Flashback : Dallas

March 10, 2019

My First Home — 3809 Cole Avenue

Home sweet home, circa 1900…

by Paula Bosse

Above is a photo of a stone house which once stood at 3809 Cole Avenue, across from North Dallas High School. It was built by John H. “Jack” Cole — probably around 1880-1900 — and it was occupied for decades by family members, up until the 1960s. By the 1980s it was owned by the Southland Corp. and was ultimately torn down around 1987 or so. And it was the very first house I lived in (…briefly).

Jack Cole was one of the sons of Dr. John Cole, an important early settler who arrived in Dallas in 1843 and whose family soon owned thousands of primo acres in what is now Highland Park and Oak Lawn.

cole-jack_flickr
John H. “Jack” Cole

According to a great-great grandson, Jack’s farmhouse once stood on land which is now the site of Cole Park (about where the tennis courts), and his barn and stock tank were on the land now occupied by North Dallas High School. Below is a photo of the farmhouse (it looks like it might be the back of the house); built in the 1850s (and added onto over the years), it was said to be one of the first brick houses in Dallas County (Jack had his own brick kiln on the property).

photo: Bill Gillespie

Below is the only other photo I’ve been able to find of the house — apologies for the image quality!

The smaller house seen at the top was located a short distance away.

At some point Jack Cole’s farmhouse and barn were torn down; the land for Cole Park was donated to the city by the family and became part of the Dallas park system in 1921, and North Dallas High School opened the following year.

The small stone house was occupied by various Cole descendants over the years, primarily the Miers and Warlick families. It was opened up to renters in the 1960s and, until sometime in the late ’80s, was rented as both living space and retail space.

My parents lived there only about a year. My father ran a small book business out of the front of the house, and my parents lived in the back and upstairs. The floors were brick and the walls were stone, and according to my mother, a lot of the mortar was gone and you could see outside though gaps in the walls. It was a very, very cold place in the winter. I was born during this time and lived there for a few chilly months until we were off to someplace across town with better insulation.

I mentioned this house a few years ago in a post about North Dallas High School, and a guy named Craig Thomas contacted me to tell me that he had lived in that same house in the 1980s — along with friends who were part of local bands The Plan and Luxor. They dubbed the house “Green Acres” because it was definitely something of a fixer-upper along the lines of the TV show of the same name. He even sent me a photo of the house from 1984! It looked a little tired by then, but it was close to a hundred years old by that time.

photo: Craig Thomas

It pleases the history geek in me to know that I started out my life living in a house built by a member of one of the most important founding families of Dallas. …I sure wish I remembered it!

1952 Mapsco

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is from the collection of Michael Warlick, a Cole descendant who grew up in the house. (Many thanks to Danny Linn for bringing this fantastic photo to my attention!)

The photo of the Jack Cole farmhouse is from the book The Park Cities, A Photohistory by Diane Galloway, credited as coming from the collection of Bill Gillespie, another Cole descendant.

The blurry photo is from Jim Wheat’s site, here (the accompanying article is very interesting, here).

The color photo is used courtesy of Craig Thomas (whose blog is here).

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March 7, 2019

From the Vault: W. W. Orr, Buggy Man of the 1870s and ’80s

by Paula Bosse

I love this ad from 1878, showing W. W. Orr’s carriage shop at Main and Martin (with an open-air second-floor showroom!). Read about Mr. Orr in the Flashback Dallas post from 2014, “W. W. Orr: Buggies, Phaetons, Carriages — ‘Everything On Wheels!'”

March 3, 2019

Rugged Highland Park

by Paula Bosse

Two views of Turtle Creek, wending through Highland Park. The view above is from a postcard mailed to East Hampton, Long Island in 1909 (“Haven’t seen this but it must be true. Pretty good for Texas…”); the view below is from about 1915, the year Highland Park was incorporated (the photo appears to show the same three children seen in my earlier post, “Wading in Turtle Creek, 100 Years Ago”). (Both images of the bluff-lined creek are larger when clicked.)

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Sources & Notes

Top image is from a C. Weichsel postcard titled “Woodland Scene. Highland Park. Dallas, Tex.” (photo possibly by Charles A. Arnold). Another image of this postcard can be seen on the cover of the Fall, 2015 issue of Legacies (here); the story it illustrates is “Attempts to Annex the Park Cities,” here.

The black-and-white photo (captioned “Highland Park”) is from a booklet on Dallas education, published around 1916.

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February 28, 2019

Interurban Coming Through

Street traffic used to be a lot different… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Great photo of Interurbans trundling down Commerce Street, past the Adolphus Hotel. …Wish I’d been there.

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Sources & Notes

Photo is from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit archives, but I neglected to note a linkable source. (Click photo to see a larger image.)

