Flashback : Dallas

September 21, 2023

A Few Photo Additions to Past Posts — #21

Ali in Big D

by Paula Bosse

Time for another batch of images I’ve come across recently which belong in posts I’ve already written. Like the photo above and the two below, which show Muhammad Ali in Dallas on March 26, 1967, at an appearance at a mosque across from Booker T. Washington High School, during which he signed copies of an Islamic newspaper for the throngs of fans who showed up. I was very excited to see these photos pop up on eBay a short time after I had written about this Easter Sunday appearance. They have been added to the 2023 Flashback Dallas post “Muhammad Ali Visits Graham’s Barber Shop — ca. 1967.” (Source: photos by Bob W. Smith, found on eBay)

It’s probably because I’m so familiar with the Lower Greenville area, but I really love this aerial photo by Squire Haskins, taken in Feb. 1950, showing the Hockaday campus at Greenville and Belmont (Greenville is the street running horizontally at the bottom of the photo. I’ve added it to the 2016 post that keeps getting longer and longer, “Belmont & Greenville: From Caruth Farmland to Hub of Lower Greenville.” (Source: Squire Haskins photo, from the Squire Haskins Photography Inc. Collection, UTA Libraries, Special Collections)

Yeah, I’ve had my fair share of delicious Stoneleigh Burgers and cherry cokes at the Stoneleigh P. Here’s a great photo showing it in the ’70s, in the building originally built in 1923 (it burned down in 1980). I’ve added this photo to a 2019 post I really enjoyed writing, “Stoneleigh Pharmacy/Stoneleigh P.” (Source: Dallas Municipal Archives Facebook page; from the Historic Preservation Office collection)

I’m fascinated with the telegraph. I’ve added this 1904 telegraph-school class photo (with a woman!) to the 2014 post “Start Your Brilliant Career at Dallas Telegraph College — c. 1900.” (Source: eBay)

Lake Cliff, man. Wow. I’ve added the two postcards below to the extravaganza of cool postcards collected in the 2019 post “Beautiful Lake Cliff — ca. 1906.” (Source: eBay)

On a hot day in May 2017, I went downtown to watch the restoration by the fabulous Julie Richey of the beautiful tile mosaic on the exterior of the St. Jude Chapel on Main Street (I absolutely LOVED writing about this in “Mosaic Restoration at Downtown’s St. Jude Chapel”) — I was aware of the mosaic only because I had written the post “The Saint Jude Chapel Mosaic by Gyorgy Kepes — 1968” a few weeks earlier. I’ve added the postcard below to that latter post from 2017. (Source: eBay)

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Pre-fab housing was a big deal in Dallas after (and during) WW2, because of a severe housing shortage. I’ve added the ad below to the 2014 post “World War II ‘Victory Huts’ at Parkland.” (Source: 1944 Southwestern Medical School yearbook)

The Rose Room on Hall Street. Fantastic. This photo has been added to the 2017 post “1710 Hall: The Rose Room/The Empire Room/The Ascot Room — 1942-1975.” (Source: eBay)

This screenshot from news footage about the removal of the contents of the Oak Lawn National Bank (3110 Oak Lawn Avenue) is interesting to me because it shows the Italian Villa restaurant across the street at 3211 Oak Lawn (currently occupied by Green Papaya and its neighbors). The odd brick… um… structure things have always seemed weird to me, but there they are. I’ve added this screenshot to another one of those posts that is probably just WAY TOO LONG, but I’m cramming it into 2018’s “Sam Ventura’s Italian Village, Oak Lawn.” (Source: WBAP-TV news footage shot on Jan. 23, 1955, from the KXAS-NBC 5 News Collection, UNT Libraries Special Collections, via the Portal to Texas History)

A few blocks away on Oak Lawn was Whittle’s, mecca for band kids. I’ve added this to 2017’s “The Whittle Music Building — ca. 1956” (the first part is about the original downtown location before the move to Oak Lawn in 1965 — scroll to the bottom of the post to see a few photos of the Oak Lawn location). (Source: I failed to note where I came across the ad)

