Flashback : Dallas

A Miscellany: History, Ads, Pop Culture

Category: Postcards

The Heart of Big “D”: Akard & Commerce

downtown_heart-of-big-d_postcard_akard-commerceLooking up the “canyon”… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

A postcard view of Akard, looking north from Commerce; the “canyon” is anchored at the south end by the Baker Hotel (behind the photographer), the Walgreens in the Adolphus Hotel building, and the Continental Air Lines ticket office in the Magnolia Building.

Looks like a hot, painfully sunny day in the canyon. Personally, I’d get out of the sun and hit that soda fountain….

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Sources & Notes

This postcard is currently being offered on eBay, here. The seller is in Transylvania.

The Continental Air Lines ticket office opened in the Magnolia Building in early 1958 (click for larger image).

continental-air-lines_jan-1958
January, 1958

For more info on the buildings that lined the “canyon,” see the Flashback Dallas post “The ‘Akard Street Canyon’ — ca. 1962,” here.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

The Elks Lodge, Pocahontas & Park

elks-lodge_postcard1817 Pocahontas Street, 1914 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The postcard image above shows the lovely Dallas Elks Lodge No. 71 which once stood at 1817 Pocahontas, at the northwest corner of Pocahontas Street and Park Avenue in the Cedars area, just south of downtown — it had a spectacular view of City Park, which it faced.  Designed by architect H. A. Overbeck (the man behind the still-standing Dallas County Jail and Criminal Courts Building and the long-gone St. Paul’s Sanitarium), the lodge was built in 1914; the land and the construction of the lodge cost $45,000. Surprisingly, this lodge served the Elks for only six years — they returned downtown, where they took over and renovated the old YWCA building on Commerce Street.

The building on Pocahontas became another clubhouse when it was purchased in 1920 by a group of Jewish businessmen who opened the exclusive Progress Club/Parkview Club (read about the building’s acquisition in a May 14, 1920 article in The Jewish Monitor, here); in 1922 the 65 members of the Parkview Club presented the clubhouse to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA). In 1927, use of the building had expanded, and it became the Dallas Jewish Community Center and the headquarters of the Jewish Welfare Federation — in fact, this was the home for these organizations for more than thirty years, until 1958 when the move was made to the new Julius Schepps Community Center in North Dallas. The building ultimately fell victim to the construction of R. L. Thornton Freeway and was demolished in the early 1960s.

But back to the Elks. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was a social club/fraternal order founded in New York in 1868. Dallas Lodge No. 71 was chartered on January 28, 1888 — it was the first Elks Lodge in Texas and one of the oldest clubs in Dallas. And, after 130 years, it’s still around, now located in Lake Highlands. There aren’t a lot of things that have lasted that long in this city!

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Below, the Overbeck rendering of the Elks’ new home (click for larger image)

elks_dmn_120213_new-lodgeDallas Morning News, Dec. 2, 1913

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A week before its official dedication on Sept. 7, 1914:

elks-lodge_dmn_083014DMN, Aug. 30, 1914

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Colorized and made into an attractive postcard:

elks-club_new_postcard

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In the 1930s, when it was the Jewish Community Center:

jewish-community-center_1817-pocahontas_1930s

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Where it was:

elks-lodge_ca-1912-map_portal1912-ish map detail

Also, see it on the 1921 Sanborn map (as “B.P.O.E. Home”) here.

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The announcement of plans for the construction of the Pocahontas Street lodge:

elks_dmn_112313_new-lodgeDMN, Nov. 23, 1913

And its dedication, on Sept. 7, 1914:

elks_dmn_090814_new-homeDMN, Sept. 8, 1914

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Sources & Notes

Source of postcards unknown. Other images and clippings as noted.

The 1888 report of the first meeting of the Dallas Elks Lodge No. 71 can be read in the Dallas Morning News article “Order of Elks in Dallas; A Lodge Instituted Here Yesterday” (DMN, Jan. 29, 1888), here.

A history of the various Elks’ locations in Dallas between the 1880s and the 1920s can be found in the article “Elks Plan To Have Modern Club Home” (DMN, July 30, 1922), here.

elks_dmn_012903DMN, Jan. 29, 1903

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

“A Glimpse of Dallas” — ca. 1909

postcard_charles-e-arnoldCommerce Street, looking west from St. Paul…

by Paula Bosse

This very attractive postcard shows a growing downtown Dallas, looking west from Commerce and St. Paul, photographed by Charles E. Arnold from the YMCA building (which once sat in the block now occupied by the Statler). The Wilson Building can be seen at the top right, the Praetorian Building (then the tallest building in the city) is to its left, and the Post Office and Federal Building is in the center. The photo was probably taken in 1909 or 1910 (the Praetorian was completed in 1908 and the Adolphus Hotel (not seen in this postcard) was under construction in 1911.

