Flashback : Dallas

The Gateway to Junius Heights

Welcome to Junius Heights!

by Paula Bosse

If you’ve driven along Abrams Road, between, say, Beacon and the Lakewood Country Club, you’ve probably passed two tall stone pillars which stand across Abrams from one another, and you’ve probably asked yourself, “What are those things?”

These things:

Google Street View here

They were built as gateway markers to the Junius Heights neighborhood in about 1909 — they’re just not in their original location anymore. They were originally on either side of Tremont Street, half a block east of Ridgeway. They’ve been moved, but they’re only a stone’s throw from their original site.

In 1973, when the city was in the midst of widening and connecting Abrams with Columbia, the 30-foot pillars were situated on a roadway which was going to be demolished. The pillars would have been destroyed were it not for the efforts of a small group of preservation-minded neighborhood residents who managed to raise enough money to have the historic East Dallas structures dismantled and moved. It took a while for the money to be fully raised, but the pillars were placed on their new sites in 1975.

The thing that is most interesting about the saving of these columns is that this took place at a time when this part of East Dallas — Swiss Avenue included — was on something of a downslide. Many of the houses were in disrepair and many residents had moved out, seeking newer homes and better (i.e. newer) neighborhoods. Thankfully, in the early 1970s people began to focus on historic preservation, and the area began to make a slow comeback. Thanks to the preservation efforts of these people, their persistence in gaining “historic district” status for Junius Heights and Munger Place, and their successful fights on zoning issues, the areas surrounding these stone pillars are once again highly desirable neighborhoods, full of homeowners who are good caretakers and thoughtful preservationists.

When researching this post, it was very difficult to determine when the pillars had been built. For some reason 1917 seemed to be a popular guess, and it was repeated in several articles I came across. But it was actually earlier. The earliest photo I’ve found (and I was pretty excited to have stumbled across it!) was one that first appeared in a November, 25, 1909 ad for a new development called “Top o’ Junius Heights.” (All photos and clippings are larger when clicked.)

Here’s the full ad:

Dallas Morning News, Nov. 25, 1909

Note how similar this entrance looks to the entrance to Fair Park from the same time:

The same photo was used in another ad a few months later. If you live in Junius Heights, perhaps you can find your house in the diagram:

DMN, May 8, 1910

The pillars were actually built as a gateway — the columns connected at the top, spanning Tremont. Lots in Junius Heights first began to be sold in 1906; in 1909, the second addition — called “Top o’ Junius Heights” — began to be offered for sale. The opening of the second addition appears to be when the gateway might have been built. Not only did this gate serve as an entrance to Junius Heights, it actually separated the two additions (see clippings below). It was also a handy landmark, and for many years it stood at the end of the Junius Heights streetcar line (which ended at Tremont and Ridgeway).

Below, part of an ad for Top o’ Junius Heights that appeared in The Dallas Morning News on Nov. 28, 1909, in which the “big stone gate entrance” is mentioned:

Part of another ad for Top o’ Junius Heights:

DMN, May 1, 1910

And part of an ad for just plain ol’ Junius Heights, mentioning that the gate can be seen as a boundary:

DMN, Sept. 4, 1910

Here’s a detail from a 1922 Sanborn map which might make the location of the gate a little easier to visualize (and, again, these streets no longer look like this): the blue line represents the streetcar line (which ran all the way to Oak Cliff — the photo at the top of this post shows the Hampton streetcar), and the red circles are about where the pillars were originally planted. (The full map is here.)

It was pretty exciting finding that photograph from 1909, but it was also pretty exciting seeing a photograph posted in the Dallas History Facebook group by Jerry Guyer which shows a dreamy-looking view of the gate as seen from the yard of the home owned by his great-uncle, A. P. Davis, who lived at 5831 Tremont between 1911/12 and 1921/22 (see what the house looked like back then, here). The house was on the northwest corner lot of Tremont and Ridgeway (it is still standing), only half a block away from the gate. This detail of that photo is fantastic!

