Flashback : Dallas

St. Paul’s Sanitarium — 1910

St. Paul’s Sanitarium, located at Bryan & Hall (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

My posting has been infrequent as of late, due, in part, to obligations concerning a family member’s hospital stay. So, since I have a short time before I have to rush off to run errands and make visits, why not focus on a historic Dallas hospital?

St. Paul’s Sanitarium was opened in a small cottage on Hall Street in 1896 by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, but it soon moved to the new large H. A. Overbeck-designed building on Bryan Street in 1898. In 1927 the name changed to St. Paul’s Hospital, and in 1958, the name changed again, this time to St. Paul Hospital. The imposing building and annex (and whatever other structures were contained in the complex) were demolished in 1968.

Below are several wonderful photographs taken inside the sanitarium around 1910 by one of Dallas’ best photographers, C. E. Arnold. They are from the St. Paul Hospital Collection in the UT Southwestern Library (click links below photos to see info about each picture).

The nursing station.

The “Mexican Ward” (as noted on the back of the photograph).

A patient ward on a screened-in sleeping porch.

A waiting room.

The x-ray room.

The nurses’ library. (I LOVE this photo! Check out the crazy typewriter stand attached to the desk — I’ve never seen anything like that before.)

The nurses’ dormitory on the top floor.

And, my favorite, the ominous-looking “mattress sterilization room“ in what appears to be a dungeon.

UPDATE: Check out some fantastic historic photos of the hospital and its nurses contained in this UT Southwestern Medical Center publication, “St. Paul University Hospital, A Legacy of Caring,” here.

***

Top postcard is from the Vincentiana Postcard Collection, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University Library, Chicago; it can be found here.

Bottom postcard, with the cheerful message from Edna, was found on Flickr, here.

All photographs are from the St. Paul Hospital Collection in the UT Southwestern Library. Other photos from this 1910 collection can be found here. (For fuller descriptions, click the linked text beneath the photos in this post.)

An interesting article on the photographer, Charles Erwin (C. E.) Arnold, and the technique used in capturing his interiors, can be found here.

A historical timeline of St. Paul’s can be found in a PDF here.

Wondering where St. Paul’s Sanitarium was located? It was at Bryan and Hall streets, across from Exall Park. Here is the location, from a 1919 map:

All images larger when clicked.

27 Comments

August 17, 2015

Teatro Panamericano / Cine Festival — 1943-1981

El Panamericano (click for larger image) (Villasana)

by Paula Bosse

In 1937, Joaquin José (J. J.) Rodriguez opened the first theater in Dallas to show Spanish-language movies. It was the Azteca, at 1501 McKinney Avenue, one block away from the still-there El Fenix. He soon changed the name to the Colonia and later to El Patio.

colonia_1938-directory 1938 city directory

Even though a journalist later described this theater as being “dingy” and “unprepossessing” (DMN, July 31, 1944), the theater was quite successful, little surprise as the Hispanic community of the day was sorely underserved in almost every way. This endeavor was so successful that in the fall of 1943, the 36-year old entrepreneur made a big, BIG move: he bought the stunning and palatial Maple Avenue building that once housed the famed Dallas Little Theatre, an amateur theatrical group that had burst on the scene in 1927, but which had fallen on hard times in recent years.

1930s

Rodriguez raised the necessary $35,000 (equivalent to almost half a million dollars in today’s money), bought the beautiful building at 3104 Maple, and renamed it Teatro Panamericano. The angle of the article that appeared in The Dallas Morning News on Sept. 22, 1943 announcing the new theater had the new moviehouse as being a boon to students and Anglo members of the community who might need to brush up on their Spanish rather than as a welcomed entertainment venue for the “Mexican colony” living and working in the adjacent Little Mexico neighborhood.

El Panamericano was an immediate success and soon became not only a place to see movies, but also a place for Dallas’ Spanish-speaking community to meet and mingle, with PLENTY of room for all sorts of events. (It was so big that Rodriguez and his family lived in back. He also had TWO offices and more storage space than he had things to store in it. No skimping on the parking lot either — one ad touted an acre of parking space.)

The theater’s importance to the Hispanic community of Dallas was both cultural and social:

For Mexican-Americans growing up in Dallas during the ’50s and ’60s, the films at El Panamericano, were a link with their historical and cultural heritage. For some, it would be their only exposure to cultural ties; for those whose families were stressing their Americanization by using only English in the home, it was a chance to practice their Spanish. (“Festival Fades, but Mexican Movies Thrive,” DMN, Aug. 9, 1981)

After more than 20 years of running a successful theater that catered to his core niche audience, Rodriguez was persuaded to change the theater’s focus. Mexican families had slowly moved out of the neighborhood, many to Oak Cliff where the Stevens Theater on Fort Worth Avenue had begun showing Spanish-language movies in the early ’60s and had siphoned off a large portion of Rodriguez’s audience. In 1965 the Panamericano became an arthouse cinema which showed mostly subtitled European films (and, later, underground and cult movies) — these were movie bills which were clearly aimed at college students and an upper-class Anglo audience. The Panamericano became the splashy Festival Theatre.

BoxOffice magazine, Nov. 22, 1965

An indoor-outdoor restaurant — the Festival Terrace — was added, and it boasted of being “the only theater in the history of Texas with a wine and beer license.”