The photo below, taken by Jno. J. Johnson from the exact same vantage point, shows the many changes to the skyline which happened over a very short span of time. The photo below is from about 1913.

new-skyline_c1912_degolyer_smuvia DeGolyer Library, SMU

I zoomed in on this photo in a previous post, “Horses, Carriages, Horseless Carriages: Commerce Street — 1913,” here.

The large “Barrett Cigar” sign seen in the top postcard image is also visible in a 1909 photo by Clogenson, below — it can be seen at the left, atop the Juanita Building on Main Street, opposite the Praetorian.

parade-day_1909_clogenson_degolyervia DeGolyer Library, SMU

I zoomed in on this photo in the post “Parade Day — 1909,” here.

This was the beginning of staggering growth for Dallas, and new skyscrapers seemed to be going up every month.

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Sources & Notes

I came across the postcard image a couple of years ago — I noted that the photographer was C. E. Arnold, but I did not note the source.

The two photos are from the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; further information on each photo can be found at the links posted immediately below the images.

All images are larger when clicked.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

The Cabana Motor Hotel of Dallas

cabana-motor-hotel_portal_postmarked-1967“Elegant and luxurious…”

by Paula Bosse

The Cabaña Motor Hotel is remembered mostly for being where the Beatles stayed when they came to Dallas in 1964 and for being a hotel with high hopes but which fizzled out fairly quickly. …But mostly for being where the Beatles stayed. When the Cabaña opened in January, 1963 on Stemmons Freeway, it was a big deal. It was swanky and even had a very show-bizzy lounge. Celebrities stayed there. The Beatles stayed there.

cabana-motor-hotel_portal_info

The Dallas Cabaña was actually the third in a proposed chain of hotels, following locations in Atlanta and Palo Alto. It even had some Hollywood star-power attached to it: Doris Day’s then-husband Marty Melcher was an investor in the company (turned out it was Doris’ money, and she wasn’t thrilled that he was investing so much of her money in this chain of hotels).

It was fab for a while — but the high point really was John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Before the ’60s had ended, the place was shuttered and mired in litigation. Melcher had died and left Doris $500,000 in debt. Ownership changed hands several times over the years, and each time, more and more of its original hep luster was lost. The building has never really recovered. For a few years it was a rather bizarre site for a minimum-security jail! In recent months it was announced that it has been acquired by the company that has recently renovated the long-moribund Statler Hilton — so there’s hope! It needs a lot of work, but it might actually turn out to be cool again.

cabana_construction_william-langley_nd_DPLUnder construction, by William Langley, via Dallas Public Library

cabana-motel_aerial_squire-haskins_UTA_croppedFrom the air, by Squire Haskins, via UTA

cabana-motel_squire-haskins_UTAFrom the ground, by Squire Haskins, via UTA

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Sources & Notes

The postcard at the top is from the Texas History Collection, provided by Dallas Heritage Village to the Portal to Texas History, where I found it, hereI have to admit that I’ve never really been a fan of this building until I saw this postcard. It’s like a Dallas version of a subdued Vegas hotel.

Bottom two photos are from the Squire Haskins Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Special Collections — the aerial image has been cropped; more info on these photos can be found here and here.

For more history of the Cabaña (…whenever I hear reporters in historic footage pronouncing the “n” in “cabana” with that tilde, it’s a bit jarring…), read the informative article “Lost + Found: Cabana Motor Hotel” by Preservation Dallas Executive Director David Preziosi on the AIA Dallas website, here. It’s got some great photos.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

The Adolphus By Moonlight

adolphus_night_postcard_postmarked-1914Nighttime in Big D… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

When the beautiful Adolphus Hotel opened in 1912, it was the tallest building in Dallas — in other words, it was the building nearest to the moon.

Remarkably, it, the people, and the horses, looked just the same in the daylight!

adolphus_1910s_postcard
Daytime in Big D…

“Postcard magic” is magic, indeed. It’s all about judicious addition and subtraction.

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Sources & Notes

Both postcards were found lounging in forgotten corners of the internet. The cards were issued before 1914. Both are larger when clicked

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Year-End List! My Favorite Images Posted in 2017

jimi_wfaa_hamon_smu-1Love Field was never cooler… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Another year is ending — time for lists! This is the first of three year-end “favorites” lists — this one contains favorite photos and artworks posted over the past year. To see the post they originally appeared in, click the title of the post, and to see a larger image of the picture, click the picture. They’re in no particular order, although, the one above is my favorite of 2017.

