These eight aerial photos of City Park/Old City Park in The Cedars, just south of downtown, show the encroachment of an ever-increasing acreage of asphalt onto what was once the city’s most beautiful park. (All photos are from the Dallas Municipal Archives, and all are larger when clicked.) The one thing present in all photos is the late Ambassador Hotel (RIP).
Above, in 1948, before the cement mixers arrived (photo by Barnes Aerial Surveys).
Below, 1954.
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1954
1966:
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1966
1969:
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1969
1972:
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1972
1975:
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1975
Circa 1982:
Dallas Municipal Archives, ca. 1982
1997:
Reginald D. Loftin, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1997
Today-ish (or at least before the Ambassador burned down in May, 2019):
Google Maps
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Sources & Notes
All photos are from the Dallas Municipal Archives Collection, via the Portal to Texas History; they can all be found here.
The liquidation of Luby’s restaurants was announced this week. There are a lot of people (Texans in particular) who are going to take this news hard.
I spotted the Luby’s seen in the picture above in a photo I found on eBay a few years ago (see the full photo here). I was surprised to learn that the first Luby’s in Dallas opened in 1929. (I think it was the first Luby’s in Texas — there might have been a tangentially-related “Luby’s”-branded restaurant in Muskogee, Oklahoma, but let’s just say that the Luby’s at 205 Browder Street in downtown Dallas was the first one in Texas. It was opened by Earl E. Luby on January 8, 1929.
Jan. 8, 1929
The second location (the one seen in the photo above) opened at 1006 Main Street (at Poydras) two years later, on May 19, 1931.
May 19, 1931
Earl Luby was the first cousin of Harry M. Luby, the man who is generally considered to have opened the forerunner of what we now know as Luby’s. In September, 1911, Harry opened a cafeteria in Springfield, Missouri called New England Dairy Lunch — there were several other restaurants around the U.S. with the same name, so I’m not sure if he bought it as a franchise, but whatever the case, that cafeteria was the start of a tray-toting empire.
Springfield News-Leader, Sept. 20 & 21, 1911
He opened other New England cafeterias in Missouri and, with cousin Earl, in Oklahoma. (There was one in Dallas in 1919, located at 1409 Elm, which appears to be connected to the Luby family.)
Apr. 16, 1919
In 1929 Earl branched off, moved to Texas, opened his own cafeterias (mostly in Dallas), and made a fortune. (There were Luby’s cafeterias run by other members of the Luby family, most notably Harry’s son, Robert Luby, who was active in South Texas a few decades later. I don’t know whether these were two completely different business entities, but Earl was king of the very lucrative Dallas market.)
Here’s an ad from 1953 with Luby’s locations at that time (along with a Miss Inez shout-out). (Click to see a larger image.)
And from the same ad, a photo of cousins Earl and Harry enjoying a convivial cup of coffee.
June, 1953 ad (details)
And, below, a 1960 ad for the new Luby’s at the Preston Forest Shopping Center (that sign is fantastic!).
Sept., 1960
It’s a shame to say goodbye to such a long-lived Dallas institution. RIP, Luby’s. And thanks, Earl (1897-1990).
Labor Day in 1952 was on Sept. 1. The people in the photo above were waiting for buses to whisk them away for a nice end-of-summer Labor Day holiday. They were in the Union Bus Depot in the Interurban Building (downtown, at Jackson and Browder). They were probably waiting for a Continental Trailways bus. (While waiting, they might have availed themselves of merchandise at the Sigler’s Jewelry & Optical Co., seen in the background. This was their downtown location — I wrote about their main store at Peak and Elm here.)
So what was going on in Dallas on Labor Day in 1952? Well, it was hot. Real hot. (It’s always hot.) (ALWAYS!) It was 102°, and it was very dry and very windy. Grassfires were popping up everywhere — there were 30 fires that day!
There were, of course, Labor Day picnics. The largest was for members of the UAW-CIO — the crowd of union members and their families was estimated at 5,200 and was held on ranchland (the D & L Ranch) west of Grapevine. There were also hundreds of AFL plumbers and carpenters at a picnic at Vickery Park on Greenville Avenue. 6,000 Dallasites took advantage of the city’s swimming pools on the last they were open. And then there were 500 people who waved off the whole “outdoor” thing and spent the day skating at the chilly Fair Park ice rink.