BoxOffice magazine, Nov. 22, 1965

1960s (Villasana)

As impressive as the Festival and its array of films were, the theater struggled, and Rodriguez later called this period a “big mistake.”

“As soon as I could, I changed it back to the way it was before. In fact, I lost money on that deal.” (DMN, Aug. 9, 1981)

Another unusual misstep for Rodriguez at this time was his decision to open a drive-in that showed only Spanish-language films. What sounded like a great idea was another surprising failure for Rodriguez. Despite its non-stop advertising in the first half of 1965, the wonderfully-named Auto-Vista (located in Grand Prairie) lasted less than a year.

“Cine en su coche”! (March, 1965)

Rodriguez’s new-old Spanish-language theater — now the Cine Festival — was still popular, but it never regained its former glory. Rodriguez retired in 1981 and sold the property. Despite efforts by preservationists to save the beautiful Henry Coke Knight-designed building, it was demolished a few months later — in early January, 1982 — in the dead of night under cover of darkness (… that happens a lot in Dallas…). A nondescript office building was later built in its place.

J. J. Rodriguez died in 1993 at the age of 86, almost exactly 50 years after opening one of the most important entertainment venues for Dallas’ Hispanic population. He was a respected leader in the community and was for many years president of the Federation of Mexican Organizations, an organization he helped found in the 1930s. His theater was both culturally important and beloved by its patrons.

J. J. with daughter and wife (Pampa News, July 30, 1944) AP photo

With his wife, Maria, downtown 1940s (Villasana)

In the projection booth, 1950s (Villasana)

The matchbook cover image below gives an indication of how large the theater was. The building at 3401 Maple — at the corner of Carlisle, across Maple from the Maple Terrace — was gigantic.

Matchbook via George W. Cook Collection, SMU

In a Dallas Phorum discussion (here), the space was described thusly:

It was an interesting building with an outdoor terrace restaurant, a full proscenium stage, rehearsal space downstairs below the stage, dressing rooms, shop/storage areas, and even a puppet theatre built into a wall in the balcony lobby area.

To see what the corner of Maple and Carlisle looks like now, click here (have a hanky ready). Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to still have that elegant building and still see it in use as a theater and restaurant?

In what may well be research overkill, I thought it was odd that there was an Azteca Theatre at 1501 McKinney a year before Rodriguez owned it. I wondered if, in fact, Rodriguez had owned the first Spanish-language movie theater in Dallas, or whether that distinction belonged to Ramiro Cortez (whose name is often misspelled as Ramiro Cortes). It seems that Cortez’s theater might have featured live performances rather than motion pictures. Like Rodriguez, Cortez had ties to Dallas entertainment — read about him here.

1937 city directory

***

Sources & Notes

Photos with “Villasana” under them are from the book Dallas’s Little Mexico by Sol Villasana (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2011); all are from the personal collection of Mariangel Rodriguez. More photos of J. J. Rodriguez can be seen here (click “Next” on top yellow bar).

The full article from the Nov. 22, 1965 issue of the industry journal, BoxOffice, includes additional photos and information and can be seen here and here.

All other images and clippings as noted.

Articles on J. J. Rodriguez and his theaters which appeared in The Dallas Morning News:

“Pan-American Theater to Aid Spanish Study” (DMN, Sept. 22, 1943)
“Teatro Panamericano” by John Rosenfield (DMN, Oct. 12, 1943)– coverage of opening night festivities
“Maple Location Regains Swank” by John Rosenfield (DMN, Sept. 18, 1965) — about the change from El Panamericano to the arthouse Festival Theater
“Festival Fades, but Mexican Movies Thrive: Theater Owner Says Adios to Film Business” by Mercedes Olivera (DMN, Aug. 9, 1981) — about the closing of the Festival Theater
“Encore No More” (DMN, Jan. 4, 1982) — photo of the partially demolished theater
“Rites Set for Hispanic Leader J. J. Rodriguez — He Co-Founded Federation of Mexican Organizations” by Veronica Puente (DMN, Sept. 26, 1993) — Rodriguez’s obituary

“Dallas Theater Owner Is One-Man Pan-American Agency” — a syndicated Associated Press article by William C. Barnard — can be read here.

Read about Teatro Panamericano at Cinema Treasures, here.

Read about the competing Stevens Theater in Oak Cliff on Fort Worth Avenue, here.

29 Comments

August 11, 2015

500 Posts?!

by Paula Bosse

Unbelievably, when I uploaded the previous post, I was informed that it was my 500th post. Even though I’ve written each and every one of them over the past 18 months, that still seems a little hard to believe. 500!

Thanks to everyone who reads Flashback Dallas. It’s been a lot of fun!

I’m having unresolved computer issues at the moment and am unable to post anything new for the time being. But after 500 posts, I might need to take a nap and venture away from my desk for a while!

Thanks again to all of you for your continued interest and support!

–Paula

14 Comments

August 8, 2015

Movie Houses Serving Black Dallas — 1919-1922

The Palace Theatre, Elm St., Deep Ellum, 1922 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

In 1920, movie theaters — like most places in Dallas at the time — were segregated. If black customers were allowed at all in the downtown white vaudeville and movie houses, they had separate entrances and restricted seating areas (generally in the balcony). But Dallas’ African-American community had their own popular theaters, run by enterprising and energetic men who endlessly promoted their jam-packed and constantly-changing bills.