Another very early photo of the pillars/columns/gateway can be seen in this photo. (I’m afraid it’s a little odd-looking as I took a photo of it on the wall of The Heights restaurant in Lakewood and lights are reflecting off the picture. Please check this large photo out in person. Not only are there other great historical photos on the walls, but the coffee is great.)

Here is the same photo as the one at the top. Note that this “gateway” has actual iron gates and that there are smaller secondary pillars on the opposite side of the sidewalks. Also note that the pillar on the right actually extends into the narrow street.

And here’s another view I just came across (I’ve added so much since I originally wrote this post!), from a DVD called Dallas Railway & Terminal — this from 1951 or 1952, showing the Junius streetcar coming through the “gates” (sorry for the low-res):

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is from the Texas/Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library (with special thanks to M C Toyer); DPL’s call number for this photograph is PA87-1/19-59-193.

Photo of the view of the gate from the home of Andrew P. Davis is from the collection of Jerry Guyer, used with permission.

More info on Junius Heights and the saving of the pillars can be found on the Preservation Dallas site, here. Here is a poster from the Dallas Public Library Poster Collection (with an incorrect date on it….).

A few Dallas Morning News articles on the fight to save the pillars:

“Residents Try Saving Pillars From the Past” by Lyke Thompson (DMN, May 30, 1973, with photo of pillar)
“Columns Come Down” (DMN, June 2, 1973, with photo)
“Cash Raised for Pillars” (DMN, June 7, 1973)
“Cornerstone Placed In East Dallas Area” by Michael Fresques (DMN, July 29, 1973, no photo, but description of pillars lying in pieces, awaiting funds to reconstruct them)
“Junius Dedicates Columns” by Doug Domeier (DMN, June 16, 1975, pillars finally relocated, with photo of preservationist Dorothy Savage standing beneath one of the pillars)

East Dallas and Old East Dallas are fiercely proud of their history and fight for preservation issues.

July, 1975

It’s a bit difficult for me to visualize where these pillars were originally. Here’s a 1952 map showing Tremont with the approximate location of the columns before they were moved.

1952 Mapsco

And here’s a present-day map, showing the post-Abrams extension. I’m not sure exactly where those pillars originally stood, but it was ~~near the intersection of Tremont and Slaughter~~ seems to have been between Ridgeway and Glasgow (location edited, thanks to Terri Raith’s helpful comments below) — this location is circled in red on the map below; the locations of the pillars today are in blue.

9 Comments

May 22, 2016

Cold Smut: Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” Banned in Dallas — 1961

cartoon_topic-of-cancer_dmn_083061_small

by Paula Bosse

Today is my late father’s birthday. He was a Dallas bookseller, and when searching on his name in the Dallas Morning News archives, I found this pithy letter to the editor he had written in the summer of 1961 (click for larger image; transcribed below).

Aug. 24, 1961

It is refreshing that there is such a dearth of crime that the Dallas police department has to amuse itself by resorting to comstockery. The cops have been busy poking through the girlie mags at downtown newsstands, which is pleasant work. Now they have taken to harassing bookstores. If they get away with their ban of poor old Henry Miller’s tedious classic, it will only whet their appetite for more meddling.

I resent a group who seldom, if ever, has entered a bookstore or voluntarily read a book dictating what can or cannot be read. Literary criticism should be left to Lon Tinkle: he gives us freedom of choice. To have a bunch of policemen drooling over juicier passages and then whooping pietistic nonsense is frightening. Dallas is sophisticated and progressive?

Dick Bosse

After I looked up the word “Comstockery,” I was spurred to find out what he was writing about.

Henry Miller’s “tedious classic,” Tropic of Cancer, was originally published in Paris in 1934. It was considered too vulgar to be published in the United States. In fact, it was considered “obscene” by the U.S. Customs Department, and its very presence in one’s suitcase after returning home from a holiday in France was illegal. The only booksellers in the U.S. that sold the book did so at the risk of being jailed. That’s not to say there wasn’t a lot of piracy, bootlegging, and hush-hush selling of this much talked-about book going on, because there was — especially in New York.