The movie “Jumping Jacks,” starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, was playing at the Majestic, and “Merry Widow,” starring Lana Turner, was at the Palace. Kay Thompson, the singer (and creator of the Eloise children’s books) was opening at the Adolphus Hotel’s Century Room. And there was a square-dancing contest on the Fair Park midway.
It was a bad day, however, for a motorist who indulged in one too many Labor Day adult beverages. The guy zig-zagged in and out of traffic on the Houston Street viaduct, hit a curb, and then swerved back into traffic. He was stopped by one of the cars he had whipped around. Unfortunately for the tipsy driver, the man who stopped him was Sheriff Bill Decker. Bet he’d wished he gotten out of town, along with all those sweaty travelers seen above waiting at the Union Bus Depot.
March, 1952 (click for larger image)
May, 1952
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I was unaware of the Union Bus Depot until researching this post. It was established around the time when the Dallas-Fort Worth Interurban ceased operation on Christmas Eve, 1934 (the line from Dallas to Waco and Denison kept going a while longer). Suddenly the Interurban terminal at Jackson and Browder streets was going to be sorely underused, so it was decided to make it a great big bus depot. Most of the major bus companies serving Dallas (except for Greyhound, which had it own terminal) used the Interurban Building terminal as a shared depot.
July, 1937
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Sources & Notes
Photo, titled “Labor Day Weekend crowd at the Union Bus Depot” (Aug. 31, 1952), is from the Hayes Collection, Dallas Public Library Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library; Call Number PA76-1/11420.
From the Dallas Morning News archives:
“Outings on Labor Day Lack Only In Oratory” by Frank X. Tolbert (DMN, Sept. 2, 1952)
“Last 24 Hours in Dallas” by Lorrie Brooks (DMN, Sept. 2, 1953)
“Grassland Areas Hit By Flames” (DMN, Sept. 2, 1952)
“Negotiations For Union Bus and Interurban Terminal Are Under Way By Electric Lines” (DMN, Oct. 25, 1934)
“Electric Line Station To Be Bus Terminal” (DMN, Dec. 1, 1934)
Smith College Club book sale, Highland Park Village…
by Paula Bosse
As the children of a bookseller, my brother and I spent our childhoods surrounded by books — at home, in the Aldredge Book Store, at book shows, and at book sales. The two big annual book sales I remember were the Smith College Book Sale (the really big one) and the Brandeis Book Sale, both being fundraisers for the respective colleges.
The Smith College Club of Dallas put on their book sales. The club was organized by alumnae in 1949 in the home of Mrs. Joseph L. Higginbotham (Elizabeth Higginbotham, Class of ’32), and the first informal sale was conducted on her back porch in Highland Park. Proceeds from the book sales funded Smith College scholarships for Dallas girls.
I was excited to see (silent) film footage of an early Smith College sale, footage which showed up in SMU’s endlessly interesting WFAA-Channel 8 newsfilm collection. I remember much larger sales from the ’70s and ’80s, so this one from 1962 seems very quaint. This 9th annual sale was held on May 1-2, 1962 in an empty storefront at 84 Highland Park Village. Volunteers were wearing “candy striper” uniforms, and shoppers filled up Neiman-Marcus shopping bags.
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Stanley Marcus, always a supporter of book-related events in Dallas (and the father of two Smith grads), even had the event incorporated into a Neiman-Marcus ad that year (their Preston Road location was an official drop-off spot for book donations, and after the store moved from Preston Road to NorthPark, the empty building was given over to the Smith women a few times to use as the site of several of their book sales).
Neiman-Marcus ad, April 20, 1962 (click for larger image)
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Sources & Notes
Top image is a screenshot from the YouTube clip (here), from the WFAA NewsFilm Collection, G. William Jones Film Collection, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University.
This is one of those photographs I could stare at all day long. It shows a shopping area in East Oak Cliff at the intersection of E. Eighth Street and N. Moore Street — this part of Oak Cliff was originally settled as a freedman’s town, and this photo shows an area between the Tenth Street Historic District and The Bottoms (or The Bottom) neighborhood (see a great map, here).
When these buildings were built in 1945 by I. B. Clark, it was an exclusively African-American part of Dallas. The anchor of this strip (which occupied what was described as both the 300 block of N. Moore and the 1400 block of E. Eighth) was the Star Theatre, which was, according to Mr. Clark, the only movie house for black customers in Oak Cliff).
