Flashback : Dallas

March 10, 2014

My Birthdays at Kirby’s: Filet Mignon for Everyone!

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.

***

Sources & Notes

“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.

3 Comments

March 8, 2014

The Construction of Turtle Creek Boulevard: “Ascending & Descending Cliffs and Ravines” — 1915

by Paula Bosse

What was going on a hundred years ago in Oak Lawn? Turtle Creek Boulevard was being constructed! Construction was overseen by the Park Board, which probably explains why it is one of the most beautifully landscaped roadways in Dallas.

Incidentally, the “University of Dallas” mentioned above refers to the original location of the University of Dallas, first called Holy Trinity College. It moved northward in the 1940s, and Jesuit High School took over the building. I’m really surprised to learn that this huge building was located near Turtle Creek and Blackburn until Jesuit moved north to ITS new home in the early 1960s.

And here it is, snug on the banks of the turtle-infested creek, around 1909 (in a photograph that does not do the lushly beautiful area justice).

***

Sources & Notes

Photos and text from the Report for the Year 1914-15 of the Park Board of the City of Dallas (Dallas, 1915), pp. 63-64.

March 7, 2014

Booker T. Washington Marching Band — 1937

by Paula Bosse

Marching band. Everyone’s favorite class in high school. Band director A. S. Jackson is at the right.

***

Sources & Notes

From the J. L. Patton Collection, Dallas Historical Society.

March 7, 2014

Mme. Koneman, High-Class Milliner

Madame Koneman’s fashion emporium, 1912 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Behold, the Koneman Millinery Establishment, which actually looks a little plain for a millinery shop housed in the ornate Oriental Hotel building. When I see old ads or photos like this, I always wonder about the people pictured in them. I’m assuming that the woman in the oval inset at the left was the proprietess, “Mme. Koneman.” So who WAS she, this woman who had a “high-class” business that catered to a “high-class” clientele? I poked around a little and found these ads from 1913.

(click for larger image)

Ooh. Those last few sentences of the above ad seem a little defensive, as if she’s addressing nasty gossip. “Furthermore, I want to say that I am not going out of business.” When you see a sentence like that — in an advertisement — that sends up some furiously waving red flags. And … just one month after that ad, this miniscule tidbit in teeny-tiny letters appeared in the paper at the end of 1913:

Dallas Morning News, Dec. 21, 1913

Oh dear. D-I-V-O-R-C-E. And, guess what? There were no more ads for the millinery shop.

But, alarmingly, THIS appeared on the wire services on February 17, 1917:

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Feb. 17, 1917

Oh DEAR! Shot by a widower with two children, who tried to kill both her and himself after he flew into a jealous rage in a New Orleans hotel lobby. Working with feathers and plumes and felt and velvet (probably) does not prepare one for being shot at!

Ten days after being shot, it was reported that the 36-year old Mrs. Koneman (whose first name was either “Matilda” or “Mathilda”) was released from the hospital in New Orleans. The jealous suitor, 40-year old Edgar J. Hargrave (or “Hargrove”), remained in the hospital, slowly recovering (but with a bullet still lodged in his head!). “Policemen expect to arrest Hargrave on a charge of shooting with intent to murder as soon as he is able to leave the institution.” He was an “oil salesman” from Houston.

One week later, Hargrave/Hargrove was released from the hospital and was transferred to Parish Prison where he awaited arraignment on attempted murder. Meanwhile, Matilda/Mathilda, a material witness in the case, had been arrested when the D.A. heard she was about to leave town. Out on a $650 bond, she was ordered to stay in the city until the arraignment.

On March 16, one month after being shot in the lobby of the Grunewald Hotel, Mrs. Koneman was in court recounting her near-death experience, and I’m sure the people back in Dallas were eating up every last morsel in the scandalous testimony about the spurned lover who tried to kill the divorcée who used to sell them great big hats with aigrette plumes in that bleakly unadorned hat shop over on Ervay!