In 1961, the book was finally published in the U.S. by Grove Press, and it was an immediate hit. (Grove priced it at an unbelievably steep $7.50, the equivalent today to about $60.00! The typical new hardcover fiction title in 1961 was around $3.95.) Unsurprisingly, the book was immediately banned in Boston, because Boston’s “thing” was banning stuff. But then … it was unexpectedly banned in Dallas, even though it was the #1 bestseller at the respected McMurray’s Bookshop downtown.

Dallas Police Department officials had decided the book violated a new Texas “anti-smut” law, and, on August 15th, policemen visited all the large bookstores in the city and informed them that if any copies of the book continued to be offered for sale, criminal charges would most likely be brought against the booksellers and the stores. (The state law called for fines up to $1,000 and one year in county jail for selling lewd and obscene material.) Dallas joined Boston as the only major American city banning the book. And then the whole thing became a cause célèbre — a “Dallas-Boston axis”!

The Long Beach (California) Independent, Aug. 18 1961

The move was roundly deplored by most of the Dallas public. The “Letters to the Editor” section of the historically very conservative Dallas Morning News contained many, many letters to the editor from outraged Dallasites, speaking out against the police department’s action. Sure, there were a few who were happy that objectionable material was being removed from Dallas bookstores, but they seemed to be in the minority. Even those who vehemently disliked the book were steadfastly opposed to its being banned, including the editors of The News.

As with many other non-issues like this that tend to cause near-obsession by the media, this story would not go away. The summer of ’61 was, for Dallas, the Summer of Smut. Best headline throughout all of this? One which appeared on a Morning News editorial: “COLD SMUT.”

Booksellers pulled the book, but, as the editorial says above, there were almost certainly sales continuing to interested clientele. Also, it should be noted that only Dallas was banning the book at this point (by 1962 other cities around the country had become embroiled in threatened legal action, resulting in books being pulled from shelves). You couldn’t buy the book in Dallas, but you could buy it in Fort Worth.

Elston Brooks, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 22, 1961

One assumes bookstores in Cowtown were cashing in on Tropic of Cancer sales — Barber’s Book Store must have been doing land-office mail order business.

FWST, Nov. 8, 1961

I thought this was a silly flare-up that lasted only a few weeks, but letters to the editor continued to show, at least through the winter of 1963, that it was still impossible to find the book in a Dallas bookstore. It probably wasn’t until 1964, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that the book was not obscene, that Dallas booksellers were finally free to openly sell a book which was published in 1934. No one seemed to care much when the X-rated film version (starring Texan Rip Torn) played at the Granada in 1970.

Sept., 1970

***

Sources & Notes

Cartoon by Herc Ficklen, from Aug. 30, 1961.

More on Tropic of Cancer at Wikipedia, here. This article contains my favorite line of any I read from the people who really, REALLY hated the book. It came from a Pennsylvania judge:

“[It is] not a book. It is a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity.”

Tons of articles on this appeared in The Dallas Morning News.in just ONE WEEK. Here are just a few (seriously, it’s the tip of the iceberg):

“Sales Banned: Police Label Book Obscene” by James Ewell (DMN, Aug. 16, 1961)
“Stores Stop Selling Book Called Obscene” by James Ewell (DMN, Aug. 17, 1961)
“Censorship of ‘Tropic’ Looses Opinion Barrage” by Scott Buchanan (Aug. 17, 1961)
“What Is Obscenity?” — editorial (DMN, Aug. 19, 1961)
“Book Fight Takes On Circus Air” (DMN, Aug. 19, 1961)
“Citizens Group Lauds Police Move On Book; Some Less Costly Smut Considered Main Problem” by Frank Hildebrand (Aug. 20, 1961)
“Cold Smut” — editorial (DMN, Aug. 20, 1961)
“Wade Orders Study On Smut Literature” by Carlos Conde (DMN, Aug. 21, 1961)
“Police Lectured On Book Action” by Jimmy Thornton (DMN, Aug. 22, 1961)
“Primer for Censors: A Few Basic Ideas” by Lon Tinkle, Book Critic of The News (DMN, Sept. 3, 1961)

