Flashback : Dallas

May 18, 2014

The Texas Fire Extinguisher Co. and Hitler — 1942

Texas Fire Extinguisher Co., across from Fair Park

by Paula Bosse

For a place that sells fire extinguishers and tractor equipment, this is a wonderfully comforting image. Hardly even looks like Dallas. The Texas Fire Extinguisher Company — operated for several decades by the Hancock family — was located at the corner of Parry and Second Avenue, across from Fair Park. While checking to see the exact address of this business (which, by the way, was 929 Second Ave.), I came across a 1942 article mentioning it and Hitler.

According to a Dallas Morning News blurblet, the Hancock company owner had placed a want-ad for a painter and paperhanger and received an odd response on a postcard:

Gentlemen: I wish to apply for the job as a paperhanger. Am hunting bears at present, but am about out of ammunition. Anyway, I am a better paperhanger than I am a bear hunter. –Adolph Hitler, Berlin, Germany. (P.S. Please rush answer as this job is playing out and may have to move soon.)

Humor doesn’t always translate successfully across the generations. But, hey, that was weird.

texas-fire-extinguisher-co_texas-fireman_june-1951_portal 1951 ad, “Fyr-Fyter, Wet Water”

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Sources & Notes

Postcard (cropped) from the Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers Postcard Collection on Flickr, here.

Quote from Dallas Morning News article “Reply to Want Ad Indicates Hitler Wants a New Job” (DMN, Nov. 6, 1942).

Ad from Texas Fireman magazine, June 1951, via Portal to Texas History.

3 Comments

May 17, 2014

Deep Ellum / Deep Elm / Deep Elem Blues

“Deep Elm” – Otis Dozier, 1932

by Paula Bosse

“Deep Ellum Blues” has become a standard blues song, warning of/extolling the vices found in the once-thriving, predominantly black area of town, where a lot of people — black and white — enjoyed themselves (after dark) in clubs and bars, immersed in the sometimes shady goings-on that one tends to find on the other side of the tracks. The song (sometimes irritatingly called “Deep Elem Blues”) was first recorded in 1935 by the Lone Star Cowboys (popular performers in the Dallas area, better known as the Shelton Brothers). And now it’s become a blues standard, sung around the world by people who have no idea what a “Deep Ellum” is.

Below are four versions of the song that I like. (I searched for early performances by black musicians, but, according to Deep Ellum experts Alan Govenar and Jay Brakefield, there is only one that anyone seems to know about — by Booker Pittman, grandson of Booker T. Washington, and I couldn’t find it.)

But first, if you haven’t seen this wonderful short documentary by Alan Govenar about Deep Ellum in its original prime, it’s a must-see. (Bill Neely sings “Deep Ellum Blues” in this — it’s great. Listen for the extra verses.)

Below, the original version by the Lone Star Cowboys, who later changed their name to The Shelton Brothers and were well-known to Dallas audiences through their regular appearances at the Big D Jamboree and on local radio. (Listen to their follow-up, “What’s the Matter with Deep Elem?”)

My personal favorite, this hopping western-swing-big-band-rock-n-roll version by the always fabulous one-time Dallas resident Hank Thompson.

I can’t leave off this turbo-charged rockabilly version by Dallas’ own “Groovey” Joe Poovey!

And, finally, for good measure, one weird version, by the always reliable Charlie Feathers.

Remember y’all: KEEP YOUR MONEY IN YOUR SHOE!

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Sources & Notes

“Deep Elm” painting by Otis Dozier (1932) — one of the Dallas Nine group — from the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art.

“Deep Ellum” film by Alan Govenar, one of Dallas’ leading blues and cultural historians and archivists. For more on the 1985 short film, see the FolkStreams site here. For Alan Govenar’s Documentary Arts website, see here.

For more on the history of Deep Ellum, I highly recommend Deep Ellum and Central Track, Where the Black and White Worlds of Dallas Converged by Alan B. Govenar and Jay F. Brakefield (Denton: UNT Press, 1998), as well as their recent revised/expanded book Deep Ellum, The Other Side of Dallas (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2013). Govenar and Brakefield have written the definitive history of Deep Ellum in these two volumes. You can read a bit about the song from the latter book here.