And lastly, I keep stumbling across weird, obscure stuff that I wrote about years ago — like the story about a 1963 police raid on the East Dallas home of a cafe-owning bookie named George Bartlett. He got a black eye during a scuffle with vice cops as he tried to flush betting cards down the toilet. The worst day of his life was captured for posterity by WBAP-Channel 5 news cameras, showing the down-and-out cafe man, still in his pajamas, being handcuffed in his bedroom. I originally came across the story when I was writing about a fire on Knox Street which damaged several businesses, including his cafe — that photo is featured in the 2016 post “Knox Street Fire — 1961.” I’ve added this screenshot in the part about poor George. (Source: KXAS-NBC 5 News Collection, UNT Libraries Special Collections, via the Portal to Texas History)

You can watch the short, silent video here — and you can read the explanatory news script, which the TV anchor would have read as the film ran, here (otherwise, you’ll have no idea why you’re seeing loaves of bread…).

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Sources & Notes

Please consider supporting me on Patreon, where I post Dallas history tidbits every day!

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3 Comments

September 17, 2023

Woodrow Teens Hang Around — 1948

by Paula Bosse

Photos from the 1948 Woodrow Wilson High School yearbook show how kids hung out in post-war Lakewood and Lower Greenville. I don’t know where some of these photos were taken — if you do, please let me know!

Above, there were lots of soda shops/pharmacy fountains to patronize. Including Harrell’s, in the familiar-to-anyone-who-has-spent-any-time-in-Lakewood turreted still-there building, below.

And here:

And here, where dressed-up teens are waiting for a table:

And here, the “fancy” Sammy’s on Greenville Avenue (right across the street from the less fancy Sammy’s):

I have been obsessed with this building (just south of the intersection of Greenville and Ross) my whole life. Was there open-air dining upstairs? Dancing?

Since I mentioned it, these were the three Sammy’s which were in operation in 1945 — the two on Greenville and one in Highland Park Village:

So, yeah, there was lots of hanging around for Woodrow kids back in 1948.

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Sources & Notes

All images (except the ad for Sammy’s) are from the 1948 Crusader, the yearbook of Woodrow Wilson High School.

Sammy’s ad is from the 1945 Highland Park High School yearbook.

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16 Comments

September 11, 2023

The Stagecoach Ride at Six Flags: 1961-1967

What could possibly go wrong?

by Paula Bosse

Did you ride the stagecoach at Six Flags?

The stagecoach at Six Flags? What? This:

And this (with grazing buffalo for added Old West atmosphere):

When I first saw Six Flags postcards touting stagecoach rides, my first thought was, “How did they ever manage to get insurance for that?”

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The “Butterfield Overland” ride debuted in the “Confederate” section when the park opened in 1961 and lasted until about 1967. It was very, very popular.

1965, via UTA Libraries Special Collections (det)

Why did I never know about this when I was a kid? I never saw a stagecoach. I would have LOVED to ride a stagecoach. What happened? Well, here’s what happened: in May 1967, one of the stage’s wheels came off mid-ride, and the stage overturned, injuring 11 of the 14 people on board, most of them children. A 4-year-old Haltom City girl — who was riding on the top — was pinned beneath the overturned stagecoach. When she was freed, she was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery on both feet. One of the news stories about this unfortunate incident ended with, “Saturday’s accident was the first involving the stagecoach since the park opened in 1961,” adding that more than 4 million persons had ridden this ride between 1961 and 1967. (Four million!) (Granted, I think there were four stagecoaches and four teams of horses, but… four million!!)

One month after the accident, it was reported that the girl’s father had sued Six Flags for $531,000, contending that park officials were guilty of 30 counts of negligence. ($531,000 would be the equivalent in today’s money of about $5 million.) I can’t find anything about what happened with this lawsuit, but I assume there was probably a quiet settlement. Coincidentally or not, that spelled the end of the Butterfield Overland stagecoach ride at Six Flags Over Texas.

