Flashback : Dallas

Coming soon: Munger Place… (photo circa 1905)

by Paula Bosse

Another “best of” list. Today is the final post of 2018 and time to compile the most popular (new) posts of the year, according to readers who have clicked over to read them. And to all you readers who have clicked over to check out the latest look into the history of Dallas: thank you! There is more ahead in 2019!

Here are the most popular Flashback Dallas posts of 2018, starting with the most popular. (To see each full post, click on the title; to see larger images, click on the picture.)

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1. “MUNGER PLACE, THE EARLY DAYS: 1905-1909”  (March)

This was far and away the most popular post of the year, thanks primarily to a nice shout-out from the hugely popular Facebook page Traces of Texas. Check out all the photos of a very, very early Munger Place, with several showing construction workers alongside their horses and wagons.

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2. “THE RAY HUBBARD ESTATE, LAKEWOOD”  (March)

This Lakewood Boulevard estate appeared in a 1948 ad for Evervess Sparkling Water. I’m still not sure why it was in the ad, but it was, and because I happened to see that ad, I now know who Ray Hubbard was, what his beautiful house looked like, and what the connection is to Lake Ray Hubbard.

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3. “A DRIVE THROUGH DOWNTOWN — 1970”  (September)

This was basically just my piggy-backing on the work of Jeremy Spracklen at SMU’s Jones Film Collection. He alerted me to the wonderful newly-digitized 35mm color film footage in the Dallas Theater Center collection, and I contributed some screen-captures. Click over to watch the footage of everyday life in downtown Dallas in 1970.

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4. “THE LAST TRACES OF VICKERY PARK ARE NOW DEFINITELY GONE”  (June)

One day I was driving up Greenville when I noticed that what had been the rickety remnants of what had once been one of Dallas’ most popular amusement areas and swimming pools was lying in fresh piles of rubble. I stopped and took photos, feeling a little sad for what I had never actually seen photos of when it was in its prime. When I got home, I found photos and even some film footage and felt a twinge of nostalgia for a place I had never known but missed nonetheless.

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5. “DALLAS IN ‘THE WESTERN ARCHITECT,’ 1914: PARK CITIES RESIDENCES”  (August)

This post features eight Park Cities houses built before 1914, representing various levels of grandiosity — almost all have been replaced by new, larger homes. My favorite is the very odd concrete house which once stood at Preston and University, a fortress made from local pit-run gravel and cement. At the other end of Preston was the unbelievable H. L. Edwards estate (seen in the thumbnail), which was unnecessarily bulldozed in 2017.

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6. “THE ‘BLUE HOUSE’ LIVES”  (April)

The continuing saga of one of the last remaining 19th-century houses in The Cedars appears to have ended happily (at least so far): the house was disassembled and moved a few blocks away to its new home. I haven’t seen any photos of the house at its new location — either still in pieces or wholly or partially reassembled — but last I heard, the project seemed to be in good hands. This was a follow-up to my original Jan., 2016 post.

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7. “CASA MAGNETICA”  (April)

People love posts on Six Flags Over Texas, but people really love posts on Casa Magnetica — the childhood attraction that blew our minds! This one was a lot of fun to write.

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8. “THE BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF DALLAS BY HERMAN BROSIUS — 1872”  (January)

This wonderful map — with each building apparently rendered accurately — is just fantastic.

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9. “THE CABANA MOTOR HOTEL OF DALLAS”  (January)

This once-hip hotel was co-owned by Doris Day’s husband and was, most famously, where the Beatles stayed when they came to town in 1964. The place never quite lived up to its investors’ hopes and has been sold and resold several times. Currently there are plans to revive the faded structure and breathe new life into it.

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10. “SAM VENTURA’S ITALIAN VILLAGE, OAK LAWN”  (July)

This place was an Oak Lawn fixture for over 45 years. It reinvented itself several times over the years, and was variously (and sometimes simultaneously) an Italian restaurant (which operated as a private club in order to sell alcohol), a cocktail lounge, a piano bar, a disco and live rock-music venue, a nightclub, a steakhouse, a seafood restaurant, and a Christian dinner-theater — all owned by the Ventura family.

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Below are the top 3 all-time most popular Flashback Dallas posts:

1. “HOW TO ACCESS THE HISTORICAL DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARCHIVE” (July, 2015) In addition to its being the all-time most popular Flashback Dallas post, it was actually also the second most popular post of 2018.
2. “THE WORLD’S LARGEST SANTA & THE CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY — 1953” (Dec. 2014)
3. “CARHOPS AS SEX SYMBOLS — 1940” (Feb. 2015)

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Sources & Notes

See all three 2018 “Best Of Flashback Dallas” lists here.

