by Paula Bosse
Dallas has always been image-conscious. I loved discovering this odd “electrically-provoked” weight-loss system which was being, um … executed in a Main Street basement a stone’s throw from Neiman’s. Read the Flashback Dallas post from 2016 — “Zap Those Extra Pounds Away in Mrs. Rodgers’ Electric Chair — 1921” — here.
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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Grainy photo taken by a teenager in 1916…
by Paula Bosse
Check out the 2015 Flashback Dallas post about a short-lived, little-remembered silent-movie theater on Main Street (which was housed in a building which was demolished soon after this post was written) in “Roseland — 1916,” here.
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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
Merry Christmas and Season’s Greetings! I hope this holiday season has been a happy one. Christmastime in Dallas is not complete without a pilgrimage to the giant Pecan Tree in Highland Park. It is 152 years old this year! Read about its history, see some historic photos of it through the years, and watch a short documentary from KERA in my 2015 post “Celebrate the Pecan Tree’s 150th Christmas” here.
Eat too much, drink too much, and stay warm and toasty!
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Photo from Pinterest, via Robert J. Sadler., a mystery writer who sets many of his novels in and around Dallas.
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
You didn’t know Spider-Man saved our Christmas 30-some-odd years ago? Read how in the Flashback Dallas post from 2015, “Spider-Man: Christmas in Dallas! (1983),” here.
Thanks, Spidey!
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
The fateful day…
by Paula Bosse
This “giant Santa Claus tragedy” story is one of the most-viewed Flashback Dallas posts I’ve ever written. Here it is, back again for another holiday season. I’ve updated the post this year to include new photos as well as film footage (!) shot by WBAP-Channel 5 on that fateful day. Read the original post from 2014 — “The World’s Largest Santa & The Christmas Tragedy — 1953” — here.
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
I wrote about the “Dallas News Special” a couple of years ago, and the newspaper accounts of this special express train hired by The Dallas Morning News to get its papers to far-flung subscribers by daybreak have really stuck with me. The lengthy “ride-along” articles (most likely written by a twenty-something G. B. Dealey) are so wonderfully poetic (and so charmingly grandiose) that one longs for the days when this sort of thing was commonplace in the ink-stained columns of one’s daily newspaper.
The post, “The Dallas News Special: Fast Train to Denison — 1887,” can be read here. I highly recommend reading the full articles linked at the end of the post.
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
“Senior Cools” at Goff’s… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Yesterday I posted photos from the 1966 Highland Park High School Highlander yearbook — today I’m posting a lot of ads from the same yearbook, many of which include students posing at the businesses. Most of the ads are larger if you click them.
Above, Goff’s. My mother refused to patronize this establishment as the owner once said something disparaging about my shaggy-haired 10-year-old brother (Mr. Goff really didn’t like long hair on boys and men), so I’m one of the few native-born Dallasites who never had a Goff’s hamburger.
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On the other hand, I enjoyed a lot of Ashburn’s Ice Cream as a kid — the locations on Knox and on Skillman. I can’t remember ever getting anything other than Butter Pecan.
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Whittle Music Company. (I wrote about Whittle’s previously, here.)
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Hillcrest State Bank, designed by architect George Dahl.
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M. E. Moses, Snider Plaza. I didn’t grow up in the Park Cities, but my parents both went to SMU and my mother worked in University Park for several years, so I spent a lot of time as a kid wandering around HP Village and Snider Plaza as a kid. And what kid didn’t love a dime store? I can remember where everything was at that Moses. The memory of that ramp between what I always thought of the “sunny side” of the store and the cave-like dark side of the store is a weird, fond memory. (For some reason I never imagined there was actually a person named “M. E. Moses.”)
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Cooter’s Village Camera Shop.
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Cerf’s.
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Preston State Bank. I know that PSB was very early entering the credit card market — I remember my parents had a Presto-Charge card — but I’d never heard of this “Presteen” checking account geared to teenagers.
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Mr. Drue’s Beauty Salon — “We Specialize in Teen-Age Hair Styling.”
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Dr Pepper. Frosty, man, frosty.
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Bob Fenn Apparel for Men and Boys.
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Young Ages.
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Lou Lattimore.
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Roscoe White’s Corral, Easy Way Grill, and Westerner. (My family’s favorite neighborhood restaurant was the Corral.)
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Salih’s in Preston Center.