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The image above is not a photograph but a video screen-capture of newly unearthed WFAA-Channel 8 news footage of Jimi Hendrix and The Experience, on the Love Field tarmac, being interviewed by a charmingly agog Channel 8 reporter. This short interview is one of the coolest things I’ve seen all year. Watch the video — it’s in the post “Jimi Hendrix, Glen Campbell, Tiny Tim — In Dallas (…Separately), 1969.”

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whittle-music_elm-and-murphy_flickr_red-oak-kid

Above, the Whittle Music Co. building, 1108 Elm Street, around 1956. It was built in 1892 and originally housed the A. Harris department store (until 1914). Whittle’s occupied this beautiful building from 1941 until 1965, when it moved to Oak Lawn. The building was bulldozed soon afterwards in order to  begin construction of One Main Place. Read more about all of this at the post The Whittle Music Building — ca. 1956.”

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main-and-stone_praetorian_haskins_UTA_det

This is actually a detail of a larger 1953 photo by Squire Haskins (seen here), showing the intersection of Main and Stone Place, looking northeast. The building on the left is still standing and is one of the oldest buildings downtown. See more at the post “The Praetorian Building and Its 19th-Century Neighbors.”

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baseball_dallas-clippers_cook-coll_degolyer_smu

I love this photo from the George W. Cook Collection at SMU’s DeGolyer Library. More at “The Dallas Clippers: Early Dallas Baseball.”

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mallorys-drug-store_ca-1913_cook-collection_smu

One of my favorite still-standing buildings in Oak Cliff. More about it can be found in the post “West Jefferson and Tyler — 1913.” 

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bearden_dallas-skyline-late-afternoon-from-stemmons-freeway_litho_1959

Fantastic lithograph by Dallas artist Ed Bearden — this view from Stemmons looks a lot different now. More info in the post “‘Dallas Skyline: Late Afternoon From Stemmons Freeway’ by Ed Bearden — 1959.”

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baker-hotel_postcard

This photo was one of the most-shared photos I posted this year — it kind of surprised me, but it’s a great photo of “The Baker Hotel.”

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n-m_shoe-salon_1965_nyt-magazine_dec-2016

I love this. “The Neiman-Marcus Shoe Salon — 1965.”

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bishop-college_1969-yrbk_campus-security

Campus security at “Bishop College — 1969.” Fantastic.

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woodrow_1965-yrbk_birdseye

You’ve got to post the occasional photos of the alma maters. I love this photo of Lakewood-area schools J. L. Long and Woodrow Wilson, mainly, I think, because of the surprising sight of White Rock Lake in the background. See the present-day shot, submitted by a drone-owning reader at “Long and Woodrow From Above — 1965.” 

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jfk-memorial_postcard_portal

Speaking of familiar sights seen from unusual perspectives, I can’t get over how much I’m fascinated by this postcard of the JFK memorial in its earliest days. From the post “Aerial View of the JFK Memorial — 1970.”

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dallas-big-d_william-e-bond_business-week-collection_ca1962

This is without a doubt my favorite Dallas art discovery of the year! “‘Dallas/The Big D’ by William E. Bond — ca. 1962.”

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downtown-dallas_aia-journal-april-1962

Had to make this one small so it wouldn’t overwhelm the page. Click it1 Lots of info on all the buildings seen in this photo is in the post “The ‘Akard Street Canyon’ — ca. 1962.”

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FW-zoo_hamilton-hittson_fawn_062937_UTA

Okay, so this is Fort Worth, but, hey — close enough! Let the cuteness-overload wash over you as you look at adorable animals big and small in the post “Cowtown Extra: Fort Worth Zookeeper Ham Hittson and His Forest Park Friends.”

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wfaa_george-dahl_ed-bearden_postcard

The more I see of Ed Bearden’s work, the more I love it. Here he captures George Dahl’s always-cool mid-century-modern sleekness. “The WFAA Studios, Designed by George Dahl, Rendered by Ed Bearden — 1961.”

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commerce-street_walgreens_adolphus_1957_ebay

This postcard view of the Adolphus block at night is one of my all-time favorite photos of downtown Dallas. It would be nothing without that heart-palpitatingly wonderful Walgreens neon at the corner of Commerce and Akard. More at “Nighttime on Commerce Street — 1957.”

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gill-well-sanitarium_dmn_011307_photo

The image-quality of this newspaper photo leaves a lot to be desired, but this is the photo that most excited me this year. I spent an incredible amount of time researching the Gill Well, and I was really surprised by how few photos I could find. Finding this 1907 photo of the Gill Well Bath House was pretty damn thrilling. Thank you, Clogenson! From the post “The Gill Well.”