16 Comments

February 24, 2019

Esquire Theater — 1969

“Midnight Cowboy” at the Esquire, 1969…

by Paula Bosse

This is a really great photo of the still-missed Esquire Theater in Oak Lawn. Here we see it in 1969, showing the X-rated film Midnight Cowboy, which went on to win several Academy Awards, including Best Picture (the only X-rated film to receive the Best Picture Oscar), Best Director (John Schlesinger), and Best Adapted Screenplay (by Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy).

Midnight Cowboy opened at the Esquire in July, 1969 and ran for several months. One of the featured actors in this American classic is Dallas’ own Brenda Vaccaro (Thomas Jefferson High School Class of 1958, daughter of Mario Vaccaro who owned Mario’s Italian restaurant) — I’ve loved her in everything I’ve ever seen her in. (Here’s one of her scenes from Midnight Cowboy.)

Thomas Jefferson High School, 1958

“Whatever you hear about Midnight Cowboy is true!” … “A reeking masterpiece. It will kick you all over town.” … “A nasty but unforgettable screen experience.”

Opening day, July 23, 1969

It’s been a while since I’ve seen this movie. I had forgotten how much I liked the opening in which Joe Buck leaves Texas to head to New York. Here it is, overflowing with small-town Texas flavor (filmed in Big Spring). Cameo by an evocative Mrs. Baird’s paper hat.

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Sources & Notes

Photo titled “[‘Midnight Cowboy’ at Esquire Theatre]” is from the Spotlight on North Texas collection, provided by UNT Media Library to The Portal to Texas History; more on this photo can be found here.

5 Comments

February 20, 2019

From the Vault: Ebby Halliday

photo: Ebby Halliday Realtors

by Paula Bosse

This fantastic photograph of a 40-something-year-old Ebby Halliday appeared in Charm magazine (“The magazine for women who work”) and shows Ebby in high ’50s fashion, surveying the city that made her very, very wealthy.

I wrote about Ebby Halliday in 2015 the day after her death at the age of 104. I’ve gone back and expanded that post, adding more about the life of one of Dallas’ most successful real estate titans — the post, “Ebby Halliday: 1911-2015” — is here.

February 14, 2019

Happy Valentine’s Day from 1883

valentines_dal-herald_021483

by Paula Bosse

There was a lot going on around Dallas on Valentine’s Day in 1883. Here’s a round-up from The Dallas Herald, started off with the immortal pearl, “This is St. Valentine’s Day when people send tokens of love and sarcasm.”

valentines-day_dallas-herald_021483

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Sources & Notes

Clipping from the Feb. 14, 1883 edition of The Dallas Herald, courtesy of UNT’s Portal to Texas History. The scanned page may be found here.

2 Comments

February 10, 2019

A Few Photo Additions to Past Posts — #10

by Paula Bosse

Time again to add bits and pieces of stuff I’ve come across recently to old posts.

The first addition is the photo above, showing a once-familiar site upon approaching Six Flags Over Texas. This has been added to the inexplicably popular “The Hyperbolic Paraboloids of the Prairie.” (Source: Texas Highways magazine Facebook page — 1961 photo by Willis Albarado)

Below, a photo of the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink eye-popping “ballyhoo” adorning the entrance to the Capitol Theater for the 1936 showing of Marihuana, now a cult classic. (“Weed with roots in hell. Can they take it just once and then quit? Women cry for it, men will slay for it.”) (Movie promotion isn’t what it used to be.) This fantastic photo has been added to one of my favorite posts “‘Delusions of Affability’ — Marijuana in 1930s Dallas.” (Source: George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University) (All images are larger when clicked.)

This ca. 1875-1880 photo of the R. F. Eisenlohr store and “German pharmacy” (southwest corner of Main and Field) has been added to “The Eisenlohr Family and Dallas’ First Christmas Tree — 1874.” (Source: DeGolyer Library, SMU)

Nothing all that exciting, perhaps, about this matchbook art, but it’s atmospheric. It’s been added to “Gene’s Music Bar, The Lasso Bar, and the Zoo Bar.” (Source: eBay)

This article on Dallas’ historic cemeteries near where the current City Hall was built has been added to “The Historic Masonic, Odd Fellows, and City Cemeteries.” (Source: Historic Dallas magazine, July, 1985, via UNT’s Portal to Texas History)

My family’s neighborhood “special occasion” restaurant was Kirby’s steakhouse on Lower Greenville. I recently came across a 1987 Channel 5 news report on the closing of the long-lived restaurant (it had started out as a Pig Stand in the 1920s). I’ve added this screenshot and the link to the news report (which can be watched here) to the post “My Birthdays at Kirby’s: Filet Mignon for Everyone!” (Source: KXAS-NBC 5 News Collection, UNT Libraries, via the Portal to Texas History)

The Associated Press photo below — which shows a police officer posing with confiscated contraband seized in raids of the homes of the city’s “enemy aliens” (in this case Germans and Italians) — has been added to the post “‘Enemy Aliens’ and the WWII Internment Camp at Seagoville,” along with a United Press article from Feb., 1942.