Judging by the amount of ad space purchased in the black-owned and operated Dallas Express, there were four main movie theaters catering to black Dallasites around 1920: the Grand Central Theatre, run by John Harris, the Mammoth Theatre, run by Joe Trammell, the Palace Theatre, run initially by Felix Moore, and the High School Theatre, run by Herbert Batts; the first three of these houses were in Deep Ellum, the last one was in what was then called “North Dallas.’ The theaters played both “white” films and films with “all-Colored casts.” The advertising for these theaters is great — far more ad space was available in the tiny Express to publicize the movies, the popular but now-forgotten Silent Film stars of the era, and the proprietors themselves than was available to the theaters on the other end of Elm Street in the much larger, white-owned News, Journal, or Times Herald. Sometimes it’s good being the big fish in the little pond — absolutely everybody knows who you are.

The Grand Central Theatre was at 405-407 N. Central Ave. (which later became Central Expressway), between Swiss and Live Oak on the outer northern edge of Deep Ellum. John Harris, the owner, put himself in practically all of his ads. He included this autobiographical sketch in one of them:

micheaux-grand_dallas-express_052821-det Dallas Express, May 28, 1921

I’m not sure if he operated “the first Negro moving picture show in Dallas,” but I wouldn’t doubt it — the man was a dynamo who possessed not only a bold self-confidence, but he also seems to have had an unlimited promotional budget. UPDATE: The first appearance of a theatrical enterprise by John Harris shows up in the 1913 city directory (directories generally collected their information the previous year, so he was probably in business in 1912). Harris is listed under the “Amusements” section at the same address as the Grand Central Theatre, a name which came later. The same 1913 directory also lists the Star Theatre, which later became the Palace (see below). These are the only two theatres designated as “colored.” It’s unclear whether the theaters hosted live performances or showed movies. Or both.

The Grand Central advertised relentlessly. (Click ads to see larger images.)

Dec. 4, 1920

May 14, 1921

Aug. 6, 1921

Below, an ad showing one of the offerings to be a Ben Roy Motion Picture Corp. movie called “My Baby” which was “made in Dallas, featuring William Lee and All Colored Cast.”

May 27, 1922

Harris was connected with the legendary black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. Not only did he regularly run his films, but he also seems to have been working as a booker, promoter, and distributor of Micheaux’s films and ran the Micheaux Film Productions branch office out of the Grand Central. “Colored Pictures are Money-Getters.”

May 14, 1921

One ad that caught my attention was this one, for a locally-shot film called “Colored Dallas.” I really, REALLY want to see this, but the possibility of an extremely minor, 95-year-old silent film having survived into the 21st century is slim.

Jan. 24, 1920

The Mammoth Theatre was located at 2401 Elm Street, between Central and Hawkins. It opened in late 1919 — the run-up to the opening was publicized in this Dallas Express item.

Nov. 22, 1919

The Mammoth might not have advertised quite as much as the Grand Central did, but it frequently took out splashy full-page ads. Full-page! I bet that royally irked John Harris. Below, a Mammoth ad from 1920.

April 3, 1920

Two details from the above ad:

mammoth_dallas-express_040320-det-2

mammoth_dallas-express_040320-det
“Operated by Colored folks for Colored Folks.”

The owner, Joe Trammell, seems to have had an inexhaustible source of money for advertising — those frequent full-pagers (unusual for the time) must have cost a pretty penny. I couldn’t find much information about any of these men, but I stumbled across this photo of Trammell, tacked on to one of his … um … mammoth ads.

mammoth_joe-trammell_dallas-express_021221 Feb. 12, 1921

The Palace Theatre, seen in the photo at the top, was at 2407 Elm Street, just a couple of doors down from the Mammoth. (This Palace is not to be confused with the “white” Palace Theatre, the stalwart of Theater Row at the other end of Elm.) It opened in 1920 in the remodeled space formerly occupied by the Star Theatre,

palace_dallas-express_030620 March 6, 1920

May 8, 1920

Lastly, moving up to North Dallas, we find the High School Theatre, located at 3211 Cochran, between Central and N. Hall Street. The reason for its name was its close proximity to the Colored High School (the only high school for African-American students at the time — it would soon merge with and relocate to the new Booker T. Washington High School a short distance away). The following businesses were in this same block: the High School Cold Drink Stand, the High School Cafe, the High School Shine Parlor, and the High School Tailor Shop. Location, location, location.

March 15, 1919

My favorite High School Theatre ad is this one, touting a serial called “The Master Mystery” starring Houdini … one of the screen’s first appearances of a robot! (Check out a scene featuring both Houdini and the robot/automaton, here.)

March 15, 1919

The only one of these theaters still in business in 1930 was the Palace. by 1937, the Palace had become the Harlem Theatre.

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo showing Elm Street and the Palace Theatre and the bottom two photos showing the Harlem Theatre are from the Texas/Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library. The upsetting view of what that stretch of Elm looks like now can be seen on Google Street View, here. Below, side-by-side, 1922 and 2015 — Elm St. looking east to Deep Ellum, the Knights of Pythias temple in both images down the street on the left. Look what we’ve lost.

All ads and clippings from The Dallas Express, as noted. A few years’ worth of this important newspaper, which served Dallas’ African-American community, can be accessed here.

