (UPDATE: Thanks to my mother for informing me that the building immediately above is the Bradford Memorial Hospital for Babies.)

***

Sources & Notes

Photo by Squire Haskins, via the Portal to Texas History, here. (Back of photo is here.)

Map from Bing.

6 Comments

Category: Photographs

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