See all Flashback Dallas Year-End lists — past and present — here.

Thanks again for reading, and let’s all have a happy 2019!

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

“Dr. Dante” — do not look directly into his eyes…

by Paula Bosse

Another year has zipped by, which means it’s time to foist “best of” lists upon the public. Today, in the second of three “Best of Flashback Dallas, 2018” posts, I choose my personal favorite posts of the year — the things I most enjoyed researching, writing about, and, yes, even reading! I’ve listed them in chronological order, except for the first two, which are my favorite favorites. (Click titles to see original post.)

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1.  “‘DR. DANTE’ DODGES BULLETS IN DALLAS — 1970”  (May)

I think this was destined to be my favorite post of the year from the instant I began  watching the old Ch. 8 news footage, part of the ongoing digitization work being done by the G. William Jones Film & Video Collection at Southern Methodist University (the Dallas-history gift that keeps on giving). The only thing SMU knew about the clip was the date it was filmed. Who WAS this strange man telling an outrageous story of being shot at near the Mrs. Baird’s plant in the wee small hours of the night (on orders from Frank Sinatra)? It took some digging, but it was worth it — learning about the notorious hypnotist-slash-fraudster-slash-seventh-husband-of-Lana-Turner was one of the high points of 2018 for me. I absolutely LOVED writing this one.

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2.  “GHOST RAILS OF THE BELMONT STREETCAR LINE”  (April)

I wrote about the old interurban and streetcar rails which once ran up and down Matilda in the Lower Greenville neighborhood I grew up in. I feel like I read about this rail line for days and days and days, and I enjoyed all of it. I wish I had known what the interurban was as a child so I could have appreciated how close I lived to an important historical thoroughfare. This post resulted in the arrival of photos sent in by a family friend, showing city crews working on the paving of Matilda; I loved those photos and put them in what I consider the “part 2” of the post linked above: “PAVING MATILDA — 1971.”

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3.  “‘ALL THE BEER YOU CAN DRINK IN AN HOUR FOR 60 CENTS’ — 1935”  (January)

I can’t remember if I saw the newsreel footage first or the photograph, but both are great, and it’s always kind of thrilling to see Dallas pop up in old newsreels. I don’t want to say Dallas drinkers in 1935 were lightweights, but only one imbiber came out ahead on the challenge — and he was in Fort Worth.

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4.  “THE ECCENTRIC MEDFORD COMPOUND ON THE OLD EAGLE FORD ROAD: 1945-1950”  (March)

This photo sent me off on a wild research path: the person who was responsible for this ramshackle collection of buildings (in what is now hipster-haven Trinity Groves) is just the sort of unconventional person you’d hope he’d be.

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5.  “‘THE CEDARS’ MATERNITY SANITARIUM, OAK CLIFF — ca. 1923-1944”  (April)

This Oak Cliff home for unwed mothers/”unfortunate women” was just one of the many private hospitals in residential settings where women could live in comfortable seclusion while awaiting the birth of a child. Following the birth, the child would probably be put up for adoption by mothers who felt they had no other socially acceptable option.

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6.  “NO NECKING ALONG COUNTRY ROADS UNTIL BONNIE & CLYDE ARE KILLED OR CAPTURED — 1934”  (June)

Dallas school superintendent Norman Crozier issued a warning to high school students to refrain from pursuing amorous activities in cars parked along deserted country roads — at least while the Barrow Gang was at large — for fear they might run the risk of being caught in deadly crossfire. The “teen angle” on the well-worn Bonnie and Clyde saga.

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7.  “SAM VENTURA’S ITALIAN VILLAGE, OAK LAWN”  (July)

I spent a crazy amount of time researching this place — which I had never heard of until I came across the piece of ephemera seen below, which was collecting dust, packed away in a relative’s belongings. In fact, I spent so much time reading about the Italian Village (and its later incarnations) that I now feel as if the extended Ventura family and I should be spending holidays together.

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8.  “‘DALLAS IS A MAJOR TARGET AREA!’ — KNOW WHERE YOUR NEAREST FALLOUT SHELTER IS”  (July)

I’m glad I missed this panicky era, but I have to say, it was pretty interesting to learn about … from a distance.

