Flashback : Dallas

October 14, 2014

Preston Elms: Your Country Estate Awaits — 1935

Preston Elms home designed by Charles Dilbeck, 1935

by Paula Bosse

This beautiful home, designed by the wonderful architect Charles Stevens Dilbeck, was featured in an ad touting an exclusive new “country estate” development called Preston Elms, located at Preston Road and Walnut Hill Lane. From the text of the ad:

The home pictured above will be erected immediately in a new tract set aside for a Demonstration Home. It will have three bedrooms, large dining room and living room. Terrace porch on south and east will be 32 feet long and can be reached from dining room, living room or hall. Two baths — most modern type! Extraordinary hardware! …

The backyard will be walled in assuring privacy to servants and parked automobiles. …

All the details of the house and location have been studied and planned for months. …

The Better Homes of America are gradually drifting away from the urban abode of restricted activity to the freedom, comfort, seclusion and the individuality of the COUNTRY ESTATE.

A later ad would include this grabber of a line: “In the heart of Preston Road District, All City Conveniences, Minus City Taxes.”

Tracts ranging from one-half to two acres would start at $1,700. The house pictured above would cost $12,500. (I would kill for that house, but I fear it has long since been torn down as being too teensy for the neighborhood.)

“Preston Elms” (along with Preston Downs, Preston Hollow, Preston Highlands, Preston Heights, Inwood Road Addition, Sunnybrook, and El Parado) were the subdivisions in the so-called “Preston Road District,” an area of some 1,200 acres north of Northwest Highway. When this area was being developed (by savvy speculator Ira P. DeLoache), it was not within the Dallas city limits. In 1939, after a failed attempt at some sort of merging with University Park, the residents voted to incorporate, and the somewhat sparsely-populated area became the “city” of Preston Hollow. With a mayor and everything.

But back to that house. God, I love that house. As I said, I bet that sucker was elbowed out long ago. If it’s still there, I’d love to know.

A photo of the man responsible for developing most of the Preston Road District, Ira P. DeLoache, namesake of one of the area’s streets.

***

Sources & Notes

The Dilbeck drawing at the top is from a half-page real estate ad, here.

Photo of Ira P. DeLoache from the Fall, 2002 issue of Legacies.

Examples of Dilbeck’s beautiful houses (several of which are in Preston Hollow) can be seen here.

Background on Preston Hollow and its road to incorporation can be read about in the Dallas Morning News article “Preston Road Incorporation Plan Climaxes Weeds to Orchids Development,” (DMN, Sept. 24, 1939).

For an aerial view of what would become Preston Hollow, check out a mostly empty 1930 vista (from SMU’s Edwin J. Foscue Library), here. Development, here we come!

7 Comments

October 12, 2014

“Gumdrops Love Mr. Peppermint” — 1968

mr-peppermint_1968

by Paula Bosse

When the news is unsettling, remember your “happy place.”

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1968 TV Guide ad, from eBay.

2 Comments

October 11, 2014

The First Texas-OU Game in Dallas — 1912

Watch out, Oklahoma: giant Texas linemen await…

by Paula Bosse

The Texas-OU game is a football tradition, held annually in the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair of Texas. The first game of the so-called “Red River Rivalry/Showdown/Shootout” was held in Dallas (aka “neutral ground”) in 1912. As the Cotton Bowl hadn’t been built yet, the game was held at Gaston Park, a sporting field with a large grandstand where Dallas teams played baseball, football, and, yes, even soccer. It was located at Parry & Exposition, in the spot where the State Fair Auditorium (now known as the Music Hall) was built in the 1920s.

Since my grasp of sports is tentative, I’m not going to go into any particulars of the actual game (which — spoiler! — Oklahoma won, 21-6); instead, I thought I’d mention a few of the incidental things leading up to the game that I found interesting. (For those who are interested in the particulars of the game, fret not — there is a link at the bottom of the post.)