Lubbock Avalanche, Feb. 26, 1942 (click to read)

Three views of the DP&L power plant because, why not?, has been added to “DP&L’s Twin Smokestacks.”

via DeGolyer Library, SMU

via Squire Haskins Collection, University of Texas at Arlington

source unknown

I keep adding photos of the old East Dallas railroad depot to the post “The Old Union Depot in East Dallas: 1897-1935” — it may be getting a bit much. I’m adding three more anyway.

via DeGolyer Library, SMU

“Your Dallas of Tomorrow” (1943), Portal to Texas History

I’ve been contacted by several people who live in the converted factory now known as “2220 Canton” about the (FANTASTIC!) main photo I used in the post “Canton Street: Poultry, Pecans, and Future Luxury Lofts.” Only because I had to figure out where that photo had been taken do I now know about Olive & Myers, the furniture manufacturers who once occupied a sprawling hub of buildings in the Farmers Market area. I’m adding a few images to that post for you, enthusiastic 2220 people.

ca. 1905, DeGolyer Library, SMU (link lost!)

via DeGolyer Library, SMU

Legacies, Spring 2013, via Portal to Texas History

Centennial ad, June, 1936, above (with very large detail below)

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February 8, 2019

Casa Linda Aerials — 1940s

Enjoy that wide-open space while you can… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Here are two fantastic aerial photos showing the Casa Linda area east of White Rock Lake. The one above shows the very early days of development of the Casa Linda Plaza shopping district. The first building was the Casa Linda Theater, which opened on August 9, 1945 (the grand opening feature was “The Affairs of Susan” starring Joan Fontaine and George Brent). The theater (now Natural Grocers) can be seen at the middle left. Buckner Boulevard (Loop 12) runs diagonally in this photo, from the lower left to the top right; Garland Road runs horizontally just above the theater. The then-new Fire Station #31 (which opened in the summer of 1947 and is still in service) can be seen on Garland Road, above and to the left of the theater. (See this same view in a current aerial view from Google here.)

Also visible in the above photo is the sorely-missed Pegasus-topped service station at the corner of Garland Rd. and Buckner.

Below, a view from the other direction — this time looking toward the southeast. This aerial photo was taken by Lloyd M. Long in 1941. Carl M. Brown, the developer of Casa Linda, had already begun turning farmland into a new residential neighborhood — the shopping center was still years away. The land which would eventually become Casa Linda Plaza can be seen just left of the center of this photo — Garland Road can be seen running from the lower right to the upper left (from East Dallas toward the city of Garland). (To get your bearings, see a “labeled” version of this photo from SMU’s Edwin J. Foscue Map Library, here.)

Edwin J. Foscue Map Library, SMU

Opening of Casa Linda Estates, Oct. 1937 (click for larger image)

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Sources & Notes

Top photo was posted in the “Dallas History (Before 1960)” Facebook group. The person who posted the photo gave the date as March, 1945, which seems incorrect, as the fire station was not built until 1947.

The second aerial photo, “Casa Linda and Vicinity, Dallas, Texas, Looking S.E. from 9,500′ (unlabeled),” was taken by Lloyd M. Long on March 1, 1941; it is from the Edwin J. Foscue Map Library, SMU Libraries, Southern Methodist University and can be accessed here. (The “labeled” version can be found here.)

Read an extremely enthusiastic profile of Carl M. Brown and his Casa Linda dreams in a 1953 “Story of Free Enterprise” article here.

The Casa Linda Shopping Center Wikipedia entry is here.

13 Comments

February 5, 2019

Stoneleigh Pharmacy / Stoneleigh P

The pharmacy’s soda fountain…

by Paula Bosse

I’m pretty sure I was in the old Stoneleigh Pharmacy before it became the Stoneleigh P, but if so, I have no memory of it other than sitting at the fountain. I might have had a grilled cheese sandwich and a milkshake. I’ve definitely been in the “P” post-1980 — in fact, my father’s bookstore used to be across the street from it, and it was definitely a mainstay for great hamburgers.

Despite the location being so familiar, I didn’t know about the history of the old Stoneleigh Pharmacy, so when I came across the (slightly blurry) photo above and the one immediately below, I thought I should look into what was happening at 2926 Maple Avenue before the arrival of the Stoneleigh P.