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9.  “SANTOS RODRIGUEZ, 1960-1973”  and  “SANTOS RODRIGUEZ: THE MARCH OF JUSTICE — 1973”  (July)

It was only in recent years that I heard the name “Santos Rodriguez,” and even then I wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. The story of a handcuffed 12-year-old boy shot in the head by a Russian-roulette-playing police officer in Dallas’ Little Mexico neighborhood is both tragic and infuriating; it was also the impetus that spurred political activism and a demand for social justice within the Hispanic community. Everyone should know this story. I spread my telling of it over two posts, both of which contain as-the-aftermath-was-unfolding news footage, which helps to make the 45-year-old event feel immediate and “real,” especially to those of us who did not experience it first-hand. I owe a lot to Jeremy Spracklen of SMU’s Jones Film Collection for providing me with amazing film footage of this shocking moment in Dallas’ history.

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10.  “DALLAS IN ‘THE WESTERN ARCHITECT,’ 1914” (7 separate posts) (August)

This series of posts just about killed me. I had no idea when I started that I would end up writing mini-histories of over 50 buildings and houses, and that what I originally thought might be three posts (which would have been a lot) ended up spreading over seven. *I* was getting tired of the whole thing, and I worried that readers themselves would, quite reasonably, grow weary of it as well — but people seemed to like it. The photos were really great, and once I started, I couldn’t stop until I got through the whole thing. Even though it was fairly exhausting, I probably learned more about Dallas’ important early-20th-century buildings and houses by dragging myself through this slog than by approaching the subject in a more easily-digestible manner. Immersion learning! The two greatest take-away words I have from this laborious experience which capture this period of Dallas’ astronomical growth more than any others: “Lang” and “Witchell.”

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11.  “OAK CLIFF: ‘A CITY WITHIN A CITY’ — 1929”  (September)

This look at a gem of a little promotional booklet touting the wonders of Oak Cliff’s business climate was packed with really, really great photos I’d never seen.

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12.  “A DRIVE THROUGH DOWNTOWN — 1970”  (September)

Basically all this post consists of are screen-captures from spectacularly clean 35mm color film footage shot around downtown Dallas under the auspices of the Dallas Theater Center in 1970 and recently digitized by SMU. (I keep meaning to get around to writing about this DTC project but 1.) I’m a huge procrastinator, and 2.) I keep hoping the ever-fabulous Jeremy Spracklen will continue to find more and more footage. I will write about this one day, though!) But really, it’s all about the film, which captures downtown in a delightful little color time-capsule — and that film is embedded in this very popular post.

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13.  “LIFE ON HALL STREET — 1947”  (October)

One of the things that frustrates me most in writing this blog is the difficulty in finding historical photos of everyday life in Dallas’ black and Hispanic neighborhoods. (If anyone reading this has access to great photos of these neighborhoods, please contact me!) I’ve always loved vintage advertisements, because not only do they feature styles and fashions and products of the past which are inherently interesting, they also often allow us a window into social and cultural history. When I come across old ads targeted specifically to, say, Dallas’ African-American community — especially those with photographs — I get pretty excited. Several such ads are in this post, and they’re great.

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14.  “THE STATE FAIR OF TEXAS OVER THE DECADES”  (October)

The task: find an image from each decade of the SFOT’s history from the 1880s to the 1980s. Not a problem! That well will never run dry.

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15.  “BRUCE CHANNEL, DELBERT McCLINTON, AND THE BEATLES — 1962”  (November)

I really loved writing this.

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BONUS FAVE:  “FLASHBACK DALLAS IN D MAGAZINE: ‘THE TRINITY BRIDGE-JUMPERS'”  (February)

I was pretty thrilled to be invited to write a Dallas-history article for D Magazine’s “Lost Dallas” issue this past February (I wrote a short piece for the print-edition of the magazine, and a longer version which appeared on the magazine’s website). I wrote about a competition involving diving/jumping from a bridge into the Trinity River in 1897. It was a pretty big deal at the time, attracting thousands of spectators. The very idea for the event was unusual — especially if you’ve seen what the Trinity looks like unless it’s at flood-stage — but what drew me to the story was the wonderful, very funny color-commentary written by an un-bylined reporter for The Dallas Morning News. I loved writing about this and trying to imagine what such an odd event must have been like back in 1897, when one’s entertainment options were somewhat limited. The piece I wrote for D Magazine is here, and an accompanying post I wrote with additional historical background (including the original line drawings of the participants which appeared in The News, as well as photos and a map) is in the post linked above.

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I never get tired of researching and writing about all aspects of Dallas’ history — both well-known and forgotten, important and trivial, serious and ridiculous. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these posts as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

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Sources & Notes

See all three 2018 “Best of Flashback Dallas” lists here.