I wrote about another interesting song, “Dallas Blues” — considered by many to be the first blues song ever published — in the post “I’ve Got the Dallas Blues and Main Street Heart Disease,” here.

5 Comments

May 17, 2014

Dallas Morning News Lobby — c. 1904

by Paula Bosse

Suppose it’s 1904 and you’ve placed a classified ad in The Dallas Morning News — looking for a job, looking for a buyer for your business, or looking for your reprobate cousin Harold who’s skipped town without re-paying you the money you loaned him. You want to retain a certain amount of anonymity or you have no fixed abode, so you’ve requested that replies from interested parties be addressed in care of a box number at the newspaper offices. If you had done that in 1904, this is where you would have gone to pick them up: the lobby of The Dallas Morning News, seen here in their first building (built in 1885) at 500-501 Commerce St. I can only assume there is another strategiacally-placed spittoon just out of frame.

Here are a few random classifieds with box numbers, all of which appeared in the paper 110 years ago today. These people would have been wandering in and out of this lobby hoping to see envelopes waiting for them when they arrived. Having watched a LOT of old movies, I picture woefully conspicuous detectives hanging out in the lobby, pretending to read the paper, with one eye fixed on those boxes. Waiting. …Watching. …Spitting.

classified_stenographer_dmn_051704

classifieds_dmn_051704

classifieds-dmn_041704

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Photo from the Belo/Dallas Morning News collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University, accessible here.

Classifieds from the May 17, 1904 edition of The Dallas Morning News.

Click photo for larger image.

1 Comment

May 16, 2014

“Mars Needs Women” — The Dallas Locations

Oak Lawn & Lemmon, 1966

by Paula Bosse

Chances are, if you’re a native Dallasite and you’re a cult movie buff, you’ve heard of Dallas filmmaker Larry Buchanan (1923-2004), the self-described “schlockmeister” who made a ton of low-budget movies in Dallas, almost all of which are considered to fall in the “so-bad-they’re-good” category. I’ve made it through only three of them, and while they’re definitely not great (or even good, really), there were moments I enjoyed.

Buchanan’s most well-known movie — if only because the title has worked itself into the sci-fi vernacular — is Mars Needs Women, shot in Dallas in a couple of weeks in late 1966, starring former Disney child star Tommy Kirk and future star of “Batgirl,” Yvonne Craig. For me, the worst thing about the movie is its incredibly slow, molasses-like editing (courtesy of writer-director-editor Buchanan who was working on contract to churn out movies that had to be cut to a very specific running time, and he’s obviously padding here with interminably long scenes that drag and drag). And then there’s the dull stock footage and weird background music that I swear I’ve heard in every cheap Western ever made. Still … it has its charm.

But the BEST thing about this movie (and, presumably, his others) is that it was shot entirely in Dallas, using a lot of instantly recognizable locations. (Every time I saw a place I knew, I perked up — it reminded me a bit of seeing Bottle Rocket for the first time — almost shocked to see common every-day places in an honest-to-god MOVIE!) So, if you don’t feel you can sit through the whole thing (available, by the way, in its entirety online — see link at bottom), I’ve watched it for you, with a whole bunch of screen shots. So feast your eyes on what Dallas looked like in November of 1966. (By the way, because the movie revolves around …. Mars needing women, the movie is actually set in Houston, home of the Johnson Space Center. Even though you see the very distinctive Dallas skyline — repeatedly. Houston! You wish, Houston!)

My favorite shot is the one at the top of this page and is seen in the first 90 seconds of the movie: Oak Lawn at Lemmon, with the familiar Lucas B & B sign at the right. This area was used a few more times. One character goes into the old Esquire theater, but, sadly, there was no establishing shot showing that great old neon sign. I think the first interior — showing a couple at a lounge — was shot in the swanky private club, Club Village, at 3211 Oak Lawn (at Hall), just a short hop from Oak Lawn and Lemmon.