Every time I came across the word “smut” mentioned in connection with this topic — and it was mentioned a LOT — I couldn’t help but think of Vera Carp and the other Smut Snatchers of the New Order from Greater Tuna.

If it looks too dang small to read, click it!

3 Comments

May 20, 2016

Consolidated Candy Co., 826-830 Exposition — ca. 1936

Candy manufacturing in Expo Park (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

A photo of Exposition Park about the time of the huge Texas Centennial celebration held in 1936 at Fair Park, one block away. The Consolidated Candy Co. at 826-830 Exposition Avenue was liquidated in 1939, and the Rogers Cafe next door at 832 Exposition was around only a couple of years, about 1935 to 1937, so 1936 seems a good guess.

Here’s a list of businesses that were operating along hopping Exposition Avenue in 1936, between Ash and Parry (click for larger image):

1936 Dallas directory

Most of the buildings from that period along Parry and Exposition are still standing, including the buildings seen in the photo above. Here is a current view.

Google Street View, Jan. 2016

I’m happy to see these two buildings still holding down that spot after all this time, but they both appear to have lost some character in the intervening 80 years. It’s like someone’s sanded all the interesting bits off and made it as bland-looking as possible. You know what I think needs to make a comeback? Awnings.

***

Top photo from Jim Wheat’s Dallas County Texas Archives site.

A Google Street View showing this block looking toward Fair Park, with these buildings on the left, is here.

Google Maps

Images larger when clicked.

10 Comments

May 19, 2016

From the Vault: Exploitation Flicks on Elm Street

by Paula Bosse

Not all of the theaters on “Film Row” were first-run Majestic-caliber. Check out the double-bill at the Leo, in a post from 2014, here.

May 17, 2016

Dallas Police Moonlighting as “Bonnie and Clyde” Movie Extras — 1966

“Action!” (click for BIG image) Photo: Dallas Police Museum

by Paula Bosse

Need to hire a bunch of movie extras who look comfortable toting rifles? When Hollywood came to Dallas and environs in the fall of 1966 to shoot the movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” they found plenty of law enforcement officers happy to don a pair of overalls and add some local color to their production.

I came across this photo on the Dallas Police Department Museum Facebook page. One of the comments under the photo: “I remember when all the overtime slots were allowed (paid by the film company)…. I recognize Chief Curry and the other officers.” Another person commented that an ex-DPD cop told him that he was in the movie, dressed as a farmer, chasing a car across an open field.

Did you have an Uncle Earl who was on the DPD force in 1966? There’s a chance he might be in the movie. Hell, he might be in this photo!

***

Sources & Notes

Photo from the Dallas Police Department Museum Facebook page.

Read the Preston Hollow Advocate article “A Criminal Record: Dallas Police Department Museum,” here.

1 Comment

May 17, 2016

The St. Joseph Orphanage — 1891

The new Oak Cliff orphanage, ca. 1891 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The St. Joseph orphanage was built in Oak Cliff in 1891 on 6-8 acres donated to the Catholic Diocese by Thomas Marsalis. The building was a large house, built and furnished with funds raised from local donations.

The house itself, consisting of two stories and a basement, is well finished throughout. Rooms are large and cool, the ceilings high and the entire building is capable of being made a model of comfort and elegance. A great many liberal donations have been received which have assisted largely in this work. (Dallas Morning News, July 16, 1891)

The orphanage was a Catholic institution — run at various times by the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word — but it was “non-sectarian” in that the children or families in need were not required to be of the Catholic faith.

