An apple a day… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Cleaning the streets around the Farmers Market.
All in a day’s work for the City of Dallas Public Works Department.
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Photo taken July 23, 1958. From the Dallas Farmers Market – Henry Forschmidt Collection 1938-1986, Dallas Municipal Archives, via the Portal to Texas History; more info on this photo is here.
Click picture for larger image.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
RADIO STATION KRLD
This beautiful building houses KRLD’s new super-power 50,000 watt transmitter. In the background you see a part of the massive 475-foot towers used in broadcasting KRLD programs. The transmitter is located between Dallas and Garland. You are invited to keep your dial on 1040. KRLD is the home station of the Stamps Quartet.
Such a beautiful art deco building! And, I believe, it’s still in use. My favorite aside about the early days of KRLD was that when it began broadcasting — from a small room in the Adolphus Hotel in 1926 — the station was on the air for only six hours a day, “except on Wednesdays when the station closed down to make repairs and recharge the batteries.” Also, according to the KRLD website, the station was “the first radio station in the world to sell commercials.” Of course it was — leave it to Dallas to invent the radio ad.
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For a history of KRLD and a photo of what the transmitter looks like today, see here.
For an aerial view of the transmitter in 1949, see here (from the Edwin J. Foscue Map Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University).
Photo from Souvenir Album, 2nd Annual All-Night Broadcast, KRLD–Dallas: July 1-2, 1939 (Dallas, Stamps-Baxter Music & Ptg. Co., Dallas, 1939). This was a souvenir program of a gospel extravaganza held at the Cotton Bowl, with the Stamps Quartet as headliners, broadcast live on KRLD. The frenzied text describes the sudden downpour that threatened the show and the ensuing mad scramble to figure out what to do, with repeated, panicky refrains of “THE SHOW MUST GO ON!” (…The show went on.) (Click picture for much larger image.)
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Photo by Ferd Kaufman/AP (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
It snowed today in Dallas! It’s pretty, but not as pretty as this 1962 night-time view of Commerce and Akard (looking west). Even the approaching slush looks sophisticated in glamorous black-and-white.
(See a fantastic color photo from 1957 showing the northwest corner of the Adolphus block with that incredible Walgreen neon sign in full view, taken from the front of the Baker Hotel, here.)
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Stills stilled
By Paula Bosse
Oh dear.
A quote from Michael V. Hazel, from his book Remembering Dallas:
A national magazine described Dallas as “one of the wettest cities in the nation” during Prohibition, with more than its share of speakeasies and bootleg liquor. Sheriff Dan Harston and his deputies kept busy confiscating stills.
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Quote and photo from Remembering Dallas by Michael V. Hazel (Turner Publishing, 2010). Wonky image is completely my fault.
by Paula Bosse
Visitors are always welcome at the WFAA Superpower transmitter plant pictured opposite. Drive North on Akard Street until you reach State Highway 40; turn right on 40 and drive to State Highway 114 (the Northwest Highway); turn left on 114 and it will take you directly to the plant … a 30-minute drive from downtown Dallas.
So, apparently somewhere near Grapevine, where DFW Airport now sprawls. Such a cool-looking art deco building, out in the middle of nowhere. An entertaining and informative history of WFAA radio (with the incredible 50,000-watt signal that could be heard in California!) can be found here.
A 1939 aerial photo of the transmitter can be seen here.
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Photo from the WFAA Radio Album of 1937.
For another photo of this transmitter building and the story of “WFAA & WBAP’s Unusual Broadcasting Alliance,” see a later post here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
RUETTA DAY BLINKS. On the air she’s Margaret Day, and you’ll recognize her as the charming hostess at The House of Happiness, who acts as general counsellor to the housewives of the Southwest. Years of experience as a home economist, teacher, author, and radio lecturer qualify her admirably for her post.
I’m sure Ruetta was a lovely person, but that photograph does not really scream “charming hostess.” A more flattering photo, in which Mrs. Blinks is shown with a slight Mona Lisa smile, was printed the previous year in the Dallas Morning News:
The House of Happiness seems to have premiered on WFAA radio in the spring of 1936 and was broadcast on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday mornings at 10:45. “Margaret Day” would address homemaking concerns of her listeners, including topics such as “Stream-lined Living–the Objective of the Modern Homemaker,” “Better Home Gardens,” “Home Management Declares an Exact Management,” and “Safeguarding Health in the Home.” …I’m guessing the shows were a little dry.
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Top photo from the WFAA Radio Album of 1937. (Click picture for larger image.)
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
“Sometimes the Oak Cliff Viaduct seems a trifle too narrow. From a snapshot made just after it happened.”
I came across this photograph while flipping through the book Our City — Dallas, A Community Civics by Justin F. Kimball (1927). I love that viaduct, but … yikes. Look at all those calm and/or petrified passengers. (We were always warned about going across the river…)
Here are a few contemporaneous images of the not-actually-so-narrow viaduct.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Looking east from Elm and Akard… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
A 1918 photograph of Elm Street taken at the corner of Akard, looking east, showing the old Queen Theater (later the Leo; torn down to build the Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Building), the Jefferson Theater, and the Old Mill Theater.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
(click for very large image)
by Paula Bosse
The Dallas skyline, photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt in the 1940s for Life magazine (as far as I can tell, it was not published). One of my favorite views of downtown, from the Cedars, back when Pegasus was still visible.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 