Flashback : Dallas

August 25, 2014

Happy 75th Anniversary, Stonewall!

Stonewall Jackson Elementary School, 1938 rendering (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Classes begin today for students in DISD schools, one of which is Stonewall Jackson Elementary School, located at Mockingbird and Matilda. Stonewall turns 75 years old this year (2014), and I’m proud to say it’s where I spent many years as a happy student. When I learned recently that the school had originally been built as a single-story building (instead of the two stories we know today), I was pretty surprised, and this little unknown nugget prompted me to look into the early years of my alma mater.

In the 1920s and ’30s, Dallas was expanding very quickly northward from Vickery Place, the residential neighborhood around Belmont and Greenville. As the area we now know as Lower Greenville and the M Streets was developed, the two elementary schools (Vickery Place School, then at Miller and McMillan, and Robert E. Lee, at Matilda and Vanderbilt) were soon filled to capacity. Building a new school to serve burgeoning “Northeast Dallas” was an immediate necessity. So in 1938, the city purchased a 9-acre chunk of land along Mockingbird, one block east of Greenville Avenue and right alongside the Denison interurban tracks that ran on Matilda (when I was growing up a couple of blocks away, I used to see remains of those tracks but didn’t know what they had been used for — I wrote about those tracks here and here). The land had been part of the vast Caruth land holdings.

The building was designed by architect C. H. Griesenbeck. It had eleven classrooms, a cafeteria, and an auditorium with a seating capacity of 400. Although originally built as a one-story building, Griesenbeck was mindful that expansion would be necessary in the future, and his design took into account that a second story would be added in the years to come. Construction began in late 1938 and was scheduled to be completed for the opening of the 1939-40 school year.

The name of the new school was decided upon a few months later:

“Stonewall Jackson’s name was chosen for the new school, Dr. Norman R. Crozier, superintendent, said because of the high ideals of Thomas Jonathan Jackson, one of the unique and romantic figures of the War Between the States, and as a companion to its nearest school, Robert E. Lee.” (Dallas Morning News, Feb. 1, 1939)

But if you’re going to sink a hundred thousand dollars into a school, you’ve got to have houses for families to live in to make sure your future student pool doesn’t run dry — and at that time very few houses had been built that far north. Cut to W. W. Caruth, Jr., son of the Caruth family patriarch who basically owned everything north of Mockingbird (Caruth owned a huge expanse of land once estimated at being over 30,000 acres). Not long after selling the land at Mockingbird and Greenville to Dr Pepper, Caruth fils began to develop the land around the then-under-construction school — he called the new neighborhood “Stonewall Terrace.”

The property went fast.

stonewall-terrace_dmn_092339 September, 1939

As the neighborhood was taking shape and the construction of the school building was nearing completion, the school’s official boundaries were announced:

“Boundaries of the Stonewall Jackson School will be from the alley south of Morningside on the east side of Greenville Avenue and from the alley south of Mercedes on the west side of Greenville to the M-K-T Railroad on the north.” (DMN, Sept. 3, 1939)

Despite some problems with labor shortages, the school managed to open on time, on Sept. 13, 1939, the start of the new school year.

The school and the neighborhood grew quickly, and the number of students soon doubled. In 1950 the school board approved preliminary plans for an addition to the school. This addition (which would cost $369,000 and be handled by the architectural firm of Tatum & Quade) would include a first-floor wing with four classrooms, a gymnasium, and a lunchroom, and a second story containing eight classrooms, a library, and a music room. (The cost of construction would probably have been quite a bit more had the original architect not had the foresight to design the building with the expectation that a second story would be added in the future.)

The construction was substantial enough that it had to be done during the 1951-52 school year. Because the old lunchroom was being dismantled while the new wing was being built, students were required to bring their lunches the entire year. All they could get at school was milk. No fish sticks, no Salisbury steak, no chess pie. Just milk. Sorry, kids.

The new addition was completed in time for the beginning of the 1952 school year. And that’s the version of the building that stands today, looking pretty much unchanged.

stonewall_front

It was a cool building then, and it’s a cool building now. It’s sad to see how much of the playing fields keep disappearing as ugly portable buildings take over, but the new garden is a great new addition — I wish they’d had that when I was there.

I really loved that school. When I was a student there, grades went from 1st to 7th, and I loved all seven years I spent there. Thanks for the great childhood memories, Stonewall. And Happy 75th Anniversary!

stonewall-now Photo: DISD

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Sources & Notes

Top image is architect C. H. Griesenbeck’s architectural rendering of Stonewall Jackson Elementary School, originally a one-story building.