August 6, 2015

Tower Theater — 1967

Movie premiere at the Tower, 1967 (click for larger image) photo, Lovita Irby

by Paula Bosse

Elm Street, probably Thursday July 6, 1967, when “The Dirty Dozen” opened at the Tower. Next door at the Capri was “Spartacus.” Down the street, at the Majestic, the second week of the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice.” At first I thought it was odd that there was little in the clothing that looked like 1967, but I guess there probably weren’t a lot of hippies standing in line to see “The Dirty Dozen.”

***

Photo by Lovita Irby, from the November 2013 Preservation Dallas newsletter, accessible in a PDF here.

Trivia: Appearing in “The Dirty Dozen” was Dallas native Trini Lopez.

Previous Flashback Dallas posts on Theatre Row/Theater Row, here.

3 Comments

August 5, 2015

Three of Dallas’ Earliest “Photoplay Houses” — 1906-1913

Dallas’ first movie house, here in 1910 on its third name (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

I seem to be deep into an unintended “Movie Week” here, all because I’ve been researching a photo of a little-known early suburban movie theater — and that’s how I stumbled onto a great article about Dallas’ first “picture shows.” The rather clunky title of the extremely informative Dallas Morning News article (which is linked below) is: “Startling Progress of Picture Shows; One-Third of Dallas’ Population Daily Entertained; History Local Houses; Dark Storerooms and Rickety Chairs Give Way to the Modern Photo-Play Theater” (March 9, 1913).

Some of the facts in the article are a bit off, but it’s fascinating to read that the first (or certainly ONE of the first) showings of a moving picture in Dallas was at the State Fair in 1897, when a boxing promoter presented what was one of the earliest “pay for view” matches in history — he showed footage of the highly publicized Jim Corbett-Bob Fitzsimmons Heavyweight Championship fight which had taken place a few months previously — the fight was originally intended to be fought in Dallas, but it was moved to Nevada, causing, one would assume, much consternation to those involved with the staging of and promotion of the fight. Not only did the promoter make back all the money he had invested locally in the thwarted boxing match, but he made a hefty profit trundling the film around the country for curious viewers (which included a large number of women who were not generally allowed to watch boxing matches).

Later, two men set up a projector in a second-story window and began showing movies on an open-air screen across the street, at Main and Lamar. It was popular, but it was also something of a traffic hazard. Also, there were itinerant hucksters who came and went, showing motion pictures wherever they could, moving from city to city.

It wasn’t until the summer of 1906 that Dallas got its first permanent movie house when William McIlheran opened the Theatorium (a common word used around the country back then for a movie theater, but which, to virgin ears, sounds as odd as “Sportatorium” must to people who have never heard that word). It was at 311 Elm Street (which later became 1315 Elm), at about where Field is today, and it was the first movie theater on Theater Row! I love this description of what the place was like, from the DMN article mentioned above — even though the opening date is off by a year (click for larger image):

DMN, March 9, 1913

theatorium_sherrod

With the arrival of this permanent theater (one with an actual roof over it), the moving picture had finally became more than just a mere novelty, and the success of the Theatorium started a mad dash of entrepreneurs opening up their own theaters. Within a month of the Theatorium’s opening, at least four more such houses were open for business.

At some point the Theatorium became the Wonderland (in 1907 or 1908), and it began showing so-called “talking films” (the talking was, apparently, provided by an off-stage actor providing the spoken dialogue while trying to match the silent actors’ lips on screen).

cameraphone_talking-pictures_dmn_101908 The “Cameraphone” — DMN, Oct. 19, 1908

And finally, the Wonderland turned into the Dixie, seen at the top, in 1910, and below, in 1909.

Box office, detail (click for larger image)

Another photo, from 1918, shows mostly children lined up in front of the theater, with the sign in the background. (They were lined up to see a WWI-related movie at the nearby Hippodrome; the photo is looking east along the north side of Elm, near where Field now intersects.)

from The Moving Picture World magazine, June 22, 1918

But it wasn’t until the beginning of 1913 that the first “palaces” arrived. The Queen Theatre opened first, at the corner of Elm and Akard. The DMN raved: “The most beautiful Photo-Play Theater in the South. Every man, woman and child in Texas should see this theater — truly a credit to the State” (DMN, Feb. 2, 1913).

Photo from Building Laws of the City of Dallas, 1914

Elm St. about 1917, with Queen on left — photo from CinemaTreasures.org

Interior, 1930s — photo from CorbisImages.com

queen-theatre_dmn_102012 DMN, Oct. 20, 1912

The Queen opened to rapturous crowds in January, 1913, but moviegoers barely had time to catch their collective breath when the Hippodrome opened at 1209 Elm, just a few weeks later, on March 1, 1913. It was “…conceded to being the finest moving picture house in the United States” (DMN, March 9, 1913).

Photo from Building Laws of the City of Dallas, 1914

hippodrome_dmn_022813 DMN, Feb. 28, 1913

By the time the Queen and Hippodrome opened, movies had become a popular and profitable form of entertainment. In 1913 Dallas had 28 “picture shows” — 24 for white patrons and 4 for black patrons. Even vaudeville houses occasionally ran short films to pad out their live shows. And, notably, movie houses had begun to pop up away from downtown: in 1913 there were a dozen “suburban” theaters in residential areas of town (many of these, though, showed movies outdoors and thus operated only in the warmer months and at night).