See all Flashback Dallas Year-End lists — past and present — here.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Welcome to the Centennial…

by Paula Bosse

Time for the inevitable year-end lists, and this is the first of three. Below are some of my favorite photos, postcards, and artworks posted on Flashback Dallas in 2018. They’re in no particular order, although the one above may be my overall favorite of the year. (All images are larger when clicked.)

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The image above is from — of all things — a linoleum ad. While flipping through an old magazine from 1936, I came across an Armstrong Linoleum Floors ad which featured a color photograph of the reception area in the Administration Building at Fair Park (the old Coliseum, redesigned and redecorated for the Texas Centennial). True color photographs from the Texas Centennial celebration in 1936 are fairly uncommon. I love everything about this photo. See the full ad — as well as a history of the Fair Park Coliseum (now the Women’s Building) — in the post “State Fair Coliseum / Centennial Administration Building / Women’s Museum / Women’s Building.”

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The very first image I posted in 2018 — on New Year’s Day — is the one above, a detail from the 1872 hand-drawn map of the city of Dallas, by 21-year-old Herman Brosius (click it and you’ll see the full, gigantic map). The Dallas Herald wrote that “every house in the corporation limits, together with every street, [is] so accurately drawn that any one acquainted at all with the city can recognize any building.” More on this map can be found in the post “The Bird’s-Eye View of Dallas by Herman Brosius — 1872.” (Image source: Dallas Historical Society, via Wikimedia Commons)

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This energetic illustration from the 1951 Rotunda is one of dozens that appeared in various editions of SMU’s yearbooks by SMU-alum Fred Caropresi. At the time, Caropresi was working as both a commercial artist and a fine artist; he ultimately settled in Pennsylvania and established his own advertising agency. I love his mid-century style, and over 20 examples of his work from the 1951 yearbook can be found in the post “Fred Caropresi’s Mid-Century-Modern Illustrations for SMU’s 1951 Yearbook.” (Source: DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University)

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When I first saw this photo of Elm Street’s Palace Theatre, I was so struck by the neon sign that I completely missed the next-door Dairy Queen. A downtown Dairy Queen! More on this exciting discovery can be found in the post “The Palace — 1969.” (Source: Lovita Irby Collection via the Spotlight on North Texas project, UNT Media Library, University of North Texas)

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This great photo from 1935 shows a swollen Trinity River and what things looked like in South Dallas where the levees ended (just south of both the Corinth Street viaduct and the old railroad trestle). Above the magic line: tidy levees, water contained. Below the levees: a whole mess of water, water everywhere. From the post “Forest Avenue-Area Flooding, South Dallas — 1935.” (Source: Lloyd M. Long photo, found on eBay.)

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I love this photo of a Weber’s Root Beer drive-in (which I think was either in Oak Cliff or Lower Greenville). The post this appears in was originally posted in 2017, but I didn’t come across this photo until this year, when I added it to “Weber’s Root Beer Stands: ‘Good Service with a Smile.'” (Source: Traces of Texas Twitter feed)

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The beautiful old Titche’s building is still standing at Main and St. Paul, but it’s no longer quite as elegant. From the post “Titche-Goettinger, Fashions for the Chic Dallas Woman — 1940s.” (Source: Noah Jeppson’s “Unvisited Dallas” website)

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Speaking of department stores (or rather THE department store): Neiman-Marcus (I will forever hold onto that hyphen!). This slightly warped and blurry photo (completely my fault, and explained in the original post) is included in my favorites because of that unexpected fallout-shelter sign plastered onto the Neiman’s building in 1965 — this was surely the most sophisticated location for a bomb shelter in the entire Southwest. I was surprised how much I enjoyed learning about Dallas bomb shelters, and this photo became one of my favorite parts of the resulting post, “‘Dallas Is a Major Target Area!’ — Know Where Your Nearest Fallout Shelter Is.” (Source: DeGolyer Library, SMU — the original photo is of much higher quality than my not-intended-to-be-used quick photo-of-a-photo)

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I absolutely LOVE this crazy building. Never in a million years would I have guessed that this building was in downtown Dallas. But it was, at the southeast corner of Elm and Akard. I traced this building through the years in the post “Elm & Akard, Photographer J. C. Deane, and The Crash at Crush.” (Source: photo by George A. McAfee, DeGolyer Library, SMU)

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That crazy art deco-ish building was just steps away from the view seen above, which was taken at Elm and Stone. I really wish I could walk through that Woolworth’s store. From the post “The Five & Dime at Elm & Stone.” (Source: photo by George McAfee, DeGolyer Library, SMU)