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W. R. Fine Galleries. (This building is still standing on Cedar Springs.)
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Dick Chaplin’s School of Social Dancing.
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Spanish Village.
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Johnson Brothers Chevrolet. The daughter of one of the brothers was a close friend of my mother’s, and I remember visiting her parents’ house on St. Andrews several times — that huge yard was pretty magical to me as a little girl.
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Highland Park Cafeteria.
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Expressway Bowling Lanes.
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The Gondolier, 77 Highland Park Village. This photo was split across two pages, but I tried to piece it back together because this is a view you don’t see that often in a photo of Highland Park Village, looking east toward Preston. The space is currently occupied by Mi Cocina — see a similar view today, here.
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Marlow’s, “The Camera Store in Dallas Since 1915.”
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NorthPark without the Melody Shop is like a day without sunshine.
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Speaking of music, here are a couple of ads placed by teen bands, something I’d never seen before — but what better way to market your band than to advertise in a high school yearbook?
After the Beatles first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, a million garage bands sprang up overnight. “Battle of the Bands” contests were ubiquitous. The two Dallas bands that had ads in the 1966 Highlander played all over town and participated in a few of these contests.
Sept., 1965
First, the Rogues — described in The Dallas Morning News as “a group of young socially prominent Dallas residents” (DMN, April 1, 1966): Rusty Dealey, Wirt Davis, Mitch Gilbert, Doug Bailey, and Mike Ritchey. “The Tuff Sound for Parties and Dances.”
And the Outcasts (not to be confused with the cult-favorite garage band of the same name from San Antonio): Gary, Donny, David, Jim, and Wally. Dig that groovy background!
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All ads are from the 1966 Highland Park High School Highlander yearbook.
The companion post — “Highland Park High School: Photos from the 1966 Yearbook” — can be found here.
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
HPHS ROTC… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
I love looking through old yearbooks. Highland Park High School in the mid ’60s was a happening place. Below are a few photos I particularly like — most of which show students away from the classroom. (All photos are larger when clicked.)
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The 1966 Highlander was dedicated to science teacher Margaret Sauer. The caption of this photo: “Mrs. Sauer takes a down to earth approach to the study of botany.”
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Here is student Carol Roach working on a painting:
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“Sophomores taking the California Mental Maturity Tests listen carefully to Mrs. Jones’ instructions.”
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“Practicing snowball marksmanship not used for two years, Mark Shriver, Tony McClung, Fred Lundberg, and Ked Rike cavort in the snow outside school.” (The houses seen in the background are still there on Emerson.)
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Speaking of cold weather, Vaughn Aldredge and Greg Uhl “brave the cold on the way to school wearing face masks.”
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Speaking of fashion statements:
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Speaking of saddle shoes, “Shan Martin, Nan Weintraub, Betsy Wagner, and John Richardson exchange tips on cleaning their saddle oxfords.”
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Yeah, HPHS is known as the home of “the Scots,” and plaid fashions were everywhere in 1966: “Hi-Lites Big Sisters Beverly and Barbara Kuykendall entertain little sisters Connie See and Lisa Ferguson with lunch and shopping at NorthPark.”
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The 1965-1966 school year coincided with the construction of a new boys’ gym:
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HPHS BMOC: “Ken Hamlett, Bob Winstead, and Charles Watkins proudly don new letter jackets.”
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In 1966, everyone had a band: “Scots listen to competition between the Aces, the Continentals, and the Townsmen at the Howdy Dance.”
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If you’re at something called a “Howdy Dance” I guess you’d probably better dance: “Suzanne Rogers and Dale Hastings display their proficiency in dancing to the music of The Townsmen.”
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Transportation? Kids got places to go, man, and scooters are always cool: “Dare Majors and Nancy Northcutt take advantage of fall weather with a motorcycle ride.”
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But, come on, it’s Highland Park. It’s a Corvette or nothing: Alinda Hill checks the oil in her ’65 Stingray as Eddie Richburg looks on from behind the wheel of his Park Cities jalopy.
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Coming next: Part 2 — ads for the hangouts, the businesses, and a couple of bands that were favorites of HPHS students in 1965-66.
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All photos from the pages of the 1966 Highlander, the yearbook of Highland Park High School.