There was a tremendous appetite for movies in Dallas in those early years, and when the money men realized that motion pictures weren’t just a here-today-gone-tomorrow novelty but a burgeoning industry, they dived in with enthusiasm.

Any tendency to cast the movies aside as a passing fad has given way to a realization that they are here to stay and that the crest of their popularity has not yet been approached. (DMN, March 9, 1913)

And Theater Row was off and running.

***

Sources & Notes

The top photo of the Dixie Theatre and the Theatorium ad are from the Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University. I found them in Historic Dallas Theatres by D. Troy Sherrod. Sherrod’s passage on the Theatorium/Wonderland/Dixie is well worth reading, here. The second Dixie Theatre photo, with the man standing next to the box office, is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be found here.

The very informative Dallas Morning News article of March 9, 1913 on the history of movie theaters in Dallas can be read here (it opens in a PDF, click the plus-sign at top of page to increase the text size).

Background on the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight is here. Background on the now-legendary FILM of the fight is here; highlights of the 1897 film can be viewed here.

Many images larger when clicked.

9 Comments

August 4, 2015

Dazzling Neon, Theater Row — 1929

“The lights are much brighter there…”

by Paula Bosse

Whoa. Elm Street in the ’20s.

The Ritz. The Capitol. The Old Mill. The Palace. The Melba. Iced air. Paul’s Shoes. What I wouldn’t give to have walked down Elm when it looked like this.

***

Sources & Notes

Photo from Shorpy.com, here.

Highlights from the 1929 and 1930 street directory (from about Akard, heading east):

1517 Elm: Ritz Theatre
1519: Leader Candy Co.
1521: Fooshee’s Barber Shop
1521-23: Capitol Theatre
1525-27: Old Mill Theatre
1600: Paul’s Shoes
1601: Metropole Cleaners
1603: Elm Pacific Arcade
1605: Lontos Cafe
1623-25: Palace Theatre
1911-15: Melba Theatre
1912-29: Majestic Theatre

7 Comments

August 3, 2015

Dallas’ First Two Drive-In Theaters — 1941

Northwest Hi-Way Drive-In, July 1941

by Paula Bosse

The drive-in theater arrived in Dallas on June 20, 1941, the night that “Give Us Wings,” starring the Dead End Kids, played as the first feature of the Northwest Hi-Way Drive-In, located at the northwest corner of Northwest Highway and Hillcrest. It stood on twelve-and-a-half acres and had a 450-car capacity. The drive-in was opened by W. G. Underwood and Claude Ezell, who had opened similar outdoor movie theaters in San Antonio and Houston.

The Hi-Way (which appears to have usually been spelled “Highway”) featured something I had never seen in drive-in design: cars parked on terraced ramps, where the car behind was always slightly higher than the one in front of it so as to offer an unobstructed view, and speakers were on stands embedded in cement and were placed between cars (no in-car speakers).

Rain was apparently not a problem in this brave new world of outdoor entertainment — if it rained the show would go on (even though the opening was delayed by a few days because of rainy weather) — but fog was a problem, and in case of such weather, movie-goers would be issued a “fog-check” to come back another (fog-free) night.

A newspaper article appeared a few days before the theater’s opening, explaining what a drive-in was and how it worked. Here is the last paragraph:

According to Mr. Underwood 80 per cent of the people who attend drive-in theaters are non-theatergoers. These include people with children and no one to leave them with, semi-invalids, cripples and corpulent individuals who find it embarrassing to attend the regulation theaters. At the Drive-In there is no necessity for getting out of the car, an attendant meets you at the gate, takes your money and buys your tickets, while another wipes your windshield. A third pilots the car to a space on one of the ramps. These are widely spaced enough that any car may leave at any time. (Dallas Morning News, “Northwest Highway Drive-In To Open Tuesday, Rain Or Stars,” by Fairfax Nisbet, June 14, 1941)

Okay then.

The the weather eventually behaved, and the opening on June 20, 1941 was a success, with an almost-capacity audience. The drive-in had arrived in Big D.

Two weeks later — on July 4, 1941 — Underwood and Ezell opened the Chalk Hill Drive-In in Oak Cliff, at about West Davis and Cockrell Hill Road. It looked almost exactly like the Northwest Highway drive-in, down to the great big star on the outside of it (to be replaced with a clown mural years later). The very first feature was “The Invisible Woman” with Virginia Bruce and John Barrymore.

1942, out on the Fort Worth pike (Library of Congress)

Both theaters had successful and relatively long lives. The Northwest Highway drive-in closed in 1963 when the land was purchased for development (the most notable occupant of the new businesses that occupied that corner was probably the fondly remembered Kip’s restaurant).

The Chalk Hill Drive-In closed in the late 1970s, and from what I can tell, it spent a couple of decades abandoned and decaying.

A few random tidbits.

Here’s a 1945 aerial shot over SMU looking north — the drive-in is in the middle of all that wide-open Caruth farmland, seen just left of Hillcrest (the Hillcrest Mausoleum, built in 1936, can be seen to the right of Hillcrest; the Caruth Homestead is at the far right edge of the photo).

Here’s a detail, showing it up-close:

Two aerial shots by the United States Army Air Forces, taken for a USDA survey in 1945. First, the Northwest Highway Drive-In, with Northwest Highway running horizontally in the photo and Hillcrest running vertically.