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The Oak Cliff viaduct, at night. When it was brand new in 1912, Dallasites were positively giddy over the fact that their very own “longest concrete bridge in the world” was illuminated with LIGHTS — people were so thrilled by this that they flocked to the viaduct to see the spectacle for themselves, either to marvel at the lights or to shoot the globes out. More can be found in the post “Dallas in ‘The Western Architect,’ 1914: Skyscrapers and Other Sources of Civic Pride.” (Source: “the internet”)

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I love photos of the city at night. Here is the new Stemmons Tower in 1963, standing all alone, with the Dallas skyline in the background — like the wistful child told he’s too little to play with the big kids. “Stemmons Tower, Downtown Skyline — 1963.” (Source: photo by Squire Haskins, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington)

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I love Texas Regionalist art from the first half of the 20th century, and this painting of the Triple Underpass by Dallas artist Florence McClung is fantastic. Her original price for the painting was $300; it recently sold at auction for $252,000. More on this at “‘Triple Underpass’ by Florence McClung — 1945.” (Source: David Dike Fine Art)

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And now a whole bunch of State Fair of Texas pictures.

Above, a Kodachrome photo of the midway and Cotton Bowl (and the tops of people’s heads) from 1961 (source: eBay); below, a supremely odd photo of oil tycoon (and often-rumored “richest man in the world”) H. L. Hunt, personally hawking his line of Aloe vera cosmetics at the 1971 SFOT (source: unknown). Both photos are from the post “The State Fair of Texas Over the Decades.”

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I love this screen-capture of a Channel 5 news report about the rainy opening day of the fair in 1967. Watch the filmed report and see other damp screenshots at “A Rainy Opening Day of the State Fair of Texas — 1967.” (Source: KXAS-NBC 5 News Collection, UNT)

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I’m not exactly sure why I like this behind-the-scenes photo so much, but I do. There are lots of things to zoom in on. The post this appeared in is “Prepping for the 1932 State Fair of Texas Midway.” (Source: collection of George Gimarc)

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This postcard features what may well be my favorite photo of Big Tex. Not only does he look like a standing-upright, cowboy-hatted Gulliver surrounded by tuckered-out Lilliputians, but HE’S WEARING A SERAPE! After years and years of looking at Dallas photos and seeing the same ones over and over, this was one I’d never seen. Better yet, it showed me something I didn’t even know about — that Big Tex had once added a little south-of-the-border sartorial flair to his much-beloved outfit. Find out why he was making this bold fashion statement in the post “‘Hola, Folks!’ — Big Tex at the State Fair’s ‘Exposition of the Americas’ — 1965.” (Source: Dallas Heritage Village, via UNT’s Portal to Texas History)

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This is a photo of my late father, Dick Bosse (on the right), taken in 1968 when he was the manager (later the owner) of The Aldredge Book Store. I’d never seen this 50-year-old photo until a very nice person at SMU sent it to me (thank you, very nice person at SMU!). (My father’s co-worker Charlie Drum is on the left.) From the post “The Aldredge Book Store — 1968.” (Source: photo by Andy Hanson, DeGolyer Library, SMU)

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I posted this watercolor depiction of downtown Dallas at Christmastime only a few days ago, but I really love it — so here it is again! From “Merry Christmas from Dallas Artist Bud Biggs.” (Source: Texas Tech University)

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The image below is a self-indulgent bonus, because it’s not a photo, and the quality is pretty poor. It’s a blurry screen-capture from a color home-movie from 1953/1954, showing Matilda looking south from Mockingbird. The house I grew up in was about two blocks from here, and when I saw the video I recognized the location immediately. Streetcars stopped running along Matilda in 1955, but it took forever for the street to be paved — I distinctly remember exposed rails from my childhood in the ’70s. I never saw streetcars in Dallas, but this image makes me very nostalgic for my old neighborhood (my school, Stonewall Jackson Elementary, is just out of frame to the left). The video of the last days of Dallas’ streetcars and a whole lot of information on the Belmont line can be found in the post “Ghost Rails of the Belmont Streetcar Line.” (Source: home-movie shot by Gene Schmidt, YouTube)

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And the last photo is another self-indulgent bonus, because it’s one I took myself — just last week: the Hall of State at Fair Park, from the post “Christmas Along the Esplanade.”

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I look forward to discovering more great photos in 2019!

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Sources & Notes

See all three 2018 “Best of Flashback Dallas” lists here.

See all Flashback Dallas Year-End lists — past and present — here.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.