Next, we’re off to White Rock Lake.

White Rock Lake. Shot day-for-night, with the pump station in the distance.

White Rock Lake pump station, where the Martians are headquartered as they search for healthy, single women to take back to Mars to help re-populate the planet.

Love Field parking lot. Still shooting day-for-night. Badly.

The Southland Life Building, etc., magically transported to Houston.

Athens Strip — a strip joint on Lower Greenville, one block north of the old Arcadia Theater. I’ve never heard of this place, but I came across the story of a guy who had visited the place back around this time and remembered one of the VERY unhappy dancers who hurled handfuls of the coins (!) that had been tossed onstage back into the audience, with such force that his face and chin sustained minor lacerations.

Local celebrity-stripper “Bubbles” Cash, inside Athens Strip. Plainclothes Martian (standing) ponders whether she has what it takes to birth a nation. (She does.)

My favorite example of what a director is forced to resort to when there is no budget. This is some sort of sophisticated communication device. I think those are matchsticks.

Yvonne Craig, without a doubt the best actor in the movie. In fact, she’s really good. She had already made a few movies in Hollywood at this point, but the lure of a starring role brought her back to her hometown (where the newspapers reported she was happily staying with her parents during the two-week shoot).

Martian #1 and sexy space geneticist strolling through Fair Park — band shell behind them, to the left.

The Fair Park planetarium.

Love Field. I love the interior shots of the airport in this movie. (The stewardess walking down the stairs? Destined for Mars.)

Cotton Bowl, shot during a homecoming game between SMU and Baylor. Some shots show a packed stadium, some show this. Word of warning to the homecoming queen, Sherry Roberts: do NOT accept that flower delivery!

SMU, Meadows School of the Arts. I love the pan across the front of the building. Mars Needs Co-Eds.

SMU. BMOC (Big Martian On Campus).

The one location I couldn’t figure out. And it’s because it isn’t in Dallas. It’s the Collins Radio building in Richardson, a company that was absorbed by/bought out by/merged with Rockwell International. I think all the interior and exterior shots which are supposed to be NASA were shot here. How did a low-budget director like Larry Buchanan get into a place like that? According to a 1986 Texas Monthly article, Buchanan, in his day-job career as an ad-man, was hired by Collins Radio in 1961 to work in their “audio-visual” department” (the man who hired him was Harold Hoffman, whose later film work with Buchanan was done under the name Hal Dwain).

So, yeah — COOL location.

More Fair Park, more murky day-for-night.

White Rock Lake pump station, aka the Martian lair.

FANTASTIC flying saucer. Do the Martians get their five healthy, single women on board the ship and get them back home? You’ll have to watch it for yourself to find out.

You tell ’em, Konnie.

mars-needs-women_VHS-box

Check back in a few days for more on Larry Buchanan (including a long-lost photo of him at work back in his advertising days in the 1950s).

UPDATE: Here it is — Larry Buchanan filming a Chrysler spot in the Katy railyard in 1955 for Dallas’ Jamieson Film Company, here.

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Sources & Notes

The entire movie is on YouTube in a pretty good print. Watch it here.

Larry Buchanan Wikipedia page is here.

Mars Needs Women Wikipedia page is here.

Collins Radio/Rockwell Collins Wikipedia page is here.

Consult the Dallas Morning News archives to read a somewhat sarcastic Dallas Morning News article by Kent Biffle on the shooting of the Cotton Bowl sequence (I miss his Texana columns!): “That UFO Was a Field Goal” (Nov. 20, 1966).

8 Comments

May 15, 2014

“Electricity in Every Form” — 1909

(Click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

There was a lot going on in 1909 on the 7th floor of the Wilson Building in the “extensive apartments” occupied by a local “institution” affiliated with the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Individuals could (and apparently did) avail themselves of the following treatments:

Some of the therapeutic measures employed are: Baths of various kinds scientifically administered by trained attendants. Electricity in every form. Every kind of general and special Massage. Mechanical Vibration by the most recent and efficient apparatus. Hydrotherapy (the scientific use of water) in its great variety of application. Electric Light Baths. Physical Culture.