Boxoffice, April 28, 1945
Dallas Negro Directory, 1947-48
I. B. Clark was a white businessman who lived on a ranch in Cedar Hill; he had owned the Southern Fireworks Company before the war and had frequently battled with Dallas lawmakers about the constitutionality of banning the selling and shooting of fireworks within the city limits.
In the undated photo above, businesses in the retail strip are the Top-O-Hill Food Mart, the Ebony Cafe (Pit Bar-B-Q), the Easy-Wash laundromat, the second location of the Cochran Street Record Shop, the Star Theatre, and hotel apartments.
This hub of businesses was popular with neighborhood residents, who referred to this area as “Show Hill” (for the picture show). I stumbled across a really wonderful 2018 oral history of Margaret Benson, who, in 1944, moved with her family to Dallas and attended N. W. Harllee Elementary School and both Lincoln High School and Madison High School. She describes these shops and says that whenever black entertainers such as Dinah Washington or Sister Rosetta Tharpe came to town, they frequently stayed in the apartments above these businesses, as hotel accommodations for African Americans were few and far between. (I loved the entire recording of Mrs. Benson reminiscing about living for most of her life in this area of Oak Cliff — the part where she specifically talks about “Show Hill” is at the 8:25 mark in the recording at the link above.)
According to Dallas movie theater historian Troy Sherrod, the Star closed in 1959. Over time the area eventually declined and the remaining businesses closed. The strip, which was looking pretty down-at-its-heels in the 1990s, was demolished around 2000. The photo below shows the once-vibrant strip in its later days. (Three more photos, from 1999, can be found here — the addition of more apartments (the “Ebony Hotel Annex”) can be seen in the third one.)
via Lost Dallas by Mark Doty
Here is what “Show Hill” vacant lot looks like today on Google Street View:
Top photo showing the Star Theatre is from the excellent book by D. Troy Sherrod, Historic Dallas Theatres (Arcadia Publishing, 2014); the photo is from the collection of the Dallas Public Library.
Second photo showing the dilapidated buildings is from another excellent book, Lost Dallas by Mark Doty (Arcadia Publishing, 2012).
The ad for the Star Theatre appeared in the Dallas, Texas Negro City Directory, 1947-1948 (many thanks to Pat Lawrence). The address for the theater was listed in various places as both 300 N. Moore and as 1401 E. Eighth.
If you have access to the archives of the Dallas Morning News, I encourage you to read “Inner-City Secret — The Bottoms Residents Say They Are Forgotten” by Bill Minutaglio (DMN, Aug. 28, 1994).
Thank you to reader Jerry Richburg for contacting me with a question about this old strip shopping area — he remembered attending church services in one of the buildings and asked if I knew more about what had been there and if I might have a photo. Thanks, Jerry! You led me down the path to discovering a little pocket of Dallas history I was completely unaware of!
Photos and postcards and other images related to things I’ve already written about have started to pile up again. These images are new to Flashback Dallas, but I’m adding them to old posts so I can keep everything in one place.
The one above, for instance, is being added to a post I wrote only last month for the 4th of July, “Independence Day at Shady View Park — 1880s.” I knew I had this photo of Shady View Park in Old East Dallas, but I couldn’t find it when I wrote the post. I found it by accident a couple of days ago, and I love it. I clipped the photo a few years ago, but I’m not sure where I found it. A caption identifies the people as “La Reunion Colony settlers” — Mrs. Louie Maas, Annie Gramatky, Paul Hartman, and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Gramatky. The photo was taken on May 12, 1896. (Source: Dallas Public Library)
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Below, a photo which I’ve added to “The Cabana Motor Hotel of Dallas.” It shows the Cabana under construction, looking a bit like a correctional facility (which it was for a while…). (Source: photo by William Langley, from the collection of the Dallas Public Library)
The photos below have been added to “Gusher at Old Red! — 1890.” The first photo is from about 1900 and is from a collection of Dallas Morning News “copy photos” at SMU’s DeGolyer Library (this copy photo and the one above showing the interior of a DMN office are, sadly, on the washed-out side, but they’re still cool and serve as helpful historical records). I became kind of obsessed with what I assume is a capped well on the grounds of the Old Red Courthouse — you can see the artesian well at the extreme left of this photo — the view is east on Commerce from Houston Street. (Source: DeGolyer Library, SMU)
The second photo I’ve added to the “Gusher” post was sent to me by Ann Hoffman, showing a friend of her Great Aunt Nora stopping for a drink at Old Red sometime in the 1920s. (Source: Collection of Ann Hoffman — I love this! Thank you, Ann!)