Some of these children have one parent living, others are without parents or friends or, deserted by worthless parents, have been abandoned to the cold charity of the world and find parents and friends in the self-sacrificing sisters of charity…. (DMN, Feb. 9, 1902)

DeGolyer Library, SMU

In the late ‘teens or early ’20s, the Catholic Ladies’ Aid Society of Fort Worth began an annual tradition of hosting a party for the children at Forest Park in Fort Worth. The 1923 picnic entertained 300 children. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran a story about the event under the unfortunate headline “It’s Not So Bad To Be An Orphan After All.” (Click article for a much larger image.)

FWST, June 1, 1923

According to William L. McDonald in his book Dallas Rediscovered, “the orphanage was converted into a Carmelite convent and school in 1929 and demolished in 1945.” In December, 1930, the girls moved into their new (huge!) home in Oak Lawn (at Blackburn), in the old Dallas University building (later the Jesuit campus). The boys, I believe, moved to the Dunne Memorial Home. Here is a photo of the girls’ new home, which was taken over by Jesuit High School in 1941. (The impressive building originally built in 1906 was demolished in 1963.)

Dallas Morning News, April 29, 1891

DMN, July 16, 1891

DMN, Feb. 9, 1902

DMN, Nov. 30, 1913

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo from Dallas Rediscovered by William L. McDonald, is from the collection of the Dallas Public Library.

Photo titled “Children and Nuns, St. Joseph’s Orphanage, Dallas, Texas” was taken by Frank Rogers and is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University; more information can be found here.

Photo of the old Dallas University/University of Dallas/Trinity University is from the article “Jesuit High School” by Liz Conrad Goedecke, which appeared in the Fall, 2005 issue of Legacies.

Bottom photo of St. Joseph’s Orphanage is from a PDF titled “A Brief Visual History of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas,” here (p. 19).

More on the original St. Joseph orphanage can be found here (scroll down to the 1902 article, “Charities of Dallas”).

The original St. Joseph orphanage was at the southwest corner of West Page and South Adams, in Oak Cliff. See the 1922 Sanborn map, here. According to the Dallas Central Appraisal District website, the land is currently owned by the Dallas Housing Authority, which, as recently as 2014, had sought permission to build a new “home for the aged” on this property. The Bing Maps aerial view shows the Brooks Manor low-income housing project which had occupied this block for several decades before its recent demolition.

The Google Street view from Jan. 2016 shows an empty block.

Google Maps

The original building at the top is not to be confused with the later St. Joseph home for girls (or the earlier Virginia K. Johnson home for unwed mothers), which was also on West Page, but a couple of blocks to the east. More on that can be found here. (It was at the Page and Madison, seen on the 1922 Sanborn map, here.) (Perhaps this was the campus the St. Joseph school moved to when Jesuit took over the campus in Oak Lawn in 1941?)

All photos and articles are larger when clicked.

16 Comments

May 14, 2016

South Central Expressway Under Construction — 1955

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you… (UTA Special Collections)

by Paula Bosse

Behold, a photo of South Dallas on Sept. 29, 1955, showing a lengthy stretch of bulldozed land cleared for the imminent construction of South Central Expressway. We’re looking south, with Forest Avenue (now Martin Luther King Blvd.) running horizontally in the foreground. To the right is the Forest Theater (now playing: “Lady and the Tramp”). And if you zoom in, you can just see the post-Ross Avenue location of the famed Jim Beck recording studio to the right of the theater.

This great swath of land cut through an established tree-filled residential area — it ran alongside the once-swanky Colonial Hill neighborhood. Zoom in and take a last look at some of those straggler houses that haven’t yet met their maker. …But they will. …And they did.

