1908
By Paula Bosse
I’m pretty sure there’s no real Irish connection here — other than the name — but how could I pass this up on St. Patrick’s Day!
Dallas Morning News, July 18, 1906
DMN, Sept. 1, 1907
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Top ad addressing the Elks’ conventioneers who were visiting Dallas in 1908 is from an Elks’ historical site, here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Stanley Marcus and Coco Chanel
by Paula Bosse
In September of 1957 — way back when that much-missed hyphen was still in “Neiman-Marcus” — Stanley Marcus invited Coco Chanel to Dallas to accept the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion. Mlle. Chanel had never been to Texas, but her visit here was a meaningful one. Following a 15-year retirement, her re-emergence as a designer in the early 1950s was met with mostly derision by the French press. The American response, on the other hand, was very different. It was because of the enthusiastic reception that her work received from American retailers (such as the even-then legendary Neiman Marcus department store) that she had been able to bounce back and, once again, be considered a force in the fashion world. When she was invited to Dallas to receive the “Oscar” of the fashion industry, Mlle. Chanel was happy to accept.
In the photo above, Coco is seen trying on hats at the downtown Neiman’s store as Mr. Stanley stands by beaming. On her Dallas visit she was also treated to a ranch barbecue (!) where she was photographed watching both a square dance (!!) and a … oh god … Chanel-themed bovine fashion show (!!!). Mlle. Chanel seemed to love the cows-in-ropes-of-pearls runway show, but she was not a fan of the barbecue and beans — she (one hopes discreetly) dumped the contents of her plate onto the ground under the table … right onto the shoes of dining companion Elizabeth Arden (whose shoes may have been ruined, but who had a truly great story to tell for the rest of her life).
From all reports, everyone seemed to enjoy (and no doubt profit) from the successful visit. Karl Lagerfeld, the current creative director of Chanel, recently brought Chanel back to Dallas (both figuratively and literally) with the house’s important Métiers d’Art fashion show which was held at Fair Park in December, 2013. The following day, Lagerfeld was presented with the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion — just as Coco Chanel had been, 56 years earlier. And the haute-couture circle-pin of life keeps on rolling.
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Top photo by Shel Hershorn for the AP. From the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
N-M ad from 1957 (portion of a larger ad).
Chanel’s thank-you telegram to Marcus, from the collection of Stanley Marcus’ Papers at the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University.
Entertaining AP article about Chanel and Dallas, then and now (with photos of Stanley Marcus duded-up in an outfit you’d never see an actual cowboy in), can be found here. (Are those butterflies?!)
More photos of Mlle. Chanel in Dallas (along with text of a DMN article on the visit) can be found here.
Even more photos (bovine fashion show…) and a really great post from SMU’s “Off the Shelf” blog is here.
Video of the 2013 Chanel runway extravaganza (Métiers d’Art), held in Fair Park’s hay-stewn Centennial Hall, can be watched here. A shorter video with a few cursory shots of the Dallas skyline and Fair Park can be seen here.
For more on the first French Fortnight, see my post “Neiman-Marcus Brings France to Big D — 1957,” here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
Anyone who has ever lived in Lower or Lowest Greenville knows that it feels kind of like a small town. Below are the words of a man who thought the same way in 1925.
MOST WONDERFUL OF ALL
But I have witnessed nothing so marvelous as the growth of Dallas since I settled here, Dec. 5, 1921, and built a home at 5615 Sears street. People who stick close to business in the downtown district really do not know what is going on in this teeming city. Our suburban store district, just north of Ross and Greenville avenues, comprises three furniture stores, two hardware stores, four drug stores, six groceries, two dry goods stores, half a dozen filling stations, a Pig Stand or two, a plumbing shop, a fire station, an ice factory, a cleaning and pressing establishment, barber shops, shoemakers’ shops, two gents’ furnishing stores and a Masonic lodge. Practically all these and others, for I am sure I have overlooked some, have been established since I settled in the community four years ago. In fact, we have a small town of our own. But then the modern city of Dallas is made up of a number of such complete units, with one grand central business district, which is thought of and looked upon by outsiders as Dallas. (Dallas Morning News, March 15, 1925)
These were the words of Dallas resident John T. Hyde. His Lowest Greenville neighborhood was, in 1925, a “suburban” outpost which had experienced unbelievable growth in the early 1920s. Mr. Hyde (who lived right off Greenville — behind where Trader Joe’s is now) would probably be shocked and dismayed by the wild over-indulgences associated with the annual St. Patrick’s Day festivities along his beloved Greenville Avenue. In fact, today’s the day. So, kids, think of Mr. Hyde — an early champion of one of Dallas’ greatest neighborhoods — and please pledge to refrain from puking (…etc.) all over it today. I’m sure he — and the rest of us — would appreciate it.