So here are a few of the things that I found amusing or entertaining:

The 1912 football season began with new rules: downs were increased from 3 to 4; touchdowns were now 6 points instead of 5; the playing field was reduced from 110 yards to 100; the onside kick was abolished; a touchdown was permitted when caught over the goal line; the ball was kicked off from the 40-yard line instead of midfield; the intermission between quarters was reduced from 2 minutes to 1.
Fort Worth felt slighted that they had missed out on hosting the game (“it might just as well have been played in Fort Worth,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram groused). Local Fort Worth-friendly UT alumni swore to try “strenuously” to get the game for Cowtown the following year, because, damn it, “next year is Fort Worth’s turn” (FWST, Oct. 15, 1912). (Sorry ’bout that, FW….)
The Sooners’ coach, 37-year old Bennie Owen (whom I gather is something of an OU legend), had only one arm, the result of a hunting accident. The Dallas Morning News wrote that Owen was “one of the most able [coaches] in the country. He is disabled to some extent by having but one arm, but evidenced by his success during the past season, this does not trouble him to any great extent” (DMN, Oct. 6, 1912).
The Longhorns’ coach, Dave Allerdice, was only 25 years old. He had been hired to fill the spot left vacant in the wake of the death of UT’s previous coach who had died rather exotically as the result of “a fall out of the window of his bedroom” (DMN, Oct. 10, 1912).
Both Allerdice and Owen had been coached as students by the same man, Coach Yost, at Michigan.
The Gaston Park crowd was estimated at over 6,000. The crowds going to the game and to the fair were so great that the streetcars and Interurbans were jam-packed. In fact, both teams had difficulty making it to the game on time because they couldn’t find transportation to get there, and the game had to be started late to allow for the players to arrive and warm up.
Oklahoma dominated the game, and the Sooners won, 21-6.

And so began the annual Texas-OU tradition in Dallas.

Below, Sooner boys: 0-0-0-0-0.

DMN, Oct. 18, 1912

Grainy, off-kilter image of the crowd-frilled grandstand at Gaston Park.

DMN, Oct. 20, 1912

It’s a bit hard to see anything in these 100-plus-year-old photos, but here are a couple of “action photographs” of the game.

DMN, Oct. 20, 1912

Gaston Park? Here’s where it was (a lot of street-renaming has gone on since this map was drawn in 1919).

***

Sources & Notes

All photos from The Dallas Morning News.

1919 map (detail) from the Portal to Texas History, here.

For slightly better photos of Gaston Park (in 1908), see a previous post, here.

Wikipedia roundup:

Gaston Park, here.
Bennie Owen, here.
Dave Allerdice, here.
“Red River Showdown” (which I’ve never actually heard anyone other than TV commentators and promoters say to describe what everyone I know calls the “Texas-OU game”), here.
Defenestration, here.

The Dallas Morning News and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram are filled with numerous contemporaneous articles about this game. If you have a handy-dandy Dallas Public Library card (free!), you can pore over these articles to your heart’s content. To read what was printed the day of the game (Oct. 19, 1912), click here. To read about the results and the game coverage, click here.

Click pictures for larger images. They will still be muddy and grainy, but, by God, they’ll be bigger.

2 Comments

October 10, 2014

Snapshots of the Fair, 1936-1940

Centennial Exposition, 1936 — photo by Lewis D. Fox (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

An amateur photographer named Lewis D. Fox took a lot of photos at the State Fair of Texas — from the Texas Centennial in 1936 through 1940. The Centennial photos are particularly interesting, because they show what the “Exposition” was like to the average visitor — there was more going on than just the spectacular extravaganza we usually see — there are also shots of people doing un-spectacular things like just walking around or enjoying a quiet, late-afternoon cup of coffee. There are also photos of the people who do the heavy-lifting at a state fair — the men and women who work the Midway shows and the concession stands (a link to a larger collection of Mr. Fox’s State Fair photos — almost a hundred snapshots — is below).

Enjoy this look at a time when going to the fair meant dressing up and, apparently, often leaving the children at home! (Click photos to see larger images.)

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Sources & Notes

All photos taken by Lewis D. Fox, from the Fox Photograph Collection in the Fort Worth Public Library Archives, courtesy of the Genealogy, History and Archives Unit, Fort Worth Public Library. Mr. Fox took a lot of snapshots at the fair — see more here.

On a personal note, I’m mesmerized by “The Waffle Man.” He looks just like a young Lefty Frizzell! Lefty was from nearby Corsicana and he spent a lot of time in Dallas, but he wasn’t born until 1928, so it can’t be him — but check out this photo of Lefty as a teenager and see the remarkable resemblance! Not only did the (no doubt syrup-scented) young man above look like one of my favorite singers, but he also had ready access to waffles. What’s not to love? Oh, Waffle Man….

All images larger when clicked.

6 Comments

October 9, 2014

“Dallas Skyline” by Ed Bearden — 1958

“Dallas Skyline” by Ed Bearden (click for much larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Ed Bearden (1919-1980) was a Dallas painter who studied under Jerry Bywaters and Otis Dozier and was loosely affiliated with the Dallas Nine group of artists. He worked with Bywaters at the Dallas Museum of Fine Art as Assistant Director, and he helped found the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts. He also spent several years at SMU — both as a student and as a member of the faculty — until he decided to leave to focus on his own art career. In addition to working as a fine artist, he also owned a commercial art business.