And that’s why I never heard of — or got to experience — a stagecoach ride at Six Flags.

(I don’t know what happened to the buffalo.)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo of a Six Flags stagecoach jam-packed with kids from Fort Worth magazine.

The 1965 image is a detail of a larger photo from the Jack White Photograph Collection, UTA Libraries Special Collections — see the full photo and more details here.

Read more about this Butterfield Overland stagecoach ride at Parktimes.com.

The whole “Confederate” and “Texas” sections of SFOT were kind of weird, including a several-times-a-day lynching (!), as can be seen in one of the postcards in the 2014 Flashback Dallas post “Angus Wynne Jr.’s ‘Texas Disneyland’ — 1961.”

For real, non-amusement-park stagecoach tidbits, check out the post (also from 2014) “Dallas to Austin by Stagecoach: Only Three Days! (1854).”

A slightly different version of this post originally appeared on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page in August 2023. If you’d like to see daily Flashback Dallas posts, please consider supporting me on Patreon, for as little as $5 a month.

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6 Comments

September 4, 2023

Aunt Stelle’s Sno Cone

aunt-stelles_sign_google An Oak Cliff oasis…

by Paula Bosse

This has been a brutally hot summer. The kind of summer when a snow cone would really hit the spot at just about any sweltering hour of the day. One place that was famous for its snow cones (they were described as being like “fine snow”) was Aunt Stelle’s Sno Cone, at 2002 W. Clarendon (at Marlborough) in Oak Cliff. Established by Estelle Williams in 1962, the little stand was hugely popular until it officially closed in 2018. Her snow cones were flying out of there every summer season for more than 55 years! To generations of customers. Not many businesses can boast that kind of longevity and patron loyalty. (One of those loyal patrons was Oak Cliff homeboy Stevie Ray Vaughan.)

Having not grown up in Oak Cliff, I wasn’t familiar with Aunt Stelle’s until I saw the photos below which appeared as ads in editions of the Sunset High School yearbook. You can see Estelle in the window. She looks exactly like the kind of person I’d want serving me a delicious, refreshing, messy treat.

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Speaking of the treats, check out that menu board! I understand the “Beatle” tasted like a grape SweeTart, the “Zorro” tasted like licorice (and it was black!), the “Pink Lady” tasted like vanilla ice cream, and the “Popeye”… I really wanted it to be green and taste like spinach, but apparently it tasted like gumballs (what a missed opportunity!).

1967 Sunset High School yearbook

1967 Sunset yearbook

1968 Sunset yearbook

1969 Sunset yearbook

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Sources & Notes

Top image of the Aunt Stelle’s sign is from Google — the photographer is listed simply as “Scott.”

A great story about Aunt Stelle’s can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives in the story “Sno Days: Aunt Stelle’s Has Been Keeping Oak Cliff Cool for 40 Seasons” by Dave Tarrant (DMN, June 22, 2001).

Consider supporting me on Patreon! Five bucks a month gets you daily morsels of Dallas history!

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August 27, 2023

The “Other” Flashback Dallas…

The beautiful Copper Cow… (from a July Patreon post)

by Paula Bosse

At the beginning of April 2023, I started a Patreon page. I post something there every day — exclusive content for my patrons who support me by pledging $5, $10, or $15 a month. Not only is it flattering that people do this, but the extra cash has helped me tremendously at an uncertain time as I begin a job search. (Thank you, patrons!)

Because people might not know what I do over on Patreon, I basically write mini-Flashback Dallas posts, which are accompanied by photos, ads, illustrations, etc. If you’d like to get these little Dallas-history tidbits in your mailbox every morning, please consider signing up. It’s painless. You can always sign up, read through what’s there, and, if it’s not something you’re interested in, you can cancel at any time. But, of course, I hope you’ll join and stay awhile. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed doing it. If you’re interested, you can check it out and join here.

Below is a list of what I’ve posted on Patreon since I started in April.