Just let that soak in. Or surge through you. Administering your voltage? Say hello to Dr. F. B. Moran, below.

moran_sanitarium_dmn_102730

Yes, indeed.

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Sources & Notes

Ad from the 1909 Worley’s city directory.

Photo of Dr. Moran from a 1930 ad so long-winded and dull I couldn’t finish reading it or fit it in here.

See the Battle Creek Sanitarium contraptions in action here.

Click ad for larger image.

2 Comments

May 15, 2014

Reverchon Park, Site of a Hovel Town Once Known as “Woodchuck Hill”

Anyone for a little sport? Or a spell-checker?

by Paula Bosse

Before it became one of Dallas’ nicest parks, Reverchon (named for the French botanist Julien Reverchon who arrived in Dallas to join the La Réunion settlement) began life as a 36-acre plot of land called “Turtle Creek Park.” But before that, it was an open-air slum known as “Woodchuck Hill” — an eyesore of an area filled with tents and hovels where families lived in deplorable conditions. It was a pretty dangerous place — the only thing the violent “Squattertown” had going for it was that it was practically next door to Parkland Hospital at Maple and Oak Lawn. The injured and dying didn’t have far to go for medical attention. Or to breathe their last breaths. News reports such as the one below — from 1911 — were, sadly, fairly common (click for larger image):

Dallas Morning News, Aug. 17, 1911

In October, 1914 it was announced that the city had purchased this tract of land from the heirs of the pioneer Cole family in order to establish what would become Reverchon Park.

DMN, Oct. 19, 1914

A few months after the purchase of the land, the squatters were told to vacate the city’s new park property, and what had been a miserable slum was cleared away and transformed into one of the city’s prettiest “pleasure grounds.”

DMN, March 12, 1915

The following is from the Dallas Park Board’s 1915 report:

Pending suggestions for a more suitable one, Turtle Creek Park has been temporarily adopted as the name for this property. At the time of its purchase it corresponded in a measure to the slum districts of the great cities. It was known as “Woodchuck Hill,” and its inhabitants constituted a novel settlement for the city. They resided in make-shift houses and hovels built by the occupants who paid a small stipend each month in the shape of ground rent. The moral conditions of these people was bad, and they caused much concern to the Social Welfare Workers in particular.

In addition to an athletic field, this park is adaptable for an elaborate botanical garden. Being situated at the western base of the Turtle Creek Boulevard, which extends the entire length of the property, it will one day constitute one of the chief attractions of the city for visitors. It adjoins the water works property, comprising a total of 103 acres of city property, a large portion of which has already been beautified. The grounds surrounding the pumping station and the water purification plant have been laid out in lawns and flower beds. Near the center of this park and at the base of the hills on its northern boundaries is located Raccoon Springs. The springs flow a large volume of water to year round, and provide shady nooks with delightful surroundings.

Hovels below, in the “before” picture.

Turtle Creek Park
Located on Maple Avenue.
Area, 36 acres.
Acquired, 1915.
Cost of land, $40,000.

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Sources & Notes

Top postcard (with “Reverchon” misspelled — understandably so…), from somewhere in the wilds of the internet.

Quoted text and other images from Report for the Year 1914-1915 of the Park Board of the City of Dallas, With a Sketch of the Park System (Dallas: Park Board, 1915), which can be accessed as part of the Dallas Municipal Archives, here.

For more on the Dallas Parks System, the definitive source may well be Historic Dallas Parks by John Slate (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2010); more info here.

Friends of Reverchon Park website here.

4 Comments

May 14, 2014

If the Dallas Observer Brought You Here…

by Paula Bosse

A bit of departure, to thank the Dallas Observer for running a short piece on Flashback: Dallas. The blog has been deluged with visitors today — all of whom I hope will check back in occasionally. If you’d like to read the Mixmaster blog post by Lauren Smart that started the flurry (thank you, Lauren!), check it out here.