The constantly changing Dallas skyline was a particular favorite subject of his, and he returned to it again and again. The one above is a personal favorite. I’m not sure why I feel so nostalgic when I look at it, except that I swear that I saw this print as a child at my father’s bookstore. It’s a Dallas I’ve never known, but one I wish I had.

***

Apologies for the wonky image, but I can’t find a better scan of it. I’m assuming this was first a watercolor, then issued as a lithograph, then maybe printed as a broadside or a loose plate in a book? The date in the lower right corner is very difficult to make out — it looks like either 1958 or 1959. I’m going with 1958. ‘Cause I’m like that.

A brief biography of Ed Bearden can be found here.

An unlikely gig came Bearden’s way when director George Stevens asked him to draw the storyboards for the film Giant, hoping that having a Texas artist do them would lend an air of authenticity to the look and feel of the movie (and, in fact, Bearden’s sketches were used as reference by makeup and wardrobe personnel). Read more about this interesting assignment on SMU’s Hamon Arts Library site, and see some of Bearden’s sketches from the set in Marfa, here.

9 Comments

October 8, 2014

The Dallas Morning News Building, Inside and Out — ca. 1900

Turn-of-the-century DMN newsroom (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Above: the empty (and almost sterile) “newsroom” of The Dallas Morning News, around 1903. There’s either a big fire somewhere, or news has taken the day off.

Below: the new Morning News building, about 1900. Located at the northwest corner of Commerce and Lamar, this is the Lamar side.

And the somewhat show-bizzy sign, studded with bulbs — one hopes it flashed at night.

***

Photo of the Dallas Morning News newsroom, circa 1903-1905, from the Belo Records collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; more info here.

Photo of the Dallas Morning News building (slightly cropped), circa 1900-1901, from the Belo Records collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University. Original photo, along with additional information, can be found here.

See the other photos of the building from 1900 in these other posts:

“Loitering In Front of the Dallas Morning News Building — ca. 1900,” here
“Lively Street Life Outside the Dallas Morning News Building — ca. 1900,” here

All images larger when clicked.

2 Comments

October 6, 2014

Whither Water? — 1956

drought_caterpillar-ad_1962_det “Dallas — The City That Decided Not To Die of Thirst”

by Paula Bosse

Between 1950 and 1957, Texas suffered the worst drought on record. By 1957, 244 of Texas’ 254 counties had been declared disaster areas. In 1952, Lubbock recorded not even a trace of rain. Elmer Kelton captured the period perfectly in his classic novel, The Time It Never Rained. It might not have achieved the epic catastrophic proportions of the Dust Bowl days, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t devastating.

In Dallas, the lakes and reservoirs were hit hard. White Rock Lake dried up — one was able to walk across the parched lake bed without a drop of water in sight. Lake Dallas (now Lake Lewisville) fell to 11% of capacity. Dallas was desperate for water, and in 1956, it began “importing” water from Oklahoma. Red River water was appreciated, but it was considered by many far too salty to drink. In addition to the unpleasant taste, residents were concerned that there would be permanent damage to pipes and plumbing, and, to a lesser extent (since watering restrictions were being strictly enforced) to their lawns.

According to one report, salt content in the water supply had gone from the normal 39 parts per million gallons to over 800 parts (at the height of the problem, some news outlets reported it to be well over 2,000 parts per million). While the water was generally considered perfectly safe for the average person to drink, many looked for cleaner, more palatable drinking water.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 23, 1956 (click for larger image)

Suddenly bottled water became a boom business. Spring water was being trucked to Dallas from Glen Rose and Arkansas. Water was being sold in bottles and cartons — from 20 cents per half-gallon cartons to $2.50 for five-gallon bottles ($1.50 of which was for a deposit on the glass bottle). WBAP-TV news even sent a cameraman out to a Cabell’s convenience store to capture some boys testing out the Glen Rose water (watch it here, without sound).

water_portal_screencap

The other source of acceptable drinking water that summer was from city wells dotted around Dallas. Long dormant, the city opened the wells and offered free water to residents. From The Dallas Morning News:

If you don’t like that hard, salty water coming from your taps, you can get soft, unsalty water at four city wells beginning Sunday. City manager Elgin E. Crull Saturday said that the city has installed faucets at the four wells where people may take their buckets or bottles and obtain drinking water. No trucks will be permitted to fill up. (DMN, Aug. 19, 1956)