DMN, March 16, 1917 (click for larger image)

(UPDATE: A reader kindly forwarded me a more detailed account of the shooting incident between the spurner and the spurnee, in a longer article from the New Orleans Times-Picayune (Feb. 17, 1917). Click here to read the article, with a blurry photo of Hargrave.)

And then — rather anticlimactically — the trail ran cold. What was the verdict? What happened to Edgar? Whither Mme. Koneman? Mrs. Koneman was reported to be living in Galveston at the time of the shooting, but by the summer of 1922 she was back in Dallas, checked into the Southland Hotel. The last shred of info I found about her was this classified ad from June, 1922, which raises even more questions.

DMN, June 15, 1922

I’m not really sure what this was all about, but it’s safe to say there would have been very few lags in the conversation between Dallas and California!

***

Top ad from The Standard Blue Book of Dallas, 1912-1914 (Dallas: A. J. Peeler & Co.).

“Dallas Woman Shot” article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Feb. 17, 1917. This was a wire service story that was printed around the country, but, oddly enough, the news doesn’t seem to have made its way into the DMN until ten days after the shooting!

All other ads and articles from the Dallas Morning News. The Koneman Millinery ads were from 1913.

5 Comments

March 6, 2014

Remember the Alamo! …In Fair Park?

by Paula Bosse

Today, on the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, I bring you news that Dallas has outdone San Antonio by having hosted two Alamos. TWO! Both in Fair Park. The first one was a gift to the city by G. B. Dealey and the Dallas Morning News — it stood stoically at the entrance to the fairgrounds from 1909 until 1935 — and the second one was a rebuilding of the first which was torn down to make way for the the splendor of the Art Deco Centennial extravaganza and lasted from 1936 until 1951. And here I’d never heard mention of Dallas having had ANY Alamos.

The idea came from Dallas Morning News executive George Bannerman Dealey. He sent architect J. P. Hubbell (of Hubbell & Greene) to San Antonio to meticulously photograph, sketch, and measure the original structure — this included making note of every stain, every crack, every instance of broken plaster, etc. — in order to reproduce an exact replica of the historical landmark (at half the size of the original). The Morning News offered to pay for and build the replica (the cost was estimated at $5,000) and asked only that it be placed in a primo location (at the entrance!), that it be open to the public during the day but be available to the DMN people to use for private/company functions after hours, and that the Park Board maintain the building and its landscaping. The Park Board jumped at the gift, and the news of our very own “little Alamo” was met with giddy anticipation. Even the rival Dallas Times Herald was swept up in the excitement and suggested a “Meet Me at the Alamo at the Dallas State Fair” slogan in an editorial.

San Antonio and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (who managed and maintained the historic shrine) were not terribly amused by this, but The News (in the expected torrent of its own self-congratulatory publicity about its magnanimous gift “not to Dallas, but to the State”) humbly insisted that the much, much, MUCH smaller Alamo would only drum up steady tourism of people who wanted to see the real thing. San Antonio and the Daughters seemed to get over it eventually. Dealey had made a good point, though, when he said that only a very small percentage of Texans had been able to see the Alamo in person, and this was an excellent way to bring history alive for North Texans.

The replica was dedicated on the opening day of the fair in 1909, and curious crowds lined up to see the startlingly realistic reproduction of the building which Mayor S. J. Hay described as being “sacred to every patriotic citizen of the State.” The brand new Alamo (made to look old and worn and battle-scarred) was a hit. In fact, it seems to have been a very popular exhibit for the length of its stay — a total of 42 years. Other than being visited by thousands and thousands of fair-goers and families and schoolchildren, it was also used to house soldiers briefly during both World War I and World War II. It was visited by numerous people who claimed to be related to Alamo heroes like Crockett, Bowie, and Travis, and there were even a couple of instances of visits by 100-year-old men who said they had known Crockett and Bowie when they were children.