Here are a few articles to check out in the Dallas Morning News archives:

“$11,250 Offer Made for New School Site” (DMN, Oct. 26, 1938)
“Contracts for $104,150 Let on Northeast Dallas School” (DMN, Dec. 22, 1938)
“New Northeast Dallas School Named Jackson; Board Pays Tribute to Famous General” (DMN, Feb. 1, 1939)

And, yes, it probably sounds weird to outsiders, but students actually do call the school “Stonewall” — just like we call Woodrow Wilson High School (the high school Stonewall feeds into) “Woodrow.” It’s like a secret handshake.

Below, an undated photo from DISD’s Pinterest board (if you squint, you can see the Piggly Wiggly at the southwest corner of Mockingbird and Matilda).

UPDATE: After years of controversy, Stonewall Jackson Elementary School will be rechristened “Mockingbird Elementary” in 2018. Whatever its name, it’s still a great school!

11 Comments

August 22, 2014

Candy Stripers Moonlighting as Six Flags Map Sellers — ca. 1961

by Paula Bosse

“Yes, sir, you absolutely must have a map!”

When going to an amusement park meant going in a suit and tie. …And hat.

I see maybe a couple of teenagers. Otherwise … rather ominously … no children.

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Six Flags Over Texas, probably in its opening year, 1961.

Click for larger image.

August 21, 2014

Big Tex, Old Tex, Big Ol’ Tex — Whatever You Call Him, Otis Dozier Wins (1954)

“Old Tex” sketch by Otis Dozier, 1954 — Dallas Museum of Art

by Paula Bosse

Hey, y’all, guess what’s just around the corner. Whenever you start seeing pictures of Big Tex, you know that the State Fair of Texas can’t be too far away.

There have been a lot of artistic depictions of Big Tex over the years, but I think this sketch by Dallas artist Otis Dozier (1904-1987) may be my all-time favorite. And I’ve only just discovered it! (Thank you, DMA!)

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This wonderful ink, watercolor, and crayon sketch of “Old Tex” is contained in one of Otis Dozier’s sketchbooks, now in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art, a gift of the Dozier Foundation (© Marie Scott Miegel and Denni Davis Washburn). To see details on this work, see the page on the DMA’s website, he re.

The Otis Dozier sketchbooks have been digitized in a joint project between the Dallas Museum of Art, SMU’s Bywaters Special Collections at the Hamon Arts Library, and SMU’s Norwick Center for Digital Services. To read about this fantastic collection, see the SMU Central University Libraries page, here.

This week, the Dallas Museum of Art launched a new digital database in which its entire collection is now accessible online! This is great news for many reasons, not least being that it allows the public to see works that are rarely — if ever — displayed in the museum. Such as this one. To read more about assembling this incredible database, read the DMA’s announcement, here.

To look up your favorite artist, check to see what the DMA has, here.

For the biography of the Forney-born Dozier (who was one of the members of the famed Dallas Nine group), see the Handbook of Texas entry here.

Click picture for larger image.

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August 20, 2014

University Park, Academic Metropolis — ca. 1915

University Park, prime real estate (click for larger image; see below for HUGE image)

by Paula Bosse

In the 1970s, Park Cities residents received oversized postcards in the mail featuring historic photos of the area. This “Heritage Series” was presented by the Park Cities Bank and later by Fidelity Bank. I’ll be sharing these wonderful images in the weeks to come. First up is this hard-to-fathom view of the intersection of University and Hillcrest, seen around 1915 when SMU opened, taken from Dallas Hall on the university campus. The description:

“In 1915, University Park was a sparsely populated community north of Dallas. At the time, most Dallas residents thought of Highland Park as ‘country living.’ This photo was taken from SMU’s Dallas Hall looking west along University Boulevard with the cross street being Hillcrest. The two-story home seen on the northwest corner of University and Hillcrest has long been replaced with a series of commercial buildings.”

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UPDATE: For a much, much larger image of this photo, click here.

“Heritage Series” postcards used courtesy of the Lone Star Library Annex Facebook page. Postcard credits image to Dallas Public Library.

There is a book all about the houses that were built in that first block of University: The Block Book by Bonnie Wheeler (a review of which can be read here). (You probably won’t be able to find a copy of it, but if you do, snap it up. I see only one copy for sale online, and it is rather outrageously priced at just under $500!)