The four wells mentioned above — and two more opened within a few weeks — were located at the following locations:

1325 Holcomb, near Lake June Road
Opera and 13th, near the Marsalis Zoo
875 North Hampton, near Lauraette Street
2825 Bethurum, in South Dallas, near the public housing project
Northwest Highway and Buckner
Matilda and Anita, on the grounds of Stonewall Jackson Elementary School, in East Dallas

These wells were hugely popular, with thousands of people showing up with jugs, jars, kettles, canteens, and bottles of every conceivable size. (More WBAP news footage of people filling up at these wells can be seen here, without sound; details below).

well-1

well-2

The popularity of the city wells led to private citizens having wells dug on their own property. Not only were bottled water suppliers making a killing during the summer of ’56, so were the owners of drilling businesses. From The Dallas Morning News:

As salty water from city mains reportedly discourages shrubbery and affronts the taste, drillers of shallow residential water wells ride the crest of a boom. […] Luckiest of the water-seekers are residents of the southern section of the city in the Fruitdale, Pleasant Grove and Home Gardens area, and in the neighborhoods that border Loop 12. That is where drillers are finding pay dirt — water-bearing gravel — at shallow depths. (DMN, Oct. 7, 1956)

It wasn’t just professional drillers who were busy — it wasn’t uncommon for the DIY-ers to be out in the backyard on weekends, digging away, hoping for their own personal source of fresh water. And there were probably even some dowsers out and about, water witching their little hearts out.

The drought ended the next year, and personal wells were a thing of the past, but that mania for bottled water really dug its heels in.

Texas developed the Water Planning Act of 1957, and in 1962, this new mandate and what had happened in Dallas during the drought was used as the basis for a Caterpillar ad which had a bit of a hyperbolic headline, “Dallas — The City That Decided Not To Die Of Thirst”:

1962 ad (click for larger image)

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Sources & Notes

Picture of the four boys tasting the Glen Rose water is taken from the WBAP-TV news story that aired on Aug. 12, 1956. The silent, edited footage was shown as the news anchor read the script, seen here. Film footage (linked above) and script from the Portal to Texas History.

The two pictures of people availing themselves of water from the city’s wells are taken from the WBAP-TV news story that aired on Aug. 19, 1956. The silent footage ran as the anchor read the script seen here and here. Film footage (linked above) and script from the Portal to Texas History.

1962 Caterpillar ad from eBay.

More on affect of the drought on Dallas can be found in these Dallas Morning News articles:

“Sparked by Salt: Business Booming For Bottled Water” (DMN, Aug. 5, 1956)
“Citizens Stock Up On Saltless Water” by Sue Connally (DMN, Aug. 20, 1956)
“Thirsty City Witnesses Revival of Well Drilling” by William K. Stuckey (DMN, Oct. 7, 1956)
“Resourceful Citizens Tap City Water Well” (DMN, Oct. 16, 1956)
“Continuing Drouth Produces Top Local News Story in ’56” by Patsy Jo Faught (DMN, Dec. 30, 1956)

Read about how the drought affected Texas water management here; read about the Texas Water Rights Commission here.

Read “The City of Dallas Water Utilities Drought Management Update” in a PDF, here.

Finally, I encourage everyone to grab a tall glass of ice water and settle down to read Elmer Kelton’s classic Texas novel, The Time It Never Rained. Or if you’re pressed for time, read Mike Cox’s article about the book in Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine, here.

October 5, 2014

The Dallas Police Department & Their Fleet of Harleys — 1951

1951 ad

by Paula Bosse

Group photo day!

Like so many cities all over the country — whether large or small — the motorcycle division of the Dallas Police Department is equipped with Harley-Davidsons exclusively. Effective traffic regulation is assured through the use of 35 solo Harley-Davidsons and 29 Servi-Cars. Traffic experts recognize that no other method matches motorcycles for efficiently handling so many phases of traffic control work and accident prevention.

***

Sources & Notes

1951 Harley-Davidson ad from… somewhere — probably eBay.

Back in 1910, the DPD was perfectly happy with Indian motorcycles, as can be seen in a previous post, “Dallas Motor Cycle Cops — 1910.”

2 Comments

October 3, 2014

“Life” at the State Fair of Texas — 1951

On top of the world, 1951

by Paula Bosse

A Life magazine photographer moseyed down to Dallas in 1951 and captured a couple of cool shots of the State Fair. The photo above (so sweet, and one of my favorite Midway shots ever) was captioned:

In Dallas a rancher takes the kids for a ride in a 92-foot-high double Ferris wheel.

