That “X” is in the wrong spot, y’all…. (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Before I begin, I offer apologies in advance to Oscar Hammerstein II (original lyricist of “The Last Time I Saw Paris”), Neiman–Marcus (with or without the hyphen), haters of Texas stereotypes, and, especially, Fort Worth.
In a Dallas item connected with “Independence Day” in only the most tangential way possible, I thought I’d share a little cabaret song I stumbled across today whilst rummaging through the internet. It’s a humorously re-written version of the Academy Award-winning hit song “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” (…um, the one in FRANCE….), written in 1940 by Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) and Jerome Kern (music).
Partial lyrics were reported by Earl Wilson in his syndicated gossip/entertainment column, “Broadway Last Night,” twice — first in 1953, after he’d seen Juliana Larson sing it at the Sherry Netherland Hotel, then later, in 1958, after he’d heard Connie Moore sing it at the St. Regis Maisonette. Both women had Texas ties (Constance Moore actually grew up in Dallas), so I’m sure both enjoyed singing the ditty (in what one hopes was in an ever-so-amusing sophisticated style, à la Noël Coward).
At the Neiman-Marcus store They sell the usual furs And the cutest children’s Cadillacs And yachts marked “His” and “Hers.”
The last time I saw Texas And the oil was in her hills, The kiddies bought their lunch at school With hundred-dollar bills.
The last time I saw Texas, All Dallas was so gay, We’d burned Fort Worth to the ground On Independence Day.
Happy Independence Day, Fort Worth!
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Listen to Noël Coward sing “The Last Time I Saw Paris” (before FW was being burned to the ground), here.
Juliana Larson (aka Juliana Bernhardt) was a former John Powers model who married wealthy Houston oilman Walter Bedford Sharp, Jr. (whose father was a business partner with Howard Hughes’ father). She started in light opera in Texas and moved on to New York nightclubs. She seems to be known mostly as the wife of a Texas oilman and a permanent fixture on Best Dressed lists. She horrified everyone when she showed up to a Metropolitan Opera opening night wearing trousers — see her delighting in the publicity she received from that, in Life magazine (Nov. 24, 1952), here.
Constance Moore was born in Iowa but grew up and began her career in Dallas. More about her here and here; glamour photos here.
The “Texas” lyrics were reported by Earl Wilson to have been written by David Roger (for Juliana Larson, in 1953) and by Earl Brent (for Connie Moore, in 1958). The partial lyrics Wilson quoted in 1953 and 1958 were the same. …So there you go. (I changed the order of one line, because it seems that Wilson got the lines of the first verse in the wrong order.)
I’m not sure where I found that Neiman’s map, but it’s cool. (Why IS the “X “is the hinterlands, anyway?)
Enjoy your 4th of July weekend! And don’t burn anything down!
New and old power plants, 1907 (click for much larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Construction began in 1906 on a new power plant for the Dallas Electric Light & Power Company. It was built next to the old power plant, and it furnished electricity for the city’s lighting and power needs as well as for its streetcars and interurban cars. When construction began, the project was expected to cost more than $500,000 (over $13 million in today’s money), a large (but necessary) expenditure for the growing city.
Dallas Morning News, Feb. 9, 1906
The photo at the top shows the new plant on the left, and the old 19th-century plant on the right. Here, a view from the other side:
Inside? A lot of fascinating stuff that looked like this (as well as a stern-looking man who appears to be trying to avoid the camera):
The power station was northwest of downtown, between the MKT and Cotton Belt and Rock Island railroad yards (approximately where the American Airlines Center is today). Before the Trinity was straightened and moved, the plant was only about half a mile from the banks of the river. Even though the grade of the new station’s floor was built above the highest flood level, the historic flood of 1908 put the plant out of commission for several days, but — probably because it was filled with brand new equipment — the city’s power was restored much faster than one might have expected.
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Sources & Notes
Photos are from the Street Railway Journal, May 18, 1907 (Vol. XXIX, No. 20). To view the entire 7-page article — which includes more photographs as well as several floorplans and schematics, all of which are very cool (even to someone like me who has absolutely no idea of what any of it means!) — check it out, here.
Ah, the “grooveless-post semi-convertible” streetcar with the “extra long platforms,” the cherry and maple interior, the domed ceiling, and the clusters of frosted globes. Sounds nice.
“Interior of Car for Dallas” (click for larger image)
Dallas Morning News, Aug. 29, 1907
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Photos from Street Railway Journal, April 6, 1907; original article can be accessed here. Above scans from an old eBay listing.
Want to know more about the Brill Convertible and Semi-Convertible Cars? Sure you do! Hie yourself here.
Main Street looking west, toward a ghostly courthouse (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
These three photographs were taken by prominent Dallas photographer Clifton Church, probably in 1893 or 1894. The one at the top shows Main Street looking west, taken just east of Poydras. (The then-new courthouse at the end of the street appears to have been lightly fleshed out by the hand of a photo re-toucher, giving it a mirage-like quality.) The Trust Building, on the right, was at the northeast corner of Main & N. Austin; the Dexter insurance office was in the North Texas Building, at 221-223 Main (under the old numbering system), between N. Lamar and Poydras; and the Scruggs & Scruggs wholesale liquor business was at 237-239 Main, two doors east of the Poydras intersection. The present-day view from the same location can be seen on Google Street View, here.