SMU

This aerial photo from 1947 shows a view to the northwest, with Hillcrest running from lower left corner to top right — it appears the photo was taken to show the new apartment complex just north of the parking area of the drive-in.

Dallas Public Library

And Chalk Hill, with Highway 80 running horizontally:

SMU

Chalk Hill again, this photo from 1973, with the clown face and circus theme that many remember:

Photo by Steve Fitch, Smithsonian American Art Museum

A couple of amusing livestock-oriented drive-in-related human-interest blurbs appeared in the pages of The Dallas Morning News:

Some cattle going from Waco to Wisconsin stampeded through University Park when their truck caught fire on Greenville. Police herded most of the steers into a Northwest Highway drive-in theater. Five were found nuzzling zinnias at a home on Southwestern. (Lorrie Brooks, DMN, Sept. 18, 1952)

Cattle in 1952, donkeys in 1955:

University Park police early Wednesday captured two pet donkeys who escaped their pen at the Northwest Highway Drive-In Theater during the night. A startled passerby spotted the two donkeys grazing contentedly on a lawn at Centenary and Hillcrest, about four blocks from the theater…. Bill Duckett, manager of the theater, reported the loss of the two pets, which he keeps for the entertainment of the theater’s small-fry patrons. (DMN, May 26, 1955)

***

Sources & Notes

I’m not sure of the source of the top photo, but I’m pretty sure of when it was taken: the marquee shows that the movie “Tall, Dark and Handsome,” starring Cesar Romero, was playing; that movie ran at the Northwest Hi-Way Drive-In July 12-14, 1941.

The aerial photo (by Capt. Lloyd N. Young) showing SMU and the land that lay north of it is from the Highland Park United Methodist Church Archives; I found it in Diane Galloway’s fantastic book The Park Cities, A Photohistory.

The two aerial photos are details of larger photographs from the collection of Dallas Aerial Photographs, 1945 USDA Survey, Edwin J. Foscue Map Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University. The full (labeled) Northwest Highway photo is here; the Chalk Hill photo is here.

Two other aerial photos (from 1958) are interesting because they are a bit closer and because you can see the terraced ramps — they can be seen here (apologies for the watermarks — photos from HistoricAerials.com).

The Wikipedia entry for the Drive-In Theater is here.

The patent (with illustrations) for the drive-in theater, filed by Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr. in 1932 is here (it’s a very interesting read). I had no idea a drive-in movie theater could be patented. This cool drawing is part of it (click it to see it larger):

A great history of drive-ins in the Dallas-Fort Worth area can be found in the article “Starlit Skies and Memories” by Susan and Don Sanders; it appeared in the Spring, 1999 issue of Legacies, and can be read here. Great photos! (Who knew there was a drive-in on South Lamar — the Starlite — which catered exclusively to the black community?)

20 Comments

July 31, 2015

“A Perfect Auto Tent” — 1921

Remember to turn off engine before retiring for the night…

by Paula Bosse

Personally, I don’t understand why anyone would want to be outside when it’s 157 degrees, but for those of you who are insistent campers who might be heading out for a sweaty and bug-filled weekend in the wilderness, might I direct your attention to the “automobile tent,” ready for purchase in 1921 at the Dallas Tent and Awning Co. at 2620 Main Street, in the heart of Deep Ellum. Adjusted for inflation, the cost of this admittedly charming-looking “car tent” would be the equivalent of about $200.

My weekend? I will be camped out in a blissfully air-conditioned house — shades drawn, blinds closed — with an iced tea in hand, moving slowly, and not smelling like insect repellent.

4 Comments

July 30, 2015

How To Access the Historical Dallas Morning News Archive

The old Dallas Morning News building

by Paula Bosse

(UPDATED August 1, 2025 — I have not updated this post, but, instead, I’ve written a whole new one. It’s shorter and — as of today! — it’s up to date. Find that post, which reflects the new Dallas Public Library website, here. The post on this page below still has some good tips, but as far as being able to use it to figure out how to actually get anywhere on the DPL website, check out the link above instead. I will update this post, if I ever have the time to do it!)

Yesterday I wrote about how I tracked down the location of a photograph with very little information to go on. I hesitated to include the step-by-step process I used to discover the location, because I was afraid that it would be a little too tediously arcane for most people. But, apparently I was wrong. I’ve been surprised by how popular the post has become. It’s gotten many more hits than most Flashback Dallas posts usually do. I’ve seen it shared all over Facebook, and it’s generated more comments and emails than I expected. It’s gratifying that people seem to be interested in the actual process of historical research. Even though I don’t necessarily consider myself a historian (I studied Art History in college, and my background is in bookselling), I’m happy to be able to share historical events and forgotten local tidbits with an audience that finds them as interesting as I do. I consider myself a writer and researcher, and sometimes all the fun is in the researching.