The photo below shows a tractor-pulled tram (fare: 15 cents) as it wheels past the Hall of State, full of well-dressed men and women. (That kid in the boots, cowboy hat, and letterman jacket … had I been around in 1951, I would have had a big ol’ crush on him.)

Click both of these wonderful photos to see larger images. You can practically smell the Brylcreem and cotton candy.

Life magazine, 1951

***

Sources & Notes

Both photos taken at the 1951 State Fair of Texas for Life magazine by an uncredited photographer. The top photo (cropped differently) ran in the Oct. 22, 1951 issue of Life as part of a feature titled “It’s a Bumper Year For Fairs” — it was the only photo that appeared in the magazine shot at the Texas fair. The bottom photo did not run in the magazine.

1 Comment

October 1, 2014

When the Spanish Influenza Hit Dallas — 1918

American Red Cross at Love Field, spraying soldiers’ throats, Nov. 6, 1918

by Paula Bosse

The Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 caused as many as 50 million deaths worldwide — about 600,000 of which were in the United States (11 times greater than the number of American casualties during World War I). Locally, the influenza first hit the soldiers at Camp Bowie in Fort Worth in September, 1918. The flu spread quickly, and on Sept. 27, it was reported that there were 81 cases in the camp. Well aware of the devastation the flu had wrought in other U.S. cities, most notably at military camps, Fort Worth was, understandably, taking the situation seriously. Dallas leaders, on the other hand, were all-but pooh-poohing the need for concern. On Sept. 29, The Dallas Morning News had a report titled “Influenza Scare is Rapidly Subsiding” — the upshot was that, yeah, 44 reported cases of “bad colds” had been reported in the city, but there’s nothing to worry about, people.

In the opinion of the military and civil doctors, the Spanish Influenza scare is unwarranted by local conditions. The few cases of grip, it is claimed, are to be expected as the result of the recent rainy weather.

Just two days later, though, officials were jolted out of their complacency when the (reported) cases jumped to 74 (click for larger image):

DMN, Oct. 2, 1918 (click for larger image)

The months of October and November were just a blur: the city was plunged into an official epidemic. There was no known cure for the flu, so a somewhat ill-prepared health department preached prevention. People were encouraged to make sure their mouths were covered when they coughed or sneezed, and they were directed to not spit in the street, on streetcars (!), in movie theaters (!!), or, well, anywhere. (Handkerchief sales must have soared and spittoon sales must have plummeted.)

At one point or another, places where people gathered in large numbers — such as schools, churches, and theaters — were closed. Trains and streetcars were required to have a seat for every passenger (no standing, no crowding) (…no spitting). The number of mourners at funerals (of which there were many) was limited. And there was a major push for citizens to clean, clean, clean their surroundings in an attempt to make the city as sanitary as possible. Instructions appeared often in the newspapers.

DMN, Oct. 12, 1918

It was estimated that there were 9,000 cases of Spanish Influenza in Dallas in the first six weeks. By the middle of December, when the worst of the outbreak was over, it was reported that there had been over 400 deaths attributed to the Spanish Influenza and pneumonia in just two and a half months.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 11, 1918

As high as these numbers were, Dallas fared much, much better than many other parts of the United States.

Ad, DMN, Oct. 18, 1918

***

Sources & Notes

Photo at top was taken on November 6, 1918 and shows American Red Cross Workers spraying throats of military personnel based at Love Field in hopes of preventing the spread of the influenza. The photo is from the Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine; I found it on the NMHM site, here. (Click photo for larger image.)

Ad for Pepto-Mangan (“The Red Blood Builder”) was one of a flood of medicines and tonics claiming to be effective in the fight against Spanish Influenza (none were).

For a detailed and remarkably well-researched, comprehensive history of the Spanish Influenza in Dallas, see the article prepared by the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine, here. It’s pretty amazing.

To read about the history of pandemics (including several good links regarding the Spanish flu), see the Flu.Gov site, here.

And, NO, Ebola is not transmitted like the flu. But it’s still good practice to cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze,wash your hands frequently, and never EVER spit in the street, because that’s just disgusting. ((This post was originally written in 2014 while Dallas was the center of the Ebola universe.))

More on the Spanish Influenza pandemic can be found in the Flashback Dallas post “Influenza Pandemic Arrives in Dallas — 1918.”

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