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ervay-north-from-commerce_det_052417_bosse

I actually took a few photos myself, and there are a couple I really love — like this one which captures five of Dallas’s most recognizable buildings in one shot. Architecture-a-rama. It is from the post “Downtown Dallas, Last Week,” which also includes the photo below — a view of the Wilson Building you might not have seen before.

wilson-bldg_detail_052417_bosse

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st-jude-chapel_la-virgin_det_052417_bosse

And lastly, two more of my own photos, taken at the St. Jude Chapel, which is filled with mosaics. The one above shows a detail of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the one below shows a detail of St. Martin de Porres (mice!). More at “Mosaic Restoration at Downtown’s St. Jude Chapel.”

st-jude-chapel_st-martin-de-porres_mice-det_052417_bosse

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Sources & Notes

It’s been a visually-satisfying year!

See all three 2017 “Best Of Flashback Dallas” lists here.

See all Flashback Dallas Year-End lists — past and present — here.

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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved

 

“New Terminal Passenger Station” — 1916

union-station-postcard_1916Union Station, open for business…

by Paula Bosse

I love this postcard view of Dallas’ own Union Station, brand new in 1916. Minus the horses, it looks very much like this today.

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Sources & Notes

Postcard found on eBay. 

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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

The Baker Hotel

baker-hotel_postcardLooking east on Commerce from Akard…

by Paula Bosse

Above, a postcard view of the stately Baker Hotel, located catty-corner from the Adolphus, at the southeast corner of Commerce and Akard — the view here is to the east on Commerce. The parking garage at the lower right looks like the swanky Nichols Bros. Garage (yes, “swanky” — see the 1945 ad here).

The Baker was not only home to well-heeled patrons and top-flight nightclub entertainment, it was also a home-away-from-home for celebrities passing through Dallas.

baker-hotel_cigarette-girl_this-week-in-dallas_dec-1956Cigarette girls in 1956

Built in 1925, the Baker Hotel was demolished in 1980. (Check out the photos by Frank Booth showing the Baker’s implosion in 1980, here.)

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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved

Aerial View of the JFK Memorial — 1970

jfk-memorial_postcard_portalThe JFK memorial, newly dedicated…

by Paula Bosse

The Kennedy Memorial — designed by architect Philip Johnson at the behest of Stanley Marcus — was dedicated on June 24, 1970. This postcard view is one I’ve never seen before. The caption from the back of the card:

jfk-memorial_postcard_portal_caption

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Sources & Notes

Postcard “Aerial of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial, Dallas, Texas” from the Texas History Collection provided by Dallas Heritage Village to the Portal to Texas History; more here.

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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Ownby Stadium, With Room To Breathe

smu_aerial_color_postcardMustangland… 

by Paula Bosse

Look at all that wide open space!

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Sources & Notes

This undated postcard — captioned on the back “Southern Methodist University Campus and Owen [sic] Stadium from the Air, University Park, Dallas, Texas.”

What many of us think of as Ownby Stadium began life as the much smaller Ownby Oval, named after SMU alumnus Jordan Ownby who had donated $10,000 toward the construction of the new stadium. The oval was dedicated on Oct. 10, 1923 during its inaugural football game in which the SMU Mustangs defeated the Austin College Kangaroos 10-3.

Info and specs can be found in this captioned drawing that appeared in The Dallas Morning News on July 23, 1923 (click to see larger image).

ownby-stadium_dmn_072323DMN, July 23, 1923

The first phase of Ownby Stadium — much enlarged and improved from the old 8,000-seat oval — was built in 1926. The two steel stands from the old field were moved to form the temporary east section of the new stadium, and a new $190,000 “west unit” (designed by Dallas architects DeWitt and Lemmon) was built, adding more than 12,000 seats. Jordan Ownby Stadium was formally opened on Oct. 2, 1926 during half-time ceremonies of the football game between SMU and Trinity University (SMU won, 48-0).

Here’s a scrubby, somewhat desolate photo from 1927, taken by Joseph Neland Hester, from the DeGolyer Library, Central University Library, Southern Methodist University; more info on this photo can be found here.

SMU_ownby-stadium_1927_degolyer-library

The new stadium was even featured in an ad for the University Park Development Co., which used the ever-expanding SMU campus as a selling point to attract potential investors.

ownby-stadium-construction_university-park-real-estate-ad_oct-1926Ad detail, Oct. 1926

And a postcard showing the stadium during a football game between SMU and TCU in 1926, a game which clenched the Southwest Conference championship for SMU. The back of this postcard (from the Park Cities Bank series) directs attention to “Oliver Mowatt’s dairy operation at the upper right — he rented the land along Airline Road from the Caruth family.”

smu_football_nov-25-1926_oliver-mowatt-dairy_ebay

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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.