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Top photo from Mark Doty’s wonderful book Lost Dallas (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2012). Photo from the Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library). Click for larger image.
John T. Hyde’s memories excerpted from the article “Southern Planters Trekked to Texas” by W. S. Adair (DMN, March 15, 1925).
See more photos of Lowest Greenville from this period in the Flashback Dallas post “Bel-Vick’s Anchor: The Angelus Arcade and The Arcadia Theatre — 1920s.”
More Flashback Dallas posts on Lower Greenville/M Streets can be found here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Portrait with boots…
by Paula Bosse
Above, Dallas resident Imogene Cartlidge is seen at a shoe retailers’ convention in San Antonio in 1939. Cartlidge was an employee of the Olsen-Stelzer boot company in Henrietta, Texas, and she was said to be “the only woman boot salesman on record.” I’m a big fan of cowboy boots of this period, and I have to say that I am ashamed that I was unaware of the famous Olsen-Stelzer company, which lasted from 1900 until the 1980s. The company is back in business again, led by Tom Cartlidge, whose parents began selling the boots in 1938 — Imogene is his mother. I wish them all the best of luck, because the world needs as many great-looking cowboy boots as it can get!
“The West begins at Titche’s”? First I’m hearing of this. Who knew? Nice ad, though.
Best of all is this absolutely fantastic video from 1956 about the company:
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Photo of Imogene Cartlidge is from the San Antonio Light Photograph Collection, University of Texas San Antonio Libraries Special Collections, Institute of Texan Cultures.
Titche’s ad from 1946.
Bridges Shoe Store ad from 1955. (Bridges seems to have been the only place in Dallas where the boots were regularly sold — or at least regularly advertised. And you could get them ONLY IN OAK CLIFF!) (I hear the West begins at Oak Cliff….)
The video can be found on the home page of the Olsen-Stelzer website here.
The last image is the lid of an Olsen-Stelzer boot box, which belongs to my aunt — she keeps Christmas ornaments in it. (Sadly, no sign of the boots!)
The history of the company (and, again, that great video) can be found here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
The Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church was established in 1879 by German immigrants. In 1899 the congregation moved its church and school to the location seen in the photograph above, at 207 Swiss Avenue (street numbers have changed, but it was in the block between what is now Good-Latimer and Cantegral). The building remained in that location until at least 1921.
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Photograph from the University of Texas at San Antonio, UTSA Libraries, Digital Collections.
For more on the history of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Dallas, see here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
Well, bless his heart.
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Cartoon by Kaz from The Saturday Evening Post.
A Dallas landmark… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
The Continental Gin Co. complex of buildings at Elm and Trunk is a Deep Ellum fixture which was successfully petitioned by the city in 1983 to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. No longer a manufacturing hub, it is now home to artists’ studios and residential lofts. The earliest of the buildings still standing were built in 1888 and the latest ones (the ones closer to Elm) were built in 1914. The company was incredibly successful, which was no surprise when one realizes that fully ONE-SIXTH of the world’s cotton grew within a 150-mile radius of Dallas at the time! It’s no wonder that Dallas was a hotbed of cotton gin manufacturing.
Munger Catalogue and Price List, 1895
Robert S. Munger (yes, that Munger) patented several inventions that improved the cotton ginning process, and in 1888 he built a large manufacturing plant for his Munger Improved Cotton Machine Company. In 1900, after several extremely successful years, his company and several other companies that held important industry patents were absorbed by the Continental Gin Co. of Birmingham, Alabama, and, practically overnight, the Continental Gin Co. became the largest manufacturer of cotton gins in the United States. Munger retained a financial interest in the company, but he left the running of the business to his brother, S.I. Munger. R.S. Munger turned his creative talents to real estate and developed the exclusive Munger Place neighborhood. The Continental Gin Co. closed in 1962.
The Standard Blue Book of Texas, 1912-1914
A few newspaper items regarding the Munger Improved Cotton Machine Company and the Continental Gin Company.
The Dallas Herald, Oct. 13, 1887
The Southern Mercury, May 30, 1889
The Southern Mercury, July 28, 1892
The Southern Mercury, April 13, 1893
Change is imminent. (Dallas Morning News, July 26, 1900)
FIVE HUNDRED TONS! (DMN, Apri 20, 1901)
DMN, March 22, 1903
DMN, Aug. 20, 1905
DMN, June 1, 1907
Worley’s Dallas Directory, 1909
Dallas Police, 1910
Photograph that accompanied the application to the National Register of Historic Places regarding the structures under consideration: 3301-3333 Elm St. and 212 & 232 Trunk Ave. (Landis Aerial Photography, 1980)
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Handbook of Texas biography of Robert Sylvester Munger (1854-1923) is here.