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A photo by John Minor from a real photo postcard he sent to his mother in 1911, which shows Butler Brothers (and the Adolphus under construction), has been added to “Butler Brothers Building, As Seen From the Praetorian.” (Source: eBay)
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Below are two images which are being added to “Elm & Akard, Photographer J. C. Deane, and The Crash at Crush.” They show a building at the southeast corner of Elm and Akard (which was referred to as “historic” in the 1930s) before and after it was remodeled into an incredibly fabulous Art Deco addition to Elm Street (click over to the link to see a photo of the finished building — I’d never have guessed it had been in Dallas). (Source: DeGolyer Library).
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And, lastly, even though this isn’t a photo taken in or around Dallas (it was taken in Shannon, Texas — in Clay County, 20-or-so miles south of Henrietta), it does show Texans playing croquet, which was surprisingly popular here as early as the 1870s. I’ve added it to the post “Orphaned Factoids: Year-End Grab Bag, 2018,” beneath newspaper reports from 1873 which caused controversy when it was reported that an off-duty Dallas policeman was seen playing croquet in Main Street every day. (Source: they’re on a streak — the DeGolyer Library, SMU)
Back in 2014 when I started this blog, this isone of the first photos I posted. It is one of those Dallas photos that can actually be described as “iconic”: a cowboy on horseback watches over a herd of cattle grazing just beyond a vibrant mid-century skyline — old Texas meets new Texas. The photo is by Dallas photographer William Langley, and, according to the Library of Congress, it was taken on August 20, 1945. I am posting it again today, August 20, 2020 — 75 years to the day it was taken.
So what was happening 75 years ago today? Here are a few stories from the newspaper.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur was heading to Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed within the past two weeks, effectively ending the war).
Wartime restrictions on the use of natural gas were lifted by the War Production Board.
Hollywood stars Dick Powell and June Allyson had gotten hitched.
LBJ was being touted as a possible candidate for Texas governor.
The average cost of a meal for a family of four before the war was $2.27 (or about $40 in today’s money); now, after the war, it had risen to $3.70 (about $50). Fruit preserves were almost impossible to find.
Dallasites were chomping at the bit to bid farewell to the war-ordered Daylight Savings Time and return to Standard Time — they wanted go to bed when it was dark outside.
Annexation had meant that Dallas had increased in size over the past year from 51 square miles to 87 square miles.
Several Dallasites saw a “very large and very luminous” meteor.
Sgt. Jesse Curry, 31, of the Dallas Police Department, had been awarded a fellowship for an 18-week course in traffic administration at Northwestern University Traffic Institute in Chicago.
It was announced that improved trash pickup was on the horizon, as soon as new trucks became available.
War workers were being released from their war-work obligations, and the city’s businesses were beginning to hire, which was good news, except for many Dallas women who were still working but who were met with the announced closure of many “playschools” which were operated around the city on a 12-hour cycle to accommodate shift workers.
The Texas League announced they would resume minor league play in the spring.
Hockaday would increase its staff from 83 members to 100 for the upcoming school year.
“The Three Musketeers” was opening at the Starlight Operetta in Fair Park. The State Fair of Texas would not resume until 1946.
“Thrill of a Romance” — with Van Jones and Esther Williams — was at the Majestic.
“Pillow to Post” — with Ida Lupino and Sydney Greenstreet — was at the Palace.
“The Story of G.I. Joe” — with Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum — was at the Tower.
“Asi Se Quiere en Jalisco” — with Jorge Negrete — was at the Panamericano.
Interstate Theaters declined to respond to the rumor that a soon-to-be-built theater in Galveston was to be equipped to show television broadcasts.
High temperature on the Monday Bill Langley took that photo was 92 degrees.
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Sources & Notes
Photo by William Langley — titled “Skyline, Dallas, Texas” — is from the collection of the Library of Congress. Langley appears to have been positioned somewhere around the present-day Stemmons Corridor.
Here are several images, most in varying degrees of low resolution. I don’t know what else to do with them other than post them all together, randomly. No research. They’re just HERE! Enjoy!
Above, a handsome couple posing under the entrance to Wah-Hoo Club Lake (I’ve seen it more often spelled “Wahoo” — south of Fair Park).
Below, the Coca-Cola Company building, McKinney and N. Lamar (still standing).
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Speaking of Coke, here are some Keen folks, standing on the steps of the Jefferson Hotel (Union Station is out of frame to their right).