14 Comments

August 17, 2014

“Oak Cliff Is To Dallas What Brooklyn Is To New York” — 1891

The Southern Mercury, March 12, 1891 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Oak Cliff and the whole “Brooklyn” comparison is not a new one. Developers were using it to lure people to the “soft green cliffs” of the newly-incorporated area where “there is not a night in the hot months of summer when discomfort is felt from the heat” and where “people from all parts of the United States can be observed enjoying the delights of the seaside in the interior of Texas.” A veritable paradise. Just like Brooklyn.

Hats off to the enthusiastic scribe who penned this incredibly wordy advertisement beckoning the “live and progressive” readership of The Southern Mercury to invest in the ground-floor of Dallas’ Brooklyn.

OAK CLIFF, THE BEAUTIFUL RESIDENCE AND EDUCATIONAL CITY OF THE SOUTHWEST

The city of Oak Cliff derives its name from the massive oaks that crown the soft green cliffs and stands about two hundred and fifty feet above and to the southward and westward of the city of Dallas, overlooking the city, and the view is carried away over the city proper. Cool and healthful breezes prevail during the heated term, and there is not a night in the hot months of summer when discomfort is felt from the heat, and sound and refreshing sleep is not possible. To the south and southwest for hundreds of miles stretches level and unobstructed prairie, over whose bosom these breezes sweep from the gulf without infection from any unsalubrious conditions.

The Oak Cliff Elevated railway, substantially constructed, forms a belt of ten miles, encircling Oak Cliff, but at no place more than three miles from the business section of Dallas. Cars run every ten minutes day and night from either side of the court house, Dallas. Fare, five cents.

Oak Cliff is a wonderful and well-nigh magical growth of two years; the first house was completed at Oak Cliff twenty-seven months ago. It now has a population of about seven thousand, a large proportion of whom are from amongst the best people of the different towns of the state of Texas. They are a live and progressive people. Oak Cliff has just incorporated, and one of the first moves of the city government will be the building of several large, commodious fine brick and stone public school buildings, and provide for a large free school fund.

Oak Cliff contains a strictly moral people; intoxicating liquors cannot be found anywhere within her limits, – in keeping with this general policy, no sort of questionable resorts are tolerated.

Oak Cliff now has 1,500 to 2,000 residences, costing from $1,500 to $50,000. It has thirty miles of paved streets and avenues; is now building about six miles of cross-town street railway, to be operated by electricity. It has a successful water system, affording pure, clear spring water. A hotel costing $100,000 has been in successful operation since last June.

Oak Cliff has a park of about 150 acres of natural rustic beauty, diversified with hill and dale, and set off with clumps of royal trees. In the park is a beautiful lake with an average depth of 20 feet, equipped with good boats, where people from all parts of the United States can be observed enjoying the delights of the seaside in the interior of Texas.

Oak Cliff is to Dallas what Brooklyn is to New York.

For further information, address,

Dallas Land & Loan Co., Dallas, Texas.

***

Ad from the pages of The Southern Mercury, March 12, 1891.

A previous come-on from the developers of Oak Cliff can be found here.

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August 17, 2014

Oak Cliff Presbyterian Church, Organized 1890

Oak Cliff Presbyterian Church, ca. 1897 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

I came across this photograph of a church a couple of days ago and was mesmerized by its charming woodiness. According to its caption, it was the Oak Cliff Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Ninth Street and St. George (now Patton). Its first pastor was the Rev. W. L. Lowrance who had organized the church in 1890 with fewer than twenty members. Church membership grew steadily, and in 1923, having finally outgrown the small wood frame building, the congregation moved to their next location at Tenth and Madison (contributing to Tenth Street’s appearance in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not as the street having more churches per mile than any other street in the world). At some point this lovely church was razed.

I’ve found little else on its earliest history. but I came across this advertisement placed in The Dallas Morning News in 1891:

simpson_oak-cliff-land-donation_dmn_031491 (DMN, March 14, 1891)

Col. James B. Simpson was something of a learned Renaissance-man around Dallas. He had been the editor of The Dallas Herald for many years and was a civic leader with real estate interests. I’m not sure if this ad has anything to do with the establishment of the Oak Cliff Presbyterian Church, but it’s interesting to note that construction of the new church was mentioned as being under construction one month after this ad’s appearance. Time was running out for those Oak Cliff sinners (even though one newspaper report stated that the building wasn’t occupied until 1893).