Since I began this blog in February of 2014, I’ve been asked several times how I access the Dallas Morning News archive. Without question, the DMN is the single most valuable resource in the study of Dallas history. Years ago, one would have had to trudge to a library and crank up a microfilm or microfiche reader. Luckily, we are in the digital age, and every edition of the DMN from 1885 to the end of 1984 has been scanned and digitized and can be viewed from the comfort of one’s own home. (Also available in this database are various Fort Worth newspapers — from The Fort Worth Register to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram — from at least 1897 to 1990, which is, of course, very handy!) You can view the paper page by page, article by article, photo by photo, comic strip by comic strip, ad by ad. It’s incredible. You’ll get lost in it for hours. Want to know what was going on 100 years ago today? Easy! Here’s the front page of the DMN from July 30, 1915:

front-page_dmn_073015 DMN, July 30, 1915

So how do you do it? First off, you have to live in the city of Dallas — bad news for those of you living outside the city limits, I’m afraid. (UPDATE: THERE IS A WAY FOR NON-RESIDENTS TO ACCESS THE ARCHIVE — FOR A MONTHLY FEE. SEE UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF THIS POST.) For those of us who do live inside the city limits, not only can we access the database whenever we want, but it’s also FREE. All you need is a Dallas Public Library card (information on how to get a free card is here; the DPL’s FAQ is here). UPDATE Nov. 9, 2021: The Dallas Public Library will now offer free library cards (and with it access to their website, including the newspaper archives) to STUDENTS AND TEACHERS AT DALLAS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS, CHARTER SCHOOLS, COMMUNITY COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES, regardless of whether they actually live in the city of Dallas — see the DPL’s FAQ on that here, and read a news story about it on the KERA site here.

So your first step is to get a library card. Once you have a card, go to the Dallas Public Library site’s “My Account” page, here, to sign up for the free account. You’re now ready to plunge in.

HOW TO ACCESS THE “DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARCHIVES”

Use this to search for content published ONLY in The Dallas Morning News, between 1885 and 2016 (articles post-2016 are available on DallasNews.com). (Scroll down for instructions to access Fort Worth papers.) This BY FAR the easiest option for most people and should give you more than you need!

Log in to your Dallas Public Library account
Click on “DATABASES”
Scroll down, click on “MAGAZINES, NEWSPAPERS & JOURNALS”
Scroll down, click on “DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARCHIVE”
This gets you to a default page with 4 DMN-related sources: 1) the “historical” edition, for the years 1885-1984 (results will show scanned images/articles as they appeared in the newspaper when originally published), 2) the “modern” edition, for the years 1984-2016 (these results will be text-only — no images), 3) DMN Blogs (2006-2016), and 4) the DMN old free paper Quick (2003-2011). Enter your search terms in the search box, and wave goodbye to big chunks of time as you sit in front of your computer searching and reading and searching and reading.

I use the ADVANCED SEARCH option — click “Advanced Search” underneath the main keyword search box. A new page opens and you can filter what you’re searching for by choosing any specific fields you want to use. Click the down-arrows next to the search boxes to show a drop-down menu of options.

ACCESS FORT WORTH PAPERS ONLY:

Follow the instructions above to log in — the main page opens — click through as above to “DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARCHIVE”
At the very top of the page, click the down arrow next to “Change Databases” — click on “ALL DATABASES” — a new page will load
Under “Access World News — Historical and Current” click on “Fort Worth Star Collection with Historical Archive” (they’ve left out the “Telegram” in several places with the recent update) — this brings up archives of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (“historical” editions published 1902-1990 and “modern” editions published 1990-present day) as well as an archive of The Fort Worth Register (1897-1902) — and other stuff. Full scans are available for the editions published between 1897 and 1990; after that, it’s text-only.

ACCESS THE FULLY SCANNED “HISTORICAL” DALLAS AND FORT WORTH PAPERS *SIMULTANEOUSLY*:

This is the option I find most useful in doing daily historical research — I exclude “modern” editions, because I get too many extraneous results. If I do need more recent info, it’s easy to add modern editions, but I find excluding papers published after 1984 is best for my work.

There are two ways to do this — this way is fastest (you won’t see results published after 1984 for the DMN or after 1990 for FWST):

Log in — follow all the steps listed above — the main page opens
Hover over “Change Databases” at the very top of the page – a dropdown menu appears — click on “All Databases” — a new window opens
Scroll down and click on “America’s Historical Newspapers” a new page opens — this will search the “historical” databases of the Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram as well as the Fort Worth Register (Jan. 2023 update: even though you don’t see them until you look at search results, there are now several other fully scanned “historical” newspapers which will show up from other cities and states — up to 1922, which I gather is when copyright kicks in — you can filter these out and just stick with the DMN and FWST, but they are very interesting to peruse)
Filter your search options by date, specific newspaper, etc., on the left side of the page or — my preference — use the “Advanced Search” option by clicking that link below the main search box and add however many rows you need to refine your search (I always add a “Date” row and leave it for the duration of my research period)

This is a way to add and exclude various newspapers (don’t confine yourself to Dallas and Fort Worth!), and it also allows you to see search results from historical and modern papers at the same time:

Follow the steps above to log in — the main search page opens
Near the top of the page (to the right of the “NewsBank” logo) click on “A-Z Source List” — a new page opens
In the search box next to “All Keywords” type in “Dallas” — as of this writing, a LOT of options pop up, mostly modern rather than “historical” — click the checkboxes of all sources you wish to access
After you’ve selected all the sources you want, click on the blue box at the bottom of the page reading “Search Within These Selections” — a new page will open — begin your searches from the newspapers you’ve selected.