The top image (which, by the way, took me FOREVER to find, is labeled as the Munger company, but the expansion would seem to indicate that this is the Continental Gin Company, after 1914. Whatever the case, it’s a great image!
That image and the aerial photograph of 1980 are included in the city’s application to have the complex included in the National Register of Historic Places, submitted in 1983. The detailed application — as a Texas Historical Commission PDF — can be accessed here.
The second image, of the early days of the Munger Improved Cotton Machine Company is from a bookseller’s online listing for Munger’s 13th Annual Catalogue and Price List (1895) — the item may still be available for a mere $435 and can be found here.
See an aerial view of what the area looks like today, via Google, here.
To see an incredible 1914 photograph of the buildings and the residential area to the north, see my post “The Continental Gin Complex — 1914,” here.
More on Robert S. Munger and more early company ads can be found in the post “R. S. Munger’s Cotton Gin Manufactory,” here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Spoolroom of the Dallas Cotton Mills…
by Paula Bosse
The spoolroom of the Dallas Cotton Mills was no place for the faint of heart, as this eyeball-popping story from The Dallas Morning News will attest (click for larger image):
DMN, May 16, 1897
The story even made it into the pages of The New York Times:
NYT, May 15, 1897
(The women apparently survived.)
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Photo (“Spooling Yarn, Dallas Cotton Mills, Dallas, Texas”) is from a stereograph, circa 1905, from the Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it is accessible here.
The descriptive text from the back of the card:
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
I grew up in the Lower Greenville area, and since we had a nice steakhouse just a couple of blocks away, that’s where we always went for family birthdays and special occasions: Kirby’s. I had forgotten about the birthday cards they sent out until my mother came across one in a recent move which was addressed to “Miss Paula Bosse.” Other than receiving actual mail, the thing that made these cards really exciting for a child was the inclusion of a dime. I always thought of it as a little birthday treat, but my mother suggested it was more of a subtle reminder to the parents to spend that dime on a call for reservations.
I loved that place. It was very dark. My brother and I always had the same thing: a non-alcoholic, super-sweet Shirley Temple from the bar, a salad with big chunks of roquefort in the salad dressing, a baked potato, and, oh my god, a filet mignon. I was mesmerized by the bacon wrapped around the steak. And the little wooden marker that showed how the meat was cooked. It was a nice, friendly neighborhood steakhouse. It was loud and happy. You could hear the steaks sizzling on the grill. It was always a treat to go to Kirby’s. And the place smelled GREAT! Even out on the sidewalk.
I was sad when they tore the building down, and even though there is now a chain of restaurants with the name “Kirby’s” — they even built a new one a couple of blocks down from the original location — there’s no way it could ever be the same.
Looking around for the history of the original “Kirby’s Charcoal Steaks,” I was surprised to discover that the man who owned Kirby’s — B. J. Kirby — was the son of the man who founded the Pig Stand chain of drive-ins. The Pig Stand started in Dallas, and it was the first drive-in restaurant EVER. They had the first carhops. The first onion rings. The first Texas toast. The Kirby’s steakhouse location — 3715 Greenville — had actually been a Pig Stand! B. J. Kirby had grown up working at his father’s restaurants, and when his father died, he sold all the Pig Stands except for the Greenville Avenue location (i.e. Pig Stand No. 4). In 1954 he turned the pig-sandwich-serving drive-in into a nice sit-down steakhouse which remained popular until the restaurant closed in 1987 when Mr. Kirby retired.
Watch Ch. 5 news footage of B. J. Kirby and the auction of the restaurant fixtures at UNT’s Portal to Texas History site, here.
I could really go for a bacon-wrapped filet mignon right about now. And one of those Shirley Temples would even hit the spot.
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“Something to Crow About!” card from the author’s collection.
Color photo of the Kirby’s sign is a screenshot from the Channel 5 news coverage of the auction of the Kirby’s fixtures, which aired April 14, 1987, viewable here; from the KXAS-NBC 5 News Collection, UNT Libraries, via the Portal to Texas History.
First ad from 1958; bottom ad from 1951.
Watch the 14-minute documentary “Carhops,” in which B. J. Kirby remembers life working as a kid for his father, here (also interviewed are other drive-in Dallas icons, J. D. Sivils and Jack Keller).
An entertaining history of the Pig Stand No. 4 and its transformation into Kirby’s Charcoal Steaks can be found here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 