Below is another Squire Haskins aerial photo looking north, toward downtown, taken a few weeks later, on Nov. 11, 1955 (see a very large image of this photo on the UTA website here).

south-central-expwy_squire-haskins_nov-1955_UTA Squire Haskins, Nov. 1955, UTA Special Collections

I wondered what had been demolished on Forest between the houses to the left and the theater to the right. It was Fire Station No. 6, at 2202 Forest Avenue. I looked in my bulging file of miscellaneous photos and was surprised to actually find a couple of photos of that No. 6 Engine Company, which was built in 1913.

The station was on the south side of Forest Avenue, alone in a very short block. As we look at the station in the photo above, the H&TC railroad runs just to the right of the station, and Kimble Street runs along the left. See a Sanborn map of this area in 1922, here.

The photo below shows what Forest Avenue once looked like, from the front of the firehouse looking east (the intersection with Kimble is on the other side of the firetruck — you can see the street sign). These houses are still standing in the 1955 photo at the top.

When you know what this intersection looks like today (see this same view today, here), it’s hard to believe it ever looked like a cozy neighborhood. Progress is a helluva thing, man.

A couple of short articles for those who might want a little more info about the fire station, which was demolished sometime between April and September of 1955. (Click articles for larger images.)

Dallas Morning News, July 6, 1913

DMN, July 22, 1913

Bing Maps

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo by Squire Haskins, from the Squire Haskins Photography, Inc. Collection, UTA Libraries, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington; it is accessible here.

Second photo by Squire Haskins, from the Squire Haskins Photography, Inc. Collection, UTA Libraries, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington; it is accessible here.

The two fire station photos are from the collection of the Dallas Firefighters Museum, via the Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas. The first photo can be viewed here, the second photo here.

9 Comments

May 12, 2016

Mouse and the Traps: ’60s Garage Rock, Texas-Style

Mouse in the center, Bugs top right

by Paula Bosse

Last Tuesday, my friend Carlos Guajardo and I were each asked to present a favorite vinyl album at the Tuesday Night Record Club, a monthly event organized by Brian McKay and held at the historic Texas Theatre. My choice was a French import called Public Execution by Mouse and the Traps, a collection of the Texas band’s singles issued during their fairly short career (roughly 1965 to 1970). I bought this at a time when all of my disposable income was going to alternative record stores Metamorphosis and VVV, and I feel fairly certain that I bought this album at Metamorphosis. ’60s garage rock may be my favorite genre of music, and Texas garage rock is, for whatever reason, usually the best.

Mouse and the Traps was a band formed in Tyler, Texas in 1965, with Ronnie Weiss (whose nickname was “Mouse”) on vocals and guitar, Bugs Henderson on lead guitar, David Stanley on bass, Ken “Nardo” Murray on drums, and Jerry Howell on keyboards. Even though most of the band members grew up in Tyler and almost all of their singles were recorded there (recordings produced by the great Robin Hood Brians, who was only a couple of years older than the band), the band pretty much moved to Dallas when they began to get a lot of airplay on local stations, notably KLIF. I actually always thought they were a Dallas band, and, damn it, I’m still considering them a Dallas band.

Mouse and the Traps toured around the state feverishly, playing clubs, colleges, parties, and even proms. There were occasional forays beyond Texas, but, for the most part, they remained a (very popular) regional band. Their first single — the unapologetically Dylan-esque “A Public Execution,” was released at the end of 1965 on the Fraternity label; it was their only record to show up on the Billboard charts, as a “bubbling under” track, not quite reaching the Top 100. After a couple of years, Bugs Henderson (who later became “guitar legend Bugs Henderson”) left the band and was replaced by Bobby Delk. Their personnel history is a little fuzzy, but I think Bugs re-joined the band briefly before the group finally disbanded sometime in 1970, after releasing a series of well-regarded singles and after almost five years of endless live dates. For most bands that had found little commercial success, that would have been the last most people would have heard of them. But most bands weren’t “Nugget” bands.