Rev. Lowrance, an apparently well-liked and respected pastor, retired at the end of 1903.

lowrance_dmn_122903-photo “Dr. W. L. Lowrance of Oak Cliff”

(DMN, Dec. 29, 1903 — click for larger image)

The Oak Cliff Presbyterian Church lives on, now on S. Hampton. One can only assume that the building it occupies today is not quite as charming as the little woody one that was built 120 years ago.

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Top photo (by the Rogers Photo Studio, circa 1897) appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of Legacies magazine, here.

Though the first Oak Cliff Presbyterian Church was on Ninth St., the second one was on Tenth St., and that seems reason enough to direct attention to the article “Road to Glory: Tenth Street Becomes Church Street” by René Schmidt — it appeared in the same issue of Legacies as the church photo, and you can read it here.

Read more about this “Street of Churches” and its staggering fourteen churches (!) in the May 1, 1950 edition of The Dallas Morning News.

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August 16, 2014

“Twilight…Rest” by Frank Reaugh

by Paula Bosse

Cattle at rest, by Dallas artist Frank Reaugh.

“Twilight…Rest” by Frank Reaugh (1860-1945). Pastel on cardboard; undated.

From the Frank Reaugh Art Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas; painting and info can be viewed here.

Handbook of Texas entry on Frank Reaugh (a Dallas resident for most of his life) is here.

Click picture for larger image.

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August 15, 2014

Henry Stark’s “Bird’s Eye View of Dallas” — 1895/96

Commerce St. looking east from about Akard

by Paula Bosse

In the winter of 1895-1896, a St. Louis photographer named Henry Stark traveled to Texas, photographing scenes and vistas across the state. According to The Handbook of Texas, he is believed to be “the first photographer to have made an extensive photographic record of Texas.” A collection of his photos was published under the title Views in Texas.

The photograph above shows Commerce Street looking east, with the post office and its tall clock tower dominating the scene (the clock shows that it is 9:35 in the morning). The Old Post Office was bounded by Main, Ervay, Commerce, and St. Paul.

This is a great photo, showing Dallas as I’ve never seen it before. I’ve zoomed in to see the “hidden” details. (All photos are larger when clicked.)

What is the building on the left? It’s very unusual-looking. (UPDATE: See the comments below. This appears to be the adjoining Bookhout and Middleton Buildings at Ervay and Main.)

This is my favorite detail. All that trash. And vacant lots. And a haphazard, meandering fence. Are those steps leading to rear entrances of buildings facing Main? And those utility poles! That block looks kind of squalid. Not Dallas at its best. I think this would be around Akard. (UPDATE: A reader wrote to say that this looks like a “ravine” — that the fence may be following the course of an old stream — something that might explain why that area of prime real estate hadn’t been developed yet.)

Houses just a few steps from the giant post office building. Horse-drawn buggies parked at the curb. People on the sidewalk. What looks like a man with his hands on his hips looking down at a child. Or maybe a dog.

A bustling Commerce Street at the intersection of Ervay, with trollies in the distance.

This photograph shows almost exactly the same view as one I posted earlier under the title “Something Like N.Y.” — check out the 1904 version here.

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Sources & Notes

The photograph, by Henry Stark, is from the Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library. The resolution is a bit grainy when trying to enlarge the details — to explore the photo for yourself, see it here.

What little is known of Henry Stark can be read in the brief Handbook of Texas bio, here.

For another Henry Stark photo, see the post “Oak Cliff Trolley — 1895,” here.

For other examples of photographs I’ve zoomed in on to reveal unintended vignettes, see here.

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August 14, 2014

Jim Conner, Not-So-Mild-Mannered RFD Mail Carrier

An RFD mail carrier… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The man in the photo below looks like every character actor working in Hollywood in the 1930s and ’40s.

conner-james-norton_mail-carrier_1940s

But he wasn’t an actor — he was a retired Dallas postal worker who began his career in 1901 as a rural mail carrier when the Rural Free Delivery (RFD) system was implemented in Dallas. (Before this, those who lived beyond the city limits — generally farmers — had to trek to a sometimes distant outpost — such as a general store — to pick up their mail.) RFD service began locally on October 1, 1901, and an 18-year old Jim Conner was one of six men hired to work the new mail routes beyond the city.

conner_FWregister_090101 Fort Worth Register, Sept. 1, 1901

When Rural Free Delivery service began in Dallas, four rural post offices were closed: Lisbon, Wheatland, Five Mile, and Rawlins (the office at Bachman’s Branch, which Jim Conner’s route replaced).