And thank YOU for taking the time to check out my little blog that has become so much fun to do!

6 Comments

May 14, 2014

“It’s 10 Degrees Cooler in Highland Park” — 1916

highland-park-ad_smu-rotunda-1916

And don’t you forget it!

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Flippen and Prather developed Highland Park, and this great ad may well have swayed more than a few people to consider HP as their future home. From the 1915-16 edition of SMU’s “Rotunda” yearbook.

May 13, 2014

Theatre Row — A Stunning Elm Street at Night

Elm Street, looking east… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Damn you, suburban theaters and television, for killing this! (Hang in there, Majestic!)

Favorite thing gleaned from the postcard above? That Dallas had a newsreel-only theater — the Telenews. (See the original, somewhat pedestrian, daytime photograph which was transformed by all sorts of dazzling magic in order to turn it into that striking postcard, here.)

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All images are larger when clicked — some MUCH larger!

8 Comments

May 12, 2014

SMU’s First Year: The Dinkey, Campus Hijinx, and the Basket Ball — 1915-16

1smu-rotunda-1916_soph-drawing

by Paula Bosse

As a companion to my previous post on the first year of classes at SMU, here are a few more photos from the yearbook, these documenting the less studious side of campus life.

The most interesting thing about these photos, for me, is the SMU trolley, nick-named “The Dinkey” (or “The Dinky”). When SMU opened in 1915, it was waaaaaaaaaay outside the city limits, and the rail line extended only as far north as Knox. In order to get to and from downtown (and points beyond), one had to board the Dinkey near Hillcrest and McFarlin and ride to Knox, then change to an official city streetcar and head into civilization.

This reminiscence appeared in a 1984 issue of Park Cities People:

The first time Manning saw the campus was from the wooden seat of the Dinkey, an electric streetcar built for SMU in 1915.

“I told Dad Johnson, the conductor, as I boarded in Highland Park, I wanted to get off at SMU,” Manning said. “He said, ‘That’s as far as it goes.'”

“‘When we got there, I said, ‘Where’s the campus?’ He said, ‘There’s only two buildings. Dallas Hall is the one with the columns.'”

Manning couldn’t see the building from the Dinkey for the four-foot-tall Johnson grass and had to follow a travel-worn path to Dallas Hall.

“The Dinkey ran from Dallas Hall to Knox Street on tracks in the middle of Hillcrest. This photo taken at McFarlin.”

3smu-rotunda-1916_dinkey-stop The “depot” where the Dinkey picked up and dropped off SMU students, faculty, and visitors.

4smu-rotunda-1916_dinkey The Dinkey, garnished with co-eds.

5smu-rotunda-1916_dinkey

“Cosmopolitan University” horsepower.

7smu-rotunda-1916_frat

8smu-rotunda-1916_football Bad season?

The inaugural football season started tentatively. The 1915 schedule:

Oct. 9th: SMU vs. TCU at Fort Worth
Oct. 14th: SMU vs. Hendrick College at Dallas
Oct. 27th: SMU vs. Austin College at Dallas Fair
Nov. 4th: SMU vs. Dallas University
Nov. 12th: SMU vs. Daniel Baker at Brownwood
Nov. 19th: SMU vs. Southwestern University at Dallas
Nov. 25th: SMU vs. Trinity University at Waxahachie

9smu-rotunda-1916_basketball The men’s “Basket Ball” team.

The girl’s “Basket Ball” team.

16smu-rotunda-1916_cover

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Sources & Notes

All images (except the second) from the 1915-1916 edition of SMU’s “Rotunda” yearbook.

Photo (and caption) of the “Dinkey” trolley at Hillcrest and McFarlin from Highland Park Centennial Celebration site, here.

Quote about traveling to the campus from Park Cities People (March 15, 1984).

“Dallas Hall and the Hilltop” by Tom Peeler, an entertaining 1998 D Magazine article on the first days of SMU, is here.

My previous post containing more photos from this first yearbook, is here.

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