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A couple of blocks away, the Old Red Courthouse, seen here from an unusual angle — looking toward the northwest (postcard postmarked 1908).
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This is a super low-resolution image, but I’ve never seen it before, so, what the heck: I give you a fuzzy Jackson Street looking northeast (postmarked 1907).
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The “new” Post Office and Federal Building at Bryan and Ervay (postmarked 1964).
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A jog over to Oak Cliff — here’s a horse-drawn hearse.
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Up to Preston and Royal (northeast corner, I think) — a Mobil station.
And, lastly, my favorite of these miscellaneous images: the 2200 block of 2nd Avenue (from about Metropolitan — a couple of blocks south of Fair Park). This part of town used to be really interesting. Unfortunately, it looks nothing like this now (see it on Google Street View here). This is a screenshot from the KERA-produced documentary “South Dallas Pop” (which you can watch in its entirety here).
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Sources & Notes
All images found on eBay except for the following: Preston-Royal Mobil station, from Coltera’s Flickr stream; LBJ photo from Red Oak Kid’s Flickr stream; and the photo of 2nd Avenue, which might be from the collection of the Dallas Public Library.
April 20, 1969/WFAA Collection, G. William Jones Collection, SMU (screenshot)
by Paula Bosse
If you haven’t delved into the vast collection of Dallas history contained in the WFAA Newsfilm Collection held by the G. William Jones Collection at SMU’s Hamon Arts Library (a collection I’m proud to be working on as a researcher), you are missing out. There are SO MANY clips of Channel 8 news footage from 1960 to 1973. Descriptions are ongoing, and new stuff is being uploaded all the time — check out the SMU Jones Film YouTube channel here.
One of my favorite WFAA clips from this collection is, without question, the short interview with Jimi Hendrix conducted at Love Field when he visited Dallas to play at Memorial Auditorium (April 20, 1969). Channel 8 reporter Doug Terry lucked out in getting one of the best interviews of Hendrix I’ve ever seen — he’s laid back and friendly, smiling and laughing. Watch it in my 2017 Flashback Dallas post “Jimi Hendrix, Glen Campbell, Tiny Tim — In Dallas (…Separately), 1969.”
And while I’m at it, a related post (which I really enjoyed writing) is “Tiny Tim Mobbed at the Melody Shop — 1969” — it also includes great WFAA footage (not, unfortunately, of the Melody Shop riot, but of his appearance at Sanger-Harris for a book-signing a few months later — he even sings).
I had never seen footage of legendary Texas Ranger Manuel T. “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas (1891-1977) until now. There is a short clip of him recounting a run-in with a man who shot him in WFAA-Channel 8 footage from March, 1970 (filmed at the Southwest Historical Wax Museum in Fair Park). Gonzaullas was a long-time resident of Dallas, from 1923 until his death in 1977, living for much of that time in Lakewood, in the 6900 block of Westlake.
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Here are a couple of screenshots from the news footage. In the first he is seen standing in front of his wax figure.
And in the second, he’s joking with WFAA-Channel 8 News reporter Phil Reynolds, who seems a little star-struck.
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Below are a few random Lone Wolf-related photos and articles. (There are tons of histories of Gonzaullas and the Texas Rangers out there — please hunt them down for specifics on his long and respected career in law enforcement. These are just a few things that I found interesting, some of which are of no historical importance!)
The earliest newspaper mention of Gonzaullas I could find was about his participation in an El Paso-to-Phoenix automobile road race in 1919. Biographers have noted that the colorful Gonzaullas sometimes embellished the truth, especially about his early days, and it’s interesting to note that in coverage of this race, Gonzaullas was described as being a “noted European racing driver” who had previously won 32 first-place finishes and 92 second-place finishes (!). The car he had entered in the race was a Locomobile, which he was reported to have driven to El Paso from Atlantic City. He was also identified as being “a Cuban […] who first won his spurs on the Havana track” (his birthplace is usually said to be Spain, where he was born to naturalized American citizens who were visiting that country at the time). He told the papers he had been left with temporarily blindness and a permanently injured left arm in a previous auto accident — and another injury was about to come: he didn’t finish the El Paso-to-Phoenix race because his car suffered two debilitating mishaps, including one in which he was thrown from the car “and a blood vessel in his stomach was broken.” He was also said to be accompanied by “Mrs. Gonzaullas,” despite the fact that he did not marry Laura Scherer until April, 1920.