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
October, 1912
by Paula Bosse
I understand there’s some sort of baseball contest going on at the moment? Seems like a good time to link back to a post I really enjoyed writing and researching, “Simulcasting the World Series in Dallas in the Days Before Radio, Via Telegraph.” The ad above, from 1912, promotes “reproductions” of live games which were happening hundreds of miles away — the play-by-play action was relayed by a telegraph operator to theater personnel who would immediately “reproduce” the game for the audience of eager baseball fans. I’m not a sports fan, but I loved learning about this! Read the 2014 Flashback Dallas post here.
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Our Lady of Good Counsel, 1944… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Talking to my aunt today reminded me that she briefly attended Our Lady of Good Counsel, the all-girls Catholic high school in Oak Cliff next to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, at the northwest corner of North Marsalis (originally named Grand Avenue) and 9th Street. I’m still not sure why she went there (our family isn’t Catholic), but she seems to have enjoyed her time there for a year or two before she transferred to Crozier Tech.
The school building was the former palatial home of wealthy businessman James T. Dargan, a one-time partner of Thomas L. Marsalis. The house was built about 1888, and according to Dallas Rediscovered author William L. McDonald, it was designed by the Dallas architectural firm of Stewart and Fuller.
1889 Dallas directory
The church was holding services in Oak Cliff as early as 1901, and an affiliated school was established by Rev. Francis P. Maginn in September of that year. It appears that the Dargan house was acquired in 1902, the same year that the (new?) church building was dedicated in ceremonies officiated by Bishop E. J. Dunne.
Below, the new church can be seen in a photo which appeared in The Dallas Morning News on the day of its dedication in June, 1902 (all images are larger when clicked):
DMN, June 15, 1902
The neighboring school can be seen in these two early photos:
Our Lady of Good Counsel, ca. 1902
Our Lady of Good Counsel, ca. 1905
The school’s founder, Rev. F. P. Maginn:
DMN, June 15, 1902
DMN, April 23, 1902
And an early ad for the school, from 1903 (“Discipline mild, yet firm”):
1903
Here it is in 1942:
And here are some of the LGC high school students from 1944, looking bobby-soxer-y (with another view of the augmented house in the lower left corner):
The newest additions to the building can be seen in the 1959 yearbook:
In 1961, Our Lady of Good Counsel was a fast-fading memory: a new 32-acre campus had been acquired and on it had been built the new (coed) Bishop Dunne High School. Mr. Dargan’s old house-turned-school-building was torn down a few years later, and the land became a parking lot for the Blessed Sacrament church next door (which had also seen many changes and a new building over the years). Today, the view of the land the Dargan house sat on 130 years ago looks like this. (The church looks like this.)
The church in 1930:
And in 1958 (from the LGC yearbook):
This visual aid will help give an idea of the acreage of both the school (circled in red) and the church (circled in blue), via the 1905 Sanborn map:
I’m still not sure why my aunt went there….
1958
UPDATE: For those who might have wanted to see some interior photos, I didn’t find many, other than typical classroom shots, but here are some additional photos, a couple of which show the hallway.
Between classes, 1959:
Girls lining up to go into class, 1960:
Girls outside playing volleyball, 1960:
I had erroneously assumed that LGC was an all-girls 4-year high school; I believe it was a 12-year school, with boys and girls up to high school level, when it became girls-only. This photo appeared in the 1960 yearbook with the following caption: “The safety of all LGC students is the responsibility of the school as long as the students are on campus. For this reason, Officer H. A. Baxtley is available every day as a gracious escort for our little ‘Lions’ across the busy Ninth and Marsalis intersection.”
And finally, because I’m such a movie nerd who loves character actors, I was happily surprised to see that the actress K Callan was a 23-year-old drama teacher (etc.) at the school in 1959 before she entered the professional acting world of New York and Hollywood. (Callan was born in Dallas as Katherine “Kay” Borman and actually attended Our Lady of Good Counsel as a student before she taught there.) (UPDATE: Read K’s memories of her time at LGC in the comments, here.)
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All photos of the school (except the one from 1905) are from various editions of Reveries, the yearbook for Our Lady of Good Counsel.
The 1902 photo was posted in the Dallas History Guild Facebook group.
The 1905 photo is from Dallas Rediscovered by William L. McDonald (p. 215), with the following credit: “Courtesy of Sister M. Adelaide Mars.”
The Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church still stands, at 231 N. Marsalis; their website is here.
1942
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 