And, oddly, even Comanche Chief Quanah Parker stopped by to check the place out. I’ll end with his salient observations upon seeing the Alamo replica when visiting Dallas as a guest of the State Fair in 1909:

White men talk a great deal about their history. They don’t all play brave in making it. They don’t all care as much for getting it right as for getting it like they want it. Alamo fight was brave like Indians fight, don’t care for safety and for life. This Alamo house brings back to me thought of the ‘Dobe Walls’ fight a long time ago. It must make Texas people feel good to look at this and think of what it stands for. It was a fine thing for The News to put it here. (DMN, Oct. 27, 1909)

Above, opening day crowds. “Scene in front of the Replica of the Alamo Chapel During the Ceremony of Presentation.” Photo by Henry Clogenson. (DMN, Oct. 17, 1909)

Dallas’ second Alamo (which made its debut at the Texas Centennial in 1936) no longer had its primo location at the entrance to Fair Park, but it at least had a bit of room to breathe. As with the first replica, an architect was sent to San Antonio to bring back exact measurements — this time it was the incomparable George Dahl (if you’re not familiar with his work, you need to look him up). And this time, San Antonio and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas were not happy at ALL: there was a sternly worded petition from San Antonio to the governor and threats to legally force a halt to the construction. Guess they got over it. Again.

But eventually, the Alamo fell. It was razed in August of 1951, after years of neglect. Stalwart Texas demolition workers must have blanched a bit at being informed that their job was to destroy the very symbol of Texas heroism and independence.

***

Top postcard from a page on the Watermelon Kid’s great Dallas history site, here.

Photo of the “brand new” Alamo in 1936 from the Ryerson & Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago, here.

3 Comments

March 6, 2014

Mr. Peppermint!

by Paula Bosse

I have no idea where I came across this photo a couple of years ago, but it is without question my favorite photograph of my childhood pal and idol, Mr. Peppermint!

2 Comments

March 5, 2014

3800 Main: Fritos Central — 1947

by Paula Bosse

Last week I came across the above photo of old cars parked in front of a Fritos building of some sort, and I wondered where it had been. After a little bit of digging, I found out that it was near Fair Park — in the 3800 block of Main, between Washington and Exposition, on land right next to the railroad tracks. The building in the foreground appears to be gone now, but I recognized the white, rounded towers behind it — I never knew what that building was, but I now know that it is the Frito company’s former grain elevator. And it’s still standing. Which I’m thankful for (and a bit surprised by) since it’s always been one of my favorite buildings in the area.

The Frito company (now Frito-Lay) has had its headquarters in the Dallas area since 1933. In the ’40s, its corporate offices were on Cedar Springs and its manufacturing plant was over near Fair Park, on Main Street. By 1947, the ever-expanding company had grown so much and had become so successful that it spent half a million dollars to build a whopping new grain elevator. The Dallas Morning News was there for a sneak-peek:

The extra-tough volcanic stones in the adjacent factory Monday will begin grinding corn supplied from a spanking new, ten-story white building just off the 3800 block of Main Street. […] The tall square gleaming structure is a $515,000 thoroughly modern elevator. […] Air-conditioned and equipped with the latest design apparatus, the elevator has storage capacity for 90,000 bushels of corn. It will supply the grain to the company’s factories in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Denver, Tulsa, and two plants in Los Angeles.

The new Frito elevator, weather proofed on the outside and weather controlled inside, was designed by Eugene Davis, architect. Huge grain cleaners which remove all chaff and foreign matter by shaking and air blast, occupy the second floor. Spray machinery gives the grain a thorough treatment to prevent infestation — the ‘buga-boo’ of grain products manufacturers. (DMN, Aug. 10, 1947, “Corn: $515,000 Elevator Latest Chapter in Corn-Chip Saga”)

Fifty-one boxcar loads of “select corn” — sans chaff and infestation — could be stored in that gleaming state-of-the-art grain elevator, designed by Eugene Davis (who a few years earlier, had designed another building for the Frito people, a small building at Wall and Corinth which housed the Pork Skin Chip Company).