AUGUST 2023

Six Flags: Stagecoach Rides and Buffalo (1961-1967)
Booker T. Washington High School: Vocational Classes – 1953
Fritos: Truly Krisp and Tender – 1940s (Recipes)
Preston State Bank, 8111 Preston Road – 1970
Roger Staubach Loves Air Conditioning – 1979
NorthPark from the Air – 1965
Royal Haven Baptist Church
Commerce Street, From the “Y” – ca. 1912
“Thrilling! Inspiring! Gorgeous!” – 1936 (Texas Centennial)
Louanns Mural
Eubanks Cafe, Harry Hines Blvd.
Skyline: Tax Day, 1959
Women’s Building (Grand Place) – 1954
Oh dear…. (a confusing photo labeled “West Dallas School” which ended up being in West Dallas, Wisconsin)
City of China, Fair Park – 1936
From the Country of 1100 Springs – 1968
The Chicken Shack, 2700 Fort Worth Ave. – 1939
Hospitals – 1916
Jack Ruby’s Home Sweet Home – 1963
IBM Building, 2911 Cedar Springs – 1959
Texas Heat Wave – 1980
Pre-Dealey, Pre-Demo

JULY 2023

Miss Phoebe: The Lady Bug-Killer
NorthPark Cinema I & II – 1965
The Girls of St. Mary’s – 1911
New Method: Laughing Gas – 1919
Streetcar Yard, Old East Dallas – 1954
Dallas Medical Center Envisioned – 1943
Xavier Cugat School of Dancing & Vogue Dance Studio – 1957
Laughead Photographers
Elm & Harwood, Lotsa Landmarks
West Dallas Mexican Presbyterian Mission – ca. 1942
“Village, TX” – 1948 (Highland Park Village post office)
Highland Park West – 1925
Jamieson Film Company – 1968
Passenger Terminal, Love Field – 1939
The Ott Lock Building, Elm Street
Ross & Harwood, and a Beautiful James Flanders Church
The Copper Cow: The Most Beautiful MCM Restaurant Interior in Dallas?
Volk’s Floor, Wynnewood Shopping Village – 1952
Fair Park: Band Stand (ca. 1909) vs. Band Shell (1936)
The Chalet – Lakewood Nightlife
Sex Pistols at the Longhorn Ballroom – 1978
City Hospital
Big Tex & His Messy Followers
Dallas Transit System’s Blue and Orange Fleet
A Texas 4th of July
Take a Refreshing Dip at Kidd Springs
The Old Federal Reserve Bank

JUNE 2023

Dal-Hi Baseball – 1911
Main Entrance to SMU – ca. 1915
Dallas Terminal Station by Buck Schiwetz – 1925
Sidewalk Plaques on N. Harwood
Eva & Nell Hernandez, Walking Down Elm Street (Volk Store) – 1935
The Wedgwood, Oak Cliff High Rise – 1965
Sidewalk Photographer at the Centennial – 1936
Dr Pepper Cocktails – 1964 (Recipes)
World of Animals/Lion Country Safari
Aerial View of the Skyline, To the South – 1970s
Make Pappy Happy – Get Him a Spittoon!
Elm Street Store: Whiskey, Brooms, Cigars – 1900-ish
Preston Royal Theater, 1959-1985
Statler Hilton Snow
A Pet Horse Grazing in University Park – 1931
Become a Fabulous Texette, A Texas Stadium Usherette
Love Field Pilots Love Their Moms
The Way to Dallas is Fast and Crooked
The Washington Theatre, “For the Better Class”
The Belmont Hotel
Bowen Street at the MKT Viaduct – 1906-ish
Gordon McLendon, The Old Scotchman
Devil’s Bowl Speedway
Pacific, Live Oak, St. Paul – 1925
Texas Instruments, Coming to a Prairie Near You: 1957-1958
When You Could Buy a Windmill Downtown – 1887