In a 1940 interview with The Dallas Morning News, Conner talked about his early postal route (Route 5), which was 32 miles long; before the arrival of automobiles, he traveled on horseback, by horse cart, by buggy and cart, or by bicycle. The photo at the top shows what early RFD mail wagons looked like.

Jim’s route took him well beyond the city limits: out Cedar Springs to Cochran’s Chapel, to within a mile of Farmers Branch, and over to Webb’s Chapel by way of the “famous” Midway Church and School corner (which became Glad Acres Farm); he returned on Lemmon Avenue. It took him 8 hours if the weather was nice; if the weather was particularly bad, it could take 12 to 15 hours to complete his appointed rounds. He was paid $500 a year and was required to keep two horses, a cart, a buggy, and saddles. He retired in 1935.

So. A delightfully nostalgic walk down memory lane with an avuncular-looking guy we all kind of feel we know. I thought I’d do a quick search to see if there was an obituary for Jim — there was: he died in 1956 at the age of 73, survived by his wife, 11 children (!), 22 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren. But in addition to the obit, I found something else: a report of a shooting, an arrest, and a charge with “assault to murder.”

conner-charged_dmn_010218 DMN, Jan. 2, 1918

What?!!

Though the account of the incident is described as being “somewhat vague,” on New Year’s Eve, 1918, Jim Conner shot a soldier named Jesse Clay after “words” were exchanged at the corner of Beacon and Columbia in Old East Dallas. There had been bad blood between the two in the past, and the New Year’s Eve situation apparently escalated quickly. Clay had been walking down the street with a lady-friend when Conner’s car came to a stop next to them. Clay (described as being drunk at the time) forced his way into the car, and Conner, fearful of being attacked, reached for a gun in the back seat. The two tussled and, after they were both out of the car, Conner saw that Clay also had a gun. This was when Conner shot him three times, intending, he said, to merely wound him. Clay shot back but missed. (The entire account, as it appeared in The Dallas Morning News on Jan. 1, 1918 can be read in a PDF here.)

The soldier was badly injured, with two of the three shots hitting his chest. He was not expected to live. Conner had surrendered to police at the scene and was charged with “assault to murder.” The last report on this incident that I could find was on Jan. 3, in which Clay was described as being in “very critical condition.”

So what happened? As Conner spent a full career as a postal employee, it seems unlikely he was tried for murder. I used every possible combination of search words I could think of but found nothing more on this case. The story just disappeared. I did find a 1943 obituary for a Jesse P. Clay (killed while working on an Army Air Force Instructors School runway when he was struck by the wing of an airplane coming in for a landing), and it seems likely that it was the same guy — he was about the right age, he was a career military man, he lived in Dallas most of his life, and he was born in Kentucky. I assume the soldier in question (who would have been 37 at the time of the shooting) survived his gunshot wounds and that charges against Conner were either dismissed (with Conner pleading self-defense?) or settled (perhaps the military intervened to keep the story out of the press — this was during the height of WWI). Whatever actually happened, it seems that both men were able to move on from that really, really bad New Year’s Eve, a night I’m sure neither forgot.

My favorite little detail in the story of this sordid shooting was the line in the initial newspaper report in which it was revealed that one of the (potentially deadly) bullets was “deflected by a packet of letters and a steel comb.” How appropriate that the thing that probably saved mailman Jim Conner from a murder rap was “a packet of letters.” (…And a steel comb, but that doesn’t fit in with my narrative quite so well. Although Mr. Conner does look quite well-groomed.)

packet-of-letters_dmn_010118 DMN, Jan. 1, 1918

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Sources & Notes

Real-photo postcard of Hillsboro, Wisconsin RFD mail wagon is from eBay.

The full DMN account of the bizarre 1918 shooting can be read in a PDF, here.

An informative site on history of Rural Free Delivery — with lots of photos — can be found here.

“RFD”? Wiki’s on it, here.

2 Comments

August 13, 2014

From Dull to Spectacular — How a Picture Postcard Evolves

by Paula Bosse

You know how you look at some of those fantastic postcards from the ’40s that don’t look real and you wonder, “Is that from a photograph, or is that just an artistic interpretation?” Well, it’s both.

In the above “before” and the below “after,” it’s interesting to note what’s been kept in and what’s been taken out. And how a fairly ho-hum daytime view becomes a dazzling night-time scene. Either way, it’s an Elm Street I’ll — sadly — never experience.

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Sources & Notes

Black-and-white photograph of Elm Street’s “Theater Row” from the Texas State Historical Association.

Click pictures for larger images.

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