In 1947, 3800 Main appears to have been something of a corn-chip Hyannisport — a self-contained compound in which all aspects of chip-production were seen to. As Kaleta Doolin (daughter of company founder C. E. Doolin) wrote in her book Fritos Pie:

Mr. Davis was the architect of all the various parts of the Frito plant in Dallas. The plant included the company’s grain elevator, where all the corn was stored; the machine shop (which my uncle Earl was in charge of); the food processing area; and the shipping warehouse, all built by Mr. Davis in 1947.

But that building in the top photo… that one had been there for years. 3800 Main Street had been the home of two or three car dealerships in the decades before Frito moved in. In 1929, as this photo shows, it was the location of the long-lived Ford dealership, Lamberth Motor Company.

And here’s the same building in 1947, Frito-ized.

And the side of the building, taken from across the railroad tracks, then and now.

Another old building survives! What a relief that Dallas doesn’t tear down EVERY cool old building!

***

Sources & Notes

Can’t find a source for the top photo. It looks as if someone took a photo of a framed picture which is probably hanging on the wall of a person who feels a great kinship to old Dallas. Or to Fritos. Or to snacks.

Quote about the various parts of the plant is from Fritos Pie: Stories, Recipes, and More by Kaleta Doolin (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2011), p. 45.

The two 1947 photos of the Frito building are insets from a series of logrolling ads in which Frito thanks Texas Bank & Trust for all the money they’ve helped Frito make, and Texas Bank & Trust thanks Frito for all the money they’ve helped Texas Bank & Trust make. The take-away? There sure is a lot of money to be made in fried food.

The bottom two photos are from Google maps: the first looking toward the old granary from the railroad tracks, and the second looking down from the unblinking Google eyeball in the sky.

Lastly, a current photo of the building, now renovated and occupied by Hammers + Partners Architecture (whose daily business affairs are probably always accompanied by the faint smell of fried corn wafting past), can be seen here. (What must that building look like inside?!)

Click pictures for larger images.

8 Comments

March 4, 2014

“Throw Me a Pink Thing, Mister!” — 1967

1967 Mardi Gras doubloon (click for larger images)

by Paula Bosse

“THROW ME SOMETHING, MISTER.”

Pictures of these are all over the internet, but I found only ONE reference explaining why “Six Flags Over Texas” was on a Krewe of Freret Mardi Gras doubloon — and it was in this Jan. 31, 1967 AP article from the Monroe (Louisiana) News Star (transcription below):

NEW ORLEANS (AP)-King Freret XII abdicated today after a successful one night reign wildly cheered by his loyal carnival subjects. Pegasus, the winged horse, will rule tonight, rolling through the crowded streets in the second night parade of the season. The torch-lit procession of the Krewe of Freret, with 14 floats and 37 marching units stretching for 28 blocks, was inspired by the “Six Flags Over Texas” amusement park. Mild temperatures — the readings were in the high 50s as the parade wound through downtown New Orleans — brought thousands of residents and visitors to clamor for trinkets tossed from the glittering floats. When the parade reached the reviewing stand at Gallier Hall, the old city hall on St. Charles Avenue, Mayor Victor Schiro welcomed King Freret, Charles L. Villemeur Jr., and wished him a successful reign. Villemeur’s daughter, Miss Kay Ann Villemeur, who ruled as queen, stood beside Schiro. Both then joined in toasting the king. Carnival will reach its climax one week from today with Mardi Gras, preceding the 40 solemn days of Lent.

I wonder if there actually IS any connection to the amusement park? It might just be a friendly nod to neighboring Texas and not to the Arlington park we all know and love. But who am I to doubt the fine folks at the Biloxi Daily Herald?

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

***

Click the doubloons to get those suckers big. REAL big.

2 Comments

March 4, 2014

Mardi Gras Parade in Dallas — ca. 1876/1877

Main St. looking east from Austin (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

What was happening downtown on this day, about 140 years ago? Mardi Gras, Dallas-style! Let’s wander around this parade photo, taken by Alfred Freeman. (Click photos to see larger images.)