MAY 2023

The Tagliabue Building, Jackson Street – 1935-1938
WWI Airfield Jazz Bands in DFW
The Magnolia Sky Revue: 1952-1956
Padgitt Bros. Saddlery, Est. 1869
Larry McMurtry Auction – 2023
Post Office and Federal Building: Bleak Days – 1930
My Favorite Downtown Building with a Rocket on Top
Mockingbird American (American Motors car dealership)
View from a Trestle – 1967
Retail on the Frontier – 1859
Before Ebby Came Along, There Was Ira…
SMU for Yellow Pages – 1963
Little Bit of Sweden
Eveready HQ – 431 South Ervay
Lobello’s
Teller Cages and Cuspidors – ca. 1908
Skyline in Black and White – 1973
Clearing Way for Dealey Plaza – 1935
Hop-a-Bus: No, It Wasn’t a Dream
Morticians Supply Company
Peaches Records & Tapes
“You’ve Never Seen the Likes” – 1950 State Fair of Texas
I. M. Pei’s City Hall Model – 1968
Movie Row: Elm Street – 1940
Parry Ave. Fire Station (No. 3 Hook & Ladder Co.)
Brockles – The Famous Special Salad Dressing (Recipe)
Dallas Welcomes the Elks with Pure Artesian Water and a “Full Trough”
State Fair Exposition Building – ca. 1912
The Quadrangle – 1969

APRIL 2023

Southfork Dallas, USA
FronTex: Dudin’ It Up – 1946-1947
Boude Storey Jr. High School
Sombrero-Time: Six Flags – 1965
The Majestic Theatre, Jerry Bywaters – 1936
Big Tex: Centennial Liquors Spokesmodel
Love Field, From the Air and In the Tower – 1940s
Baker Hotel/Adolphus Hotel – Amateur Snapshots
Dallas Gun Club – 1955-1962
Dallas Motorcycle Cop – 1920
Dallas: “The City of the Hour”
“Dallas” Pinball – 1949
Dallas Morning News Mini Museum – 2023
Dallas Morning News: “Hep” Wanted – 1953
Rats
The Iceman Cometh, and Will Wait While You Fetch Your Coupon Book
Casa Linda Theater – 1952
The Drug Abuse Club – 1974
“Principal City, Dallas” – 1910s
Fair Park Swimming Pool: 1926-1960
Texas Motor Coaches’ Super Express – 1947
The State Theater – ca. 1952 (State-Thomas)
City Park Highway
Frugging in North Dallas – 1964
Pleasant Grove Chrysler-Plymouth-Valiant – 1960s
Get Your 8-Tracks at 7-Eleven – 1975
Republic Bank Building – 1955 (Kodachrome)
Take the Streetcar to Fair Park
White Rock Lake Pig Stand
Have a Cow in Beverly Hills – 1910s
“The Bonnie Parker Story” – 1958
Dallas’ Carnegie Library
Interstate 345 Under Construction – 1971
It’ll Do Club, Afternoon Dancing and Drinking
The Sportatorium, Y’all – 1975
Skillern’s: “Beautiful, Streamlined, Completely Departmentalized” – 1948
The Adolphus, The Baker, The Horse Shoe, The Colony Club
Sanger Bros. – 1899
Lamar & Smith Funeral Home, Oak Cliff
Colbert’s, Casa Linda – 1967
The Ripley Believe It or Not Odditorium – 1936
Loew’s Melba Theatre – 1920s
Dave’s Pawn Shop, Deep Ellum – 1955
Akard Streetcar
North on Ervay, from Commerce – In Color
I’ve Done It – I’m on Patreon… (April 2, 2023)

***

Sources & Notes

Photo of the interior of the Copper Cow restaurant (1519 Commerce Street) by Squire Haskins, from the Squire Haskins Photography Inc. Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections — more information on this photo is on the UTA website here. (I tackled the Copper Cow in July in the Patreon post “The Copper Cow: The Most Beautiful MCM Restaurant Interior in Dallas?”)

If you think you might like to join me on Patreon, more info is here. Thanks!