El Paso Times, Oct. 16, 1919 (click for larger image)
In December, 1919, Los Angeles newspapers reported that Mr. Gonzaullas, “who has gold mining interests in Mexico,” was in town, visiting from Havana. Accompanying him was “Mrs. Gonzaullas,” who was indulging in a shopping excursion. They were staying at the Hotel Stowell.
Los Angeles Evening Express, Dec. 3, 1919
While at the Stowell (and about to return to Texas), Gonzaullas put a for-sale classified in the Los Angeles paper, saying that he “must sell within next 24 hours my beautiful combination 2 or 4 passenger Locomobile Roadster Special.” The Cuban’s racing days would seem to be ending.
Los Angeles Evening Express, May 8, 1920
Less than two weeks later — and a month after finally marrying Laura in California — the newly wed Gonzaullas was back in El Paso, looking for a “lost or strayed” pet monkey. It appears the monkey was found (…or replaced…), but in September the Gonzaullases were selling their little “Java monkey,” along with its cage and traveling case. M. T. became “Lone Wolf” after he joined the Texas Rangers in 1920. Perhaps a monkey was not considered an appropriate pet for a lawman. (This is my favorite weird and obscure “Lone Wolf” tidbit.)
Gonzaullas was in and out of the Rangers throughout his career. In 1923, he moved to Dallas where he was stationed as a permanent prohibition agent (he busted a lot of booze-loving Dallasites).
Dallas Morning News, Feb. 25, 1923
In 1929, Gonzaullas was a sergeant in the Texas Rangers, and the photo below captured the first time that the men of Company B had all been together at the same time in the same place — in Fort Worth. The caption for this photo: “Texas’ Guardians, United After 10 Years. Capt. Tom R. Hickman, Gainesville, brought Ranger Company B together Friday for the first time in more than 10 years. Here they are just before visiting the Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show. Left to right, W. H. Kirby, Abilene; H. B. Purvis, Lufkin; Captain Hickman; Sergt. M. T. Gonzaullas, Dallas; Dott E. Smith, Abilene; and James P. Huddleston, Dallas.” (Fort Worth Record-Telegram, March 16, 1929) (Read the full story, “Ranger Company B Rides In to Stock Show” here.)
Company B in Fort Worth, FW Record-Telegram, Mar. 16, 1929
In 1933, the Texas Rangers were dissolved, later to re-emerge as part of the newly formed Department of Public Safety in 1935. Gonzaullas served for several years as the head of the DPS’s Bureau of Intelligence in Austin, a Texas version of the FBI. In 1940, he stepped down from that position to rejoin the Rangers. He took over command of his old Company B, which was stationed in Fair Park, and remained in that position for 11 years until his retirement.
Austin Statesman, Feb. 14, 1940
Austin American, Feb. 15, 1940
In 1942, at the age of 50, Gonzaullas filled out a registration card during World War II, as all men were required to do. (A distinguishing physical characteristic of a “bullet hole thru left elbow” was noted.)
Below, a photo from 1944 showing mounted Texas Rangers of Company B in Marshall, Texas: (left to right) Tulley E. Seay, C. G. (Kelly) Rush, Stewart Stanley, Dick Oldham, Capt. M. T. Gonzaullas, R. A. (Bob) Crowder, Ernest Daniel, Joe N. Thompson, Robert L. Badgett, and Norman K. Dixon.
Capt. Manuel Trazazas Gonzaullas retired in July, 1951 and traveled between Dallas and Hollywood where he worked as a consultant on Western TV shows and films. He died in Dallas on Feb. 13, 1977 at the age of 85.
The first three images are screenshots of WFAA-Channel 8 news film shot in March, 1970, from the WFAA Collection, G. William Jones Collection, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University; the footage can be viewed on YouTube here.
A brief biography of M. T. Gonzaullas can be found at the Handbook of Texas, here.
There were several comprehensive and entertaining articles and interviews which appeared around the country about Gonezaullas’ career when he retired. If you have access to newspaper archives, I would recommend the article “The ‘Lone Wolf’ Lays Down His Guns” by Don Hinga which appeared in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on July 22, 1951.
City Park, 1948 (Dallas Municipal Archives)
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1966
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1969
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1972
Squire Haskins, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1975
Dallas Municipal Archives, ca. 1982
Reginald D. Loftin, Dallas Municipal Archives, 1997
Google Maps