The Stoneleigh Pharmacy was the anchor of a small strip of shops which were built in 1923 at Maple and Wolf, directly across from the brand-new Stoneleigh Court, which, though now a hotel, began life as a very fashionable apartment-hotel (an apartment house with hotel amenities). There were concerns about a shopping strip in what was then a residential area, and the city tried to stop the construction. (Most images are larger when clicked.)

Dallas Morning News, Feb. 25, 1923

But the city lost and the building was completed.

DMN, July 8, 1923

I looked everywhere to find a period photo, and this is the best I could do — it appeared in a special section of The Dallas Morning News which coincided with the opening week of the Stoneleigh Court.

DMN, Oct. 14, 1923

Here’s a drawing:

DMN, Oct. 14, 1923

The interior of what was originally called the Stoneleigh Drug Store, at 2926 Maple Avenue:

DMN, Oct. 14, 1923

And a description of what sounds like a showplace of a drugstore, including Circassian-walnut fixtures inlaid with ebony:

DMN, Oct. 14, 1923

Its neighbors, in 1927:

Maple Ave., 1927 Dallas directory

The drug store was owned by a company presided over by Royal A. Ferris, Jr., whose banker father had, until 1913, owned what many considered to be the most beautiful house in Dallas — Ivy Hall (which was situated at Maple and Wolf, diagonally across from the pharmacy, and which would become the site of the Maple Terrace Apartments in 1924).

The drug store changed hands several times, until 1931 when pharmacist Henry C. Burroughs acquired it — and he was there for the long-haul, owning it until 1970. (H. C. Burroughs is also notable for having served on the very first Dallas City Council, having been elected in 1931 when the city of Dallas adopted the city council-city manager form of government.)

Henry C. Burroughs, 1950s

In 1973, the pharmacy stopped being a pharmacy when it was purchased by a group of investors including Tom Garrison, who renovated the old drugstore into a neighborhood bar/pub, while still retaining a drugstore “theme” and naming the new endeavor the Stoneleigh P. It was an immediate hit with the intellectual/artistic crowd, attracting denizens of the (then-funky) McKinney Avenue and Oak Lawn neighborhoods, Stoneleigh Hotel guests, Maple Terrace residents, and staffers from nearby KERA.

Dallas Municipal Archives

Texas Monthly, July 1973

It was “happening” but not obnoxious — although the Lou Lattimore ad below — featuring a “glitter jeans” “knockoutfit” (yes, “knockoutfit”) which “can make you outsparkle the gang at the Stoneleigh P” — might have one thinking otherwise. (It was the ’70s, man.)

Lou Lattimore ad, January 1974

Everything seemed to be going along swimmingly when, in the early hours of January 26, 1980 a huge fire engulfed the group of buildings on the southeast corner of Maple and Wolf — according to newspaper reports, at least 15 “major pieces of equipment” and 75 firefighters responded to the multi-alarm fire. The 57-year-old building burned to the ground. Watch the WBAP-Ch. 5 News report here (with additional footage here).

A few screenshots from the above-linked news report:

Garrison rebuilt, and the new Stoneleigh P opened in the summer of 1981. It still stands and is something of a Dallas institution. It’s now an unbelievable 46 years old. Here’s how it celebrated its 18th anniversary:

1991 ad

I’m certainly glad it’s still around. I’ve got some great memories of the Stoneleigh P (except, maybe, for that one New Year’s Eve in the ’80s…).

Photo by Paula Bosse

2023 UPDATE: The P will be moving in 2024 — the location has not yet been announced. Keep an eye on their website!

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Sources & Notes

Top two photos found on eBay. They appear to have been taken by the Liquid Carbonic Corporation, manufacturers of soda fountains — read all about the company here.

Stoneleigh Pharmacy label (with red letters) is from Jim Wheat’s Dallas County Texas Archives site. (J. T. Covington was associated with the pharmacy from about 1925 to 1927.)

1970s photo from the Dallas Municipal Archives Facebook page; from the Historic Preservation Office collection (photos made by the City of Dallas as part of a survey of historic buildings).

Videotape screenshots are from the WBAP-Ch. 5 News report on the 1980 fire; footage is from the KXAS-NBC 5 News Collection, UNT Libraries Special Collections, Portal to Texas History.

Photo showing the interior of the Stoneleigh P was taken in 2015 by Paula Bosse.

An entertaining interview with Stoneleigh P owner Tom Garrison can be found in the 2017 D Magazine article “History of Dallas Food: Tom Garrison’s Stoneleigh P” by Nancy Nichols, here.

Stoneleigh P website is here.

stoneleigh-p-fire_sign_012680_ch-5-news_portal

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