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4 Comments

August 23, 2023

Hometown by Handlebar

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by Paula Bosse

I’m ashamed to say I’ve only just learned of the death of Mike Nichols, the man behind the fantastic Fort Worth-history blog “Hometown by Handlebar.” Mike, a former columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, died on March 5, 2023. He was 73.

His last blog post was on March 4, 2023 — a version of the piece also appeared in the pages of the FWST on the following day, the day he died after a long battle with cancer.

I am so sad to hear this. I never met Mike, but we exchanged pithy fan letters over the years. I discovered his blog in 2014 — the first year I started blogging about my hometown — and when I first saw it, I was shocked. His “Hometown by Handlebar” was a Fort Worth version of “Flashback Dallas” (or, I should probably say that Flashback Dallas was a Dallas version of Hometown by Handlebar). They were really, really similar. I either commented on a post of his I had stumbled across or sent him a personal message via Facebook, and that began several years of a sporadic, not-so-long-distance mutual admiration society. He frequently referred to us as “twins.”

When I was celebrating my first Flashback Dallas anniversary on Facebook in February 2015, Mike wrote, “Happy historying to you, Sis, from upstream.”

I responded with a link to his blog so that my friends would understand what he was referring to and wrote, “People who find Dallas dullsville and Fort Worth where it’s AT need to check out Mike’s blog, Hometown by Handlebar. He and I were apparently separated at birth — our blogs are surprisingly similar. I mean … it’s WEIRD!”

And then he responded, “Thanks, Paula. The first time I saw Flashback Dallas, at first glance its content and appearance — text mixed with vintage images, old newspaper clips — were so similar to my blog that I got a bit dizzy. It was as though I was looking at my own blog, but when I looked closer I saw that everywhere the text should say ‘Fort Worth,’ it said “Dallas.” I briefly wondered if I had died and gone to Oak Cliff.”

I couldn’t have asked for a more flattering (or amusing) comparison.

I’ve wondered about what might happen to my own blog when I’m no longer around to renew domain names and URLs, pay for web hosting, and do all the mundane administrative things one needs to do just to keep a website alive on the internet. I hope someone will keep Mike’s unbelievably vast and wide-ranging blog online as long as possible. There’s too much entertaining and informative Fort Worth history there for it to just disappear.

I always hoped we would meet one day. We never did. We would have had a lot to talk about. He seems like a lovely man. Rest in peace, Mike. Cowtown — and your readers — will miss you.

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***

Sources & Notes

Top image is the header from Mike Nichols’ blog, Hometown by Handlebar.

The color photo is from his obituary, which you can read here.

Read a profile of Mike in Fort Worth Magazine — “A Fond Farewell to Mike Nichols: Local writer, historian, and bicycle archaeologist Mike Nichols leaves an indelible legacy behind” — here.

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8 Comments

August 21, 2023

Dr Pepper Bottling Plant, Second Ave. & Hickory — ca. 1938

Transfixed by Dr Pepper-laden conveyor belts

by Paula Bosse

Before Dr Pepper moved into its fabulous art deco HQ at Mockingbird & Greenville (RIP…), the company’s Dallas bottling works was located at Second Avenue & Hickory Street, from about 1927 to 1948. The building (seen below) still stands.

The images in this post are from a DP manual for bottlers, with numerous photos taken in the Dallas plant. All photos in this post are from that manual (more info is at the end of this post), which every true Dr Pepper superfan (or the dogged collector of obscure soft-drink ephemera) should probably have! All captions are from the booklet.

Above, “Interior of Dallas bottling plant in operation.”

Below, “Model syrup factory, bottling plant and general home office of Dr. Pepper Company, Dallas, Texas.”

“Water stills, Dallas plant, supplying water for syrup making.”

“General view chemical laboratory, Dallas.”

“Chief chemist, Mr. H. Buttler, Dallas, Texas” (Howland Buttler is also seen in the photo above).

“Water cooler and carbonating equipment, bottling plant, Dallas.”