In 1972, Lenny Kaye included Mouse and the Traps on his revered (and influential) “Nuggets” compilation, propelling the band from “slowly fading memory” to “newly appreciated cult band” and introducing them to a whole new international audience. The band is now regarded as “proto-punk” and an important Texas garage band.

Their garage recordings are probably the most admired, but they dabbled in every ’60s style imaginable, including psychedelia, folk rock, breezy pop, and West Coast country, with hints of Dylan, The Beatles, The Yardbirds, Them, Donovan, and the Sir Douglas Quintet. There’s even a “Get Smart”-inspired novelty song in there. My favorite song of theirs, “Maid of Sugar, Maid of Spice,” is generally considered their finest single, assuring them a place in the pantheon of great garage songs. The stinging, electrifying guitar of Bugs Henderson is fantastic.

The band re-formed for several reunion shows over the years, but, sadly, Bugs Henderson died in 2012. No more reunion shows featuring the original line-up.

As far as the Dallas connection during the height of their career, there is precious little I’ve been able to find, as far as contemporary local photos, ads, or newspaper mentions. Despite the cultural revolution which began with the explosive arrival of the Beatles to the U.S. in 1964, “teenage” music in the ’60s was not taken seriously enough at the time to warrant much coverage in the major newspapers.

One of the few mentions of the band I found was as a support act on a Sonny and Cher show at the Fair Park Music Hall in early 1966. Also on the bill: The Outcasts from San Antonio, and Scotty McKay from Dallas (who can be seen performing two pretty good songs in a clip from one of Dallas director Larry Buchanan’s “schlock” movies, “Creature of Destruction,” here).

Feb., 1966

They also appeared on the TV music show ~~“Sump’n Else”~~ “Upbeat” (in 1968, post-Bugs). (Thanks to Jim for pointing out in the comments that these two color photos actually show the band on the Cleveland-based syndicated teen show “Upbeat,” hosted by Don Webster. TV listings show that the band appeared on the show in April 1968, along with the Boxtops and several other performers.)

Photos: Robin Hood Brians

They also played a memorable show at Louanns in 1966 where they appeared on a double-bill as two separate bands. In 1966 Jimmy Rabbit, a popular DJ on KLIF who was a big supporter of the band, asked them to perform as his backing band on a (great!) recording of “Psychotic Reaction” — a very early cover (perhaps the first) of the song by the Count Five. The song was recorded in Tyler by Robin Hood Brians with Rabbit on vocals and was released under the name Positively Thirteen O’clock. Unsurprisingly, with Rabbit being a DJ on the top station in town, it became a huge local hit. Ken “Nardo” Murray talked about it in a 1988 interview (read the full interview here). Click for larger image.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 17, 1988

And here they are at Louanns, with Rabbit at the mic, backed up by Dave Stanley, Bugs Henderson (he has “Bugs” and a picture of Bugs Bunny on his guitar!), and Jerry Howell:

If anyone has any Dallas-related photos or memorabilia of Mouse and the Traps, I’d love to see them! I’d also love to hear from people who saw them perform in the ’60s.

Billboard, May 21, 1966

Waco Tribune Herald, Aug. 11, 1966

Grand Prairie Daily News, May 9, 1968

Weimar Mercury, Jan. 16, 1969

North Texas State University newspaper, Feb. 7, 1969

Waco Tribune Herald, Aug. 30, 1969

Waco Citizen, April 13, 1970

***

Sources & Notes

A few Mouse and the Traps tidbits:

The band was originally called “Mouse.” “The Traps” was added when the second single, “Maid of Sugar, Maid of Spice” came out in 1966.

The “Henderson” listed as co-writer with Ronnie Weiss of a few of the early Mouse and the Traps songs (including the first two singles) was not Bugs Henderson (who was born Harry Fisher Henderson but was known as “Buddy” in the pre-“Bugs” days) — it was Knox Henderson, a high school pal from Tyler, seen below from a 1955 John Tyler High School (Tyler, TX) yearbook.