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The photo below shows Elm Street looking east, taken just east of Akard. In the middle of the block on the left is Mayer’s Beer Garden & Saloon, at 361-363 Elm; the tall building behind it was the Guild Building at 369-371 Elm. Across the street, the tall building on the right is the Chilton Building. In the foreground at the right is the Dallas Business College at 342 Elm (which, in the 1892 city directory, showed to be where artist Frank Reaugh had studio space). The present-day view can be seen here.
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And, below, Commerce Street, looking east from about Poydras. At the bottom left is the L. J. Bartlett Oriental Livery and stables, at 237-241 Commerce; next to it is the St. George Hotel. In the distance, across the street, is the brand new Oriental Hotel at Commerce and Akard with its distinctive rounded topknot. In the middle of the block is the famed Padgitt Bros. Saddlery at 248-250 Commerce, and in the foreground is Ballard & Burnette at 240-242 Commerce, a company that sold “wholesale hats, caps, gloves, and umbrellas.” The present-day view is here
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Below is a handy-dandy visual showing the locations of the above photos on a present-day map. (The black line shows where Poydras used to be. It exists today only as an alley-like block-long stretch of asphalt that runs alongside the downtown McDonald’s.) Click for larger image.
Google Maps
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Photos by Clifton Church (1855-1943), from his book Dallas, Texas Through a Camera: A Collection of Half-Tone Engravings from Original Photographs (Dallas: J. M. Colville, Franklin Printing House, 1894). (Sadly, these images are a bit washed out. I’d love to see the original photographs — and I’d love to see a copy of the original book.)
Address information from city directories and Sanborn maps.
Dallas’ first gay pride march, June 24, 1972 (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Today’s historic ruling by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of marriage equality comes after decades of civil rights activism from the LGBT community. The push for acceptance and equality began for many after the historic Stonewall Riots in New York City, which happened 47 years ago this week. The political fight began in Dallas — as it did in most major US cities — in the early 1970s. Dallas’ first Gay Pride march was held downtown on June 24, 1972, at a time when “out” homosexuals and lesbians were often blacklisted or denied basic civil rights without legal recourse. Below, the coverage of that first march by The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 25, 1972
And now, a long, long 43 years later — almost to the day — the Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is now legal in every state in the union, a landmark victory not only for those early political and social activists who marched in the streets of Dallas and fought for their basic human rights, but also a victory for those of us who are their friends and family.
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A wonderful history of the gay community in Dallas — from the days of secret “speak-easy”-type clubs to political organization to the AIDS fight — is contained in the KERA-produced documentary “Finding Our Voice: The Dallas Gay & Lesbian Community” (2000), which can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube, here.
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Sources & Notes
Photograph of Dallas’ first Gay Pride march is from the LGBT Collection of the UNT Libraries; it and other photos of the parade can be found on UNT’s Portal to Texas History website, here.
Coverage of the first Dallas march can be found in the Dallas Morning News article “Gays March Proudly” by Marc Bernabo (June 25, 1972).
Other Flashback Dallas posts on LGBTQ issues can be found here.
In the previous post, “White Rock Station,” I wrote about the opening of a new passenger depot that had been built to serve suburban travelers along the new stretch of Santa Fe track laid between Dallas and Denton in 1955, opening up direct through-travel to Chicago. This was big news, and as was the charming custom back then, when a new business endeavor opened or expanded, other businesses (often direct competitors) placed ads in the local papers to welcome them and wish them well.
Here are a few of the ads that appeared in December, 1955 to promote/congratulate the new line. I’ve chosen these details of ads because they feature illustrations of the city’s skyline — I always love to see the Dallas skyline in ads, but I particularly like the style of commercial art from this period.
At the top is a detail from an ad placed by the Magnolia Petroleum Company, with the tag-line “Main Line to Progress.”
The White Rock passenger station — the Santa Fe railroad’s first suburban train depot built in the Southwest — opened on December 5, 1955 on Jupiter Road, about a quarter of a mile south of Kingsley (located mere steps across the Garland city line), a few miles northeast of White Rock Lake. It was the culmination of a $7,000,000 construction project in which two depots were built and 49.3 miles of new track was laid between Dallas and Denton (or, more specifically, between Zacha Junction — the area near Northwest Highway & Garland Road — and Dalton Junction, an area just northwest of Denton).
The new track — touted by a Santa Fe ad as being “the longest main line construction over new territory by any railroad in 25 years” — was important because it offered passengers from Dallas the ability to travel for the first time directly to Chicago without having to change trains. It also reduced freight line distances by 65 miles. The swanky streamlined Texas Chief shuttled passengers between Dallas’ Union Station and Chicago in about 19 hours — travel time between Union Station and the new White Rock Station was 25-30 minutes.