This kid has a great, unobstructed second-story view of the parade below.

No glitz, no beads, no flashing.

Every time I look at the original photograph, my eye always goes to this woman.

Okay, that kid’s view is nothing compared to these guys who’ve scaled the Dallas Herald building.

In information about the 1876 parade, the Feb. 24, 1876 edition of The Dallas Herald advised: “To prevent accidents, owners of buildings having varandas [sic] will permit no one to stand on them, unless the same have been sufficiently strengthened.” I don’t know … some of those “varandas” look pretty shaky.

And down Main Street they go.

***

This is a stereograph photo by Alfred Freeman, from the Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be viewed here. (I have manipulated the color.) SMU has the photo as being “ca. 1870,” but the first Mardi Gras parade in Dallas wasn’t held until 1876. The view shows Main Street looking east, apparently taken from the roof of the Reed & Lathrop building on the northeast corner of Main and Austin.

UPDATE: This might be a photograph of the Mardi Gras celebration held in Dallas on February 24 (a Thursday…), in 1876. This was the first such celebration held in the city, and it was a massive undertaking, attracting more than 20,000 spectators. For weeks after the event, Alfred Freeman was advertising his Mardi Gras photographs with the following text: “Freeman, the artist, has nine different views of the Mardi Gras procession, for sale.”

Read about the first Mardi Gras parade in Dallas in the Flashback Dallas post “Mardi Gras: ‘Our First Attempt at a Carnival Fete’ — 1897,” here.

Click pictures for larger images.

4 Comments

March 3, 2014

The Store That Doak Built

by Paula Bosse

Doak Walker, the Heisman-winning superstar football player for SMU from 1945 to 1949, was, for a good forty-odd years, a partner in a successful sporting goods business that bore his name: the Doak Walker Sports Center. When it opened in Highland Park Village on August 23, 1951, the 24-year old — then playing pro ball with the Detroit Lions — was a bona fide celebrity, both locally and nationally. Predictably, the grand opening drew large crowds of sports fans eager to see their homegrown hero and check out the new place in town to get tennis balls and baseball bats (and, who knows, there might even have been some who showed up to see those unnamed Lions teammates the ads said he’d bring with him). The promise of “souvenirs for everyone!” was merely icing on the cake.

At the same time that the Sports Center was opening, Doak’s name was also on a Gulf station that he and former Mustangs teammate Raleigh Blakely owned on Hillcrest across from the SMU campus. And while both of those business concerns were chugging along, he was also appearing in local and national ads for everything from chewing gum to Vitalis (with a name like “Doak” you’re going to have instant name recognition). Oh, and he was also playing football. Doak Walker was a force to be reckoned with — on the field, on Madison Avenue, and in the dang Park Cities.

***

Postcard of Doak Walker Sports Center from the Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers Postcard Collection on Flickr, here.

Life magazine from Sept. 27, 1948. The cover story on Doak Walker and the SMU team can be accessed here.

Signed issued of Sport magazine is currently available for sale here.

Triangle Motors ad from a 1951 program for an SMU-Rice game at the Cotton Bowl.

Doak Walker bio on the Pro Football Hall of Fame website is here.

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Flashback : Dallas

March 10, 2014

My Birthdays at Kirby’s: Filet Mignon for Everyone!

Sources & Notes

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March 8, 2014

The Construction of Turtle Creek Boulevard: “Ascending & Descending Cliffs and Ravines” — 1915

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March 7, 2014

Booker T. Washington Marching Band — 1937

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March 7, 2014

Mme. Koneman, High-Class Milliner

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March 6, 2014

Remember the Alamo! …In Fair Park?

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March 6, 2014

Mr. Peppermint!

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March 5, 2014

3800 Main: Fritos Central — 1947

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March 4, 2014

“Throw Me a Pink Thing, Mister!” — 1967

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March 4, 2014

Mardi Gras Parade in Dallas — ca. 1876/1877

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March 3, 2014

The Store That Doak Built

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