More on the band — including photos and newspaper articles — can be found here. Also included is additional information on Robin Hood Brians who has produced artists as diverse as ZZ Top, the Five Americans, James Brown, David Houston, and John Fred and His Playboy Band (whose “Judy In Disguise” knocked the Beatles out of the #1 spot on the national charts).

Mouse and the Traps on Wikipedia, here.

More on Dallas-area ’60s garage bands on GarageHangover.com, here.

Thanks again to Brian McKay for inviting me to play these great songs at the Tuesday Night Record Club!

11 Comments

May 9, 2016

Elm Street — 1920s

by Paula Bosse

Above, a 1920s postcard showing Elm Street looking west from about where the Majestic Theatre is now. The lovely Melba Theatre can be seen at the right, with its sign partially visible. Originally opened as the Hope Theatre in 1922, it was renamed the Melba in October 1922 and became the Capri on Christmas Day 1959. West of the Melba is the tall red brick Dallas Athletic Club Building. Both of these buildings were demolished in 1981. (Also demolished about the same time were the Kress Building, the Volk Building, and the Baker Hotel. 1981 was a bad year to be an old building in Dallas. Read more in the Dallas Morning News article “Kress Building: Demolition Derby,” DMN, April 24, 1981.)

The same view today can be seen here.

Click for larger images.

1 Comment

May 6, 2016

Police Blotter — Drunks, Vagrants, Adulterers

by Paula Bosse

Today, a few snippets from the police and court reports about Dallas people doing things they shouldn’t have been doing. (All clippings are larger when clicked.)

Drunkenness seems to have been the most common reason for arrest in the 1870s and 1880s (and probably still is today). The city “popped it to” a lot of people back in the 1880s.

Dallas Herald, Feb. 14, 1883

A “crazy boy” from Collin County eluded lawmen by running off into the Cedars (back when the area we still call “The Cedars” was actually full of cedar trees).

Dallas Herald, April 21, 1878

A 14-year-old vagrant was given the scared-straight treatment. (Click for larger image.)

“Dallas Notes” section in The Fort Worth Register, Feb. 16, 1901

But the real jackpot for the city looks like it might have been in ferreting out adulterers and violators of the Sunday Law (which in the 1880s usually meant selling alcohol on a Sunday, although it was a violation to operate any business or place of amusement on a Sunday).

In the adultery case below — in which the cheating couple was actually living together outside the bounds of legally-sanctioned wedlock — both parties were fined: the woman’s fine was a surprisingly high $100 (in today’s money about $2,500!), but the man’s fine was — let me find a chair — an unbelievably exorbitant $500 (equivalent today to over $12,000!!). And those who pooh-poohed the Sunday Law took an equally incredible hit. Sunday Law scofflaws such as Mr. R. F. Eisenlohr (who ran a respected market and pharmacy) (and who was the father of noted artist E. G. Eisenlohr) were punished with more than slaps on the wrists — in 1880, they were getting “popped” to the tune of five hundred bucks. (These fines seem excessive. Perhaps because they’re cases brought by the state rather than the city or county? I know that at this time the state was hell-bent on enforcing the Sunday Law because, basically, it was being flagrantly disregarded everywhere, so I’m wondering if a fine this steep was meant to send a message to others. But the adultery fine still seems outrageously high.)

Dallas Herald, Feb. 25, 1880

And sometimes crime beat reporters (and enterprising undertakers) have something of a slow day and can just kick back and ponder.

Dallas Herald, Feb. 9, 1882

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is from Flickr — as I recall, it is not a Texas jail — it might be one in Missouri. As I understand it, the 19th-century Dallas cell most drunks and vagrants would have been thrown into was nowhere near as luxurious as the one seen in this photo. More on that to come.

Interested in what those court fines of yesteryear would be equivalent to in today’s money? Check out the handy-dandy Inflation Calculator, here.

See the previous police blotter round-up — “Police Blotter — 1880s” — here.

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