Santa Fe ad detail, Dec. 4, 1955
The breathless copy from the giant two-page advertising spread heralding the new line included the following description:
And just wait until you see the special lounge car and dining car on the Texas Chief — the last word in luxury in railroad equipment, decorated in the style and smartness indicative of Dallas…. A lounge decorated to please a Texan! Wide open and spacious feeling, with really comfortable modern sofas and chairs, casually grouped to make you want to relax. You’ll see the Star of Texas and famous cattle brands tooled into the rich leather back-bar — and Texas-inspired murals in hand-hammered copper. Even the walls are richly paneled — in smart, new frosted walnut. Just wait until you see it, you’ll say there’s nothing like it.
And here they are (click for larger images):
Below, the Texas Chief, pulling out of the station, heading north. (To see a grainy closeup of the station in the background, click here.)
Photo by Everette DeGolyer, Dec. 29, 1956, via SMU
UPDATE: Watch color home-movie film footage taken at the station in this clip from the Portal to Texas History (the pertinent footage begins at the 3:00 mark). More on this cool piece of film can be found in another Flashback Dallas post, here.
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Interesting tidbit: the engine of the Texas Chief was christened at Union Station on Dec. 5, 1955 with a bottle of water from White Rock Lake! The caption of a photo of the christening in the Dallas Morning News read: “NEW STREAMLINER CHRISTENED — With a bottle of water from White Rock Lake, Mrs. Fred G. Gurley, wife of the Santa Fe Railway’s president, christens the new Dallas-Chicago Texas Chief in ceremonies Monday at the Union Terminal. At right is Miss Sandra Browning of Garland, who presented the local bottle of water,” (DMN, Dec. 6, 1955). Champagne? Pffft! We’ve got pure-dee White Rock Lake water!
And I found footage of that! Here is a screenshot of Mrs. Gurley wielding the bottle of East Dallas’ finest (as Miss Garland, Sandra Browning looks on).
And here is the short clip of the Texas Chief on Dec. 5, 1955, the day of its inaugural run from Dallas to Chicago — in color!. There are shots of the ceremonies at Union Station in Dallas, of the new White Rock Station, of the streamliner with the Dallas skyline behind it, and, possibly, footage from the other big ceremony in Denton.
The two photos showing the dining and lounge cars of the Texas Chief were taken around 1956; both are from the Museum of the American Railroad Collection, Portal to Texas History. Other photos of the Texas Chief from this collection can be seen here.
Photo of the Texas Chief pulling out of the White Rock Station was taken by Everette L. DeGolyer on Dec. 29, 1956; it is from the Everette L. DeGolyer Jr. Collection of United States Railroad Photographs, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University. The photo (“Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, Diesel Electric Passenger Locomotive No. 11, White Rock Station”) can be viewed here.
The two drawings, and a few quotes, are from large advertisements placed by the Santa Fe railroad to announce the opening of their new line.
The last photograph showing the station is dated “circa 1956” and credited to “Monaghan, M.D.”; it can be viewed on the Portal to Texas History site, here.
The YouTube video showing color footage of the Texas Chief’s inaugural festivities is titled “New railroad into Dallas. Archive film 93424,” from the Huntley Film Archives, here.
The photo of the commemorative railroad spike (“Spiked with Progress”) was sent to me by a man who had seen it for sale in an antique store in Ardmore, Oklahoma in 2020 (thanks, Joe!).
A 1962 map showing the location of the station is here. A present-day Bing map showing where the station was is here. A Google Street View image of the area today is (…if you must…) here.
An article on the construction of the Denton and Dallas (White Rock) depots — “Work on New Santa Fe Depot To Start Here” (Denton Record-Chronicle, July 13, 1955) — can be read here.
For anyone doing research into this specific new rail line, there was a 16-page section in The Dallas Morning News on Dec. 5, 1955 which was bursting with helpful info, civic pride, “welcome to the neighborhood” ads, and corporate puffery. There was an even larger (MUCH larger!) tribute to the sainted Santa Fe which consumed the entire Dec. 4, 1955 edition of The Denton Record-Chronicle (there was even a ghost image of a Santa Fe engine which covered page one).
As mentioned above, there is home-movie film footage taken at the station — more about this can be found in the Flashback Dallas post “White Rock Station (And a Helicopter Ride),” here.
And, lastly, check out a YouTube video of Henry Mancini’s version of Johnny Mercer’s “Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe” — with loads of cool period film footage of train travel — here.
Thank you, Peter Simek, for the link to the Flashback Dallas post “Cole Park Storm Water Detention Vault” on the D Magazine FrontBurner blog! My original post — which I wrote as the period of torrential flooding was just beginning — has been shared quite a bit, and it is far and away this blog’s most popular post so far this year. Thanks for all the shares, and thanks again, D Magazine! Read Peter Simek’s post “Why Central Expressway Doesn’t Flood During Torrential Rain,” here.
That “X” is in the wrong spot, y’all…. (click for larger image)
Dallas Morning News, Feb. 9, 1906
Dallas Morning News, Aug. 29, 1907
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 25, 1972
Flashback : Dallas 