This is my favorite photo: “One section of sugar storage, Dallas — you see a supply sufficient for about a week. Interior view of sugar storage floor, Dr Pepper factory building, Dallas. Only the finest, pure cane sugar is used, a grade and quality superior even to the finest table sugar. Exacting standards must be maintained by refiners to meet our specifications, lest the slightest taste or odor from impurities creep into the Dr. Pepper syrup.” (A few years ago, I stumbled across a crazy story about Dr. Pepper — and other soft drink manufacturers — involved in buying black-market sugar, which was a violation of war-time food rationing, as WWII came to a close. Read about this case in the post “Halloween Party? Don’t Forget the Dr Pepper! — 1947” — scroll to the bottom.) Shout out to Sugar Land!

“Syrup compounding and manufacturing unit at Dallas, Texas. Interior view of syrup room, Dr. Pepper factory, Dallas. Note flood of sunshine through modern factory-glass windows; floors, walls, ceilings, as well as equipment, immaculately clean. Glass-lined mixing tanks in center and at right are of 300-gallon capacity, and behind these are 500-gallon steam-jacketed, glass-lined kettles, where hot process simple syrup is made. Entire syrup manufacturing process is modern, efficient and sanitary.”

“Modern soaker and washer — one of two units used in Dallas plant.”

“Modern crown sifting equipment, Dallas.” (More on crown cork bottle caps here.) (And, weirdly, I wrote about a Dallas company that manufactured those caps in the post “The Crown Cork & Seal Co., Dallas Branch — ca. 1910.”)

“Low pressure unit — bottler and crowner.”

“Final inspection, Dallas bottling plant — ‘candling’ filled bottles.”

“Automatic case stenciling machine.” This is an important part of the manufacturing process I hadn’t thought about….

“Bottle storage, Dallas plant.”

Battered front cover and title page:

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***

Sources & Notes

Photos from “Dr. Pepper Bottler’s Manual: A Manual of Proved Principles and Practices Governing Successful Operation of Dr. Pepper Plants” (Dr. Pepper Company, Dallas, Texas, Nov. 1938); this booklet was found on eBay — for sale for $499.99.

More Flashback Dallas posts featuring Dr Pepper can be found here.

Please consider following me on Patreon, where I post new content daily — for as little as $5 a month!

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13 Comments

August 14, 2023

Highland Park Cafeteria and the Knox Street Business District

Highland Park Cafeteria (and Delicatessen!)

by Paula Bosse

A quick post today! Above, the much-loved, much-missed Highland Park Cafeteria (3212 Knox), a proud member of the Knox Street Merchants’ Association, the latter of which has drawn up a not-terribly-helpful, pre-Central Expressway map, as seen below, with handy arrows pointing to town.

1932

From a couple of decades later, a matchbook graphic (with a more helpful map), reminding you that the HPC has been “serving particular people since 1925”:

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1939 (North Dallas High School yearbook)

See other photos of this block in the Flashback Dallas post “Knox Street, Between Cole and Travis.”

I’m just going to add these things here, because, so far, this is my only post on the HPC, and I might as well keep everything together.

I saw the 1956 ad below, and, even though the photo in the ad is pretty poor quality, it looked like there was a mural there. I’m always interested in murals — most of the time a photo like this is the only chance to see them because they are inevitably painted over or demolished. Anyway… was there a story behind the mural? What did it show?

Dec. 1956

Here it is larger, but the resolution is still low, and the hanging light fixtures directly in front of the mural don’t help:

I found only one mention of a mural at the Highland Park Cafeteria — in this 1950 ad, which mentions “the Williamsburg mural,” as if it were a well-known feature of the restaurant:

April 1950

Then I asked about it on the Flashback Dallas Facebook page — and that led to this muddy screenshot glimpse of the mural from unknown news footage from 1953. Yep, Colonial Williamsburg, above a long planter. I’m not sure why that was immortalized on a wall of the Highland Park Cafeteria, but if anyone was wondering about any sort of HPC mural, these few paragraphs are for you!

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Sources & Notes

Photo from Pinterest.

