About/Contact

I’d love to hear from you! Please contact me at:
flashbackdallas214@gmail.com

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I am a native Dallasite whose second home growing up was an antiquarian bookstore specializing in Texana — a bookstore run by my Indiana-born father who, as a child, dreamed of being a Texas cowboy. I grew up hearing so much minutiae about Dallas and Texas history that I guess it’s not really that surprising that I became an adult who knew a lot about my hometown — but my knowledge was pretty shallow. I knew fragments about a lot of things, but there wasn’t really anything I could have discussed in depth. I would have done really well on a Dallas-history category on trivia night at my local bar, but that’s about it. I could have come up with arcane facts about the Sportatorium, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you where it was without consulting a map — the way the children of coal miners become adults who might surprise friends by tossing out the occasional unexpected tidbit about anthracite mining but have never seen the inside of a mine (I hasten to add that I have seen the inside of the Sportatorium, but I digress). I’ve had a lifelong fascination with all-things-Dallas but didn’t begin to seriously look into its history until I began this blog in 2014.

What is this blog anyway? Basically, it’s just a collection of things that I find interesting: photos, postcards, important historical events that I’d vaguely heard of, newspaper clippings about forgotten moments from the lives of forgotten people, the history of houses and buildings, vintage ads, things that make me laugh … whatever. It’s a strafing approach to Dallas history and pop culture — a scattershot look at random things that seem cool, odd, or interesting. I try to present my “discoveries” in as informal and entertaining a way as possible, and I always hope my enthusiasm comes through in every topic I tackle. Yeah, there’s actual history here (and an eye-watering amount of research), but I don’t really think of this as a “history blog” — it’s really written as entertainment. (But, hey, man — two birds, one stone.) People who think learning about history means reading dull, dry sentences grouped together in dull, dry paragraphs are just wrong. Having now written over 1,200 of these blog entries (!) (!!), I can assure everyone: if you’re reading dull history books, it isn’t the history that’s dull — it’s the writer!

If you see errors, typos, or broken links, please let me know. If you have questions, comments, or inquiries on republishing any of my original content, please contact me at: flashbackdallas214@gmail.com.

(If you’d like to hear me talking with my very own voice, a very short interview by KERA radio’s Justin Martin can be listened to here.)

(And if you think my research, writing, and copy editing skills might be useful for a project you are working on and would like to hire me, please contact me at the above email address — not only are my rates very reasonable, I am also a reliable and delightful human being!)

Thanks for reading!

Paula Bosse

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