ACCESS ALL AVAILABLE METROPLEX-AREA NEWSPAPERS SIMULTANEOUSLY:

There are tons of DFW metropolitan-area papers and neighborhood publications to search through on the Newsbank/DPL website — from Alvarado to Weatherford; only the pre-1984 Dallas Morning News and pre-1990 Fort Worth papers are “historical” and fully scanned) — all other papers are text-only and, generally, don’t have content available from before the early 2000s. But those papers have lots of great info. I know this is getting tedious (!), but here’s how to search those non-historical DFW papers simultaneously:

Log in — main page opens
Click on “Access World News Historical and Current” at the very top of the page — a new page opens
Click on the blue box on the right side of the page reading “Dallas Metropolitan Collection” — this brings up archives for (as of this writing) 90 area publications (Jan. 2023 update: I see issues of The Dallas Herald (1855-1887) are, weirdly, kind of hidden in this list — they appear to be the exact same scans available on the Portal to Texas History, where navigation is a lot easier!)

Note: At the risk of beating a dead horse, one more time: the difference between the “historical” and “modern” post-1984 Dallas Morning News archives is that the “historical” (1885-1984) search results include images of fully scanned editions of the newspaper — you see everything the way it looked in the actual newspaper: you can see entire pages as well as individual articles, photos, illustrations, comic strips, ads, classifieds, etc. You do not see any of this in the post-1984 results — the information is still useful, but it’s not as interesting and, maddeningly, not as comprehensive. I tend to use one or the other, otherwise, too many non-applicable results are returned.

It takes a good bit of time to figure out how to use the search engine quickly and effectively — it has a lot of weird little idiosyncrasies that can cause you to miss out on lots of things you’re searching for (apostrophes, initials, and numbers can be extremely problematic) — but once you start to wander around, you’ll be amazed at what an incredible treasure trove is at your fingertips. It’s always confusing after a major re-do of a site, so you just have to play around with it until you figure out how everything works. …Then have everything change again when you finally get comfortable with it.

This is such a wonderful resource — thank you, Dallas Public Library and thank you, Dallas Morning News!

***

Sources & Notes

Photo at top: “Lintel and pediment above doorway, Commerce St. entrance,” ca. 1930s, from the Belo Records collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; photo and details are here.

The best newspaper database for those interested in Texas history is UNT’s Portal to Texas History Texas Digital Newspaper database, here. They have tons of scanned and digitized historical Texas newspapers (excluding The Dallas News), AND it’s free and available to everyone. Below are a few of their offerings of particular interest to Dallasites:

The Dallas Herald — absolutely ESSENTIAL for Dallas goings-on between 1855 and 1887, here
The Southern Mercury, the agricultural-leaning paper published in Dallas, 1888-1907, here
The Dallas Express — a newspaper printed by and for the city’s African American community — ALSO essential — sadly, only the years 1919-1924 have been scanned, here
The Jewish Monitor — published in Fort Worth, serving the DFW (and Texas) Jewish community, 1919-1921, here
The Texas Jewish Post, 1950-2011, here

Check out all the Texas newspapers UNT has scanned: go to the Advanced Search page and scroll down the “Collections” menu bar to see the full list.

And, of course, there are the subscription sites Newspapers.com (which I use) and NewpaperArchive.com. I’m not familiar with the offerings of the latter, but Newspapers.com has a lot of DFW papers, all of which are fully scanned (and many of which are available for free at the Portal to Texas History). My favorite DFW newspaper on Newspapers.com is a fairly recent addition — the evening edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which is often very different from the morning edition (morning editions are the ones found on the Newsbank/Dallas Public Library database — Newspapers.com has both morning and evening FWST editions).

**If you need some research done, I might be able to help. I have access to several resources and am pretty thorough. Let me know what you’re looking for and inquire on hourly rates by clicking the “Contact” tab at the top of the page.**

Enjoy!

7/31/15 — UPDATE: GENEALOGYBANK.COM — HOW TO ACCESS THE HISTORICAL DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARCHIVE IF YOU ARE NOT A DALLAS RESIDENT: While looking for something completely unrelated, I came across a comment by someone who said he accessed the Dallas Morning News archives — historical and modern — through a site called GenealogyBank.com. It sounds like something similar to Ancestry.com where you are given access to several different types of resources used in genealogical research. The website indicates the cost is $19.95/month or $69.95/year. There is a free 30-day trial (but if you don’t cancel it and explicitly tell them you are canceling, they will automatically charge you and you will NOT get your money back). This is the first I’ve ever heard of this site, so I have no idea whether it’s good or bad. (The parent company of GenealogyBank is NewsBank, the company that manages the DMN archive accessible through the Dallas Public Library.) I did ask on a Dallas history group tonight, and a trusted member said that he uses it all the time. He posted a few screenshots, and it’s very similar to the archive accessed through the library’s website. For those interested, you might want to try the free trial to see if it’s something you’d be interested in subscribing to. This is pretty cool, because it offers people who live outside the city limits the ability to access the DMN archives for a relatively small fee each month. I am not promoting or endorsing this site because I had never even heard of it until an hour or two ago. I’d love to hear feedback from people who try it out. The Genealogy Bank website is here. A review of the site from About.com is here. I encourage you to check other consumer sites for pros and cons. I hope this is helpful for those of you who, for some reason, choose to live away from Dallas!

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