Knox Street Merchants’ Association ad from the 1932 SMU Rotunda. (That whole area has gotten cramped and is certainly more claustrophobic than when I was a kid, but I’m sure the present-day business owners would probably still echo the 1932 sentiment “Knox Street Business District has them coming from blocks … to shop on Knox.”) (Also, it isn’t often that I see ads mentioning Greenland Hills, the general M Steets area, adjacent to the neighborhood I grew up in.)

Matchbook (detail) from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU Libraries — the full image and more information can be found here.

I’m on Patreon! If you’d like to support me and get new posts daily, head over here.

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August 6, 2023

From the Vault: Hospital-a-rama, 1944

by Paula Bosse

I’ve spent a lot of the past month visiting a loved one in a hospital. It hasn’t been fun. For either of us. Here are several hospitals photographed in 1944, some of which were unknown to me before my 2020 post “A Few Dallas Hospitals and Clinics — 1944.” (Above, Bradford Memorial Hospital for Babies, 3512 Maple Avenue.)

Stay healthy!

July 30, 2023

The Sumpter Building — 1912

by Paula Bosse

Behold, the Sumpter Building and a partial view of its little buddy, the Edwards & Phillips Building, which were built simultaneously. (See them on a 1921 Sanborn map here.) Both were designed by Dallas architect C. D. Hill, whose spectacular Municipal Building would be built a couple of years later, two and a half blocks away.

Guess what? Both are still standing — part of the Joule empire. See what they look like today — at 1604-1608 Main Street — on Google Street View here. (The shorter building has been through a multitude of renovations over the years, but at some point, by at least 2007, someone had restored it — however briefly — to its original design, as you can see in a 2007 Google Street View here — look how tired and dirty the Sumpter Building looked back then, before its recent scrubbed and rejuvenated revitalization.)

The Sumpter Building served primarily as office space over the years — architect C. D. Hill had a “penthouse” office on the top floor (I wonder if he knew that when he was drawing up the plans?) — and the smaller building was retail space on the ground floor and office space above. It might be remembered as the home of Linz Jewelers for several decades.

Dallas Morning News, Dec. 17, 1911 (click to read)

DMN, Mar. 7, 1912

DMN, Aug. 25, 1912

Dallas Historical Society, 1912

The smaller building debuted as home to retail tenant Matthews Brothers. (It is presently the home of another fashion mecca, Traffic Los Angeles (1608 Main).

April 1912

In 1940, Linz took over the shorter building. Articles in The Dallas Morning News described “construction” and a new design by Lang & Witchell, but I think the building was just gutted and (weirdly) refaced.

Linz Bros. Jewelers (Lang & Witchell, 1940)

Here it is in living color, in 1970.

WFAA-Channel 8 News, Jan. 1970 (Jones Film Collection, SMU)

By the end of 1970, the building had undergone another (weird) “facelift” (and an expansion).

WFAA-Channel 8 News, Jan. 1971 (Jones Film Collection, SMU)

(The two screenshots above are from Channel 8 news reports about a fantastically successful jewelry heist in January 1970. Linz would never reveal the value of jewels stolen in the massive theft, but it was estimated at the time to be between $1.6 million and $3.5 million (the equivalent in today’s dollars of $12.5 million to $27 million!). It was the biggest burglary in Dallas history, and it was estimated to have been the biggest in the South. As far as I can tell, the crime was never solved. A great report on how it happened — with interesting little tidbits such as the fact that the robbers emptied a safe and took everything except for a few pieces of costume jewelry and that the burglars stopped for a break to brew a cup of coffee in the adjacent shoe store — can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives in the story “Gem Loss $3 Million?” by Robert Finklea (DMN, Jan. 13, 1970). It reads like a movie!

I’m always surprised to find these century-old buildings still standing downtown. Poor things have been through a lot.

Thank you to Chad K. for asking on Patreon if I knew anything about the history of these buildings. As it turned out, I knew NOTHING about the history of these buildings. I do now! Thanks for asking, Chad!

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