Flashback : Dallas

December 10, 2015

Red’s Turnpike Open-Air Dance: An East Pike/Samuell Blvd. Joint — 1946

They’re playing your ditty….

by Paula Bosse

I always wonder about those old, decaying buildings — sometimes they’re little more than shacks — which are somehow still standing, in areas that will probably never be gentrified. Like Samuell Boulevard, just south of Tenison Golf Course, two or three miles south of White Rock Lake. The north side of Samuell is a lovely, manicured golf course. The south side? Rough, man.

Before Samuell Blvd. was Samuell Blvd., it was known as East Pike, and it served as the highway to Terrell. This explains the large number of tourist courts and motels which dotted the road. Also, the Tenison golf course was right about at the very edge of the city limits — which explains the large number of bars, taverns, liquor stores, and other assorted dens of iniquity all clustered together at the wet/dry line (wet in Big D, dry beyond).

The local papers were full of a veritable pu pu platter of crimes and offenses committed along the East Pike, almost all of which were generally traced back to alcohol consumption. Police and city inspectors spent a lot of time in the area, called to various of these joints to handle reports of public intoxication, selling alcohol to minors, selling alcohol to those already drunk, general rowdiness, unsanitary conditions, noise, brawls, “suggestive dancing,” gambling, hold-ups, shootings, suicides, and murder.

One of those rural drinking establishments was Red’s Turnpike Open-Air Dance, which appears to have opened in 1946 in the 3700 block of Samuell (even though it didn’t have an actual street address in city directories), between the Belt railway and White Rock Creek. In 1948, the tavern burned down in an early morning fire (a not-uncommon fate for these types of businesses). The Dallas Morning News reported that “firemen were hampered by a lack of fire hydrants in the vicinity and pumped water from White Rock Creek to fight the blaze” (DMN, May 3, 1948). …Wasn’t enough.

From its ashes sprang Keller’s drive-in, in 1950, in the same general spot. In a 2015 Lakewood Advocate interview, Jack Keller described the location of his first drive-in as being “the last wet spot going into East Texas, right across from hole number two” of the golf course. “We had a lot of fun down there.”

Who doesn’t love hamburgers? Keller’s probably helped the area’s reputation, as its arrival eventually ushered in a less seedy clientele than the old East Pike of the ’30s and ’40s was known for. Less riff-raff, better food.

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Sources & Notes

Photo of Red’s Turnpike from the Dec. 14, 1946 issue of Texas Week magazine.

Here’s what the spot where Red’s once stood looks like now (the Keller’s location here closed in 2000):

Google Street View, 2015

Google Maps

Take a virtual look at the area on Google Street View, here.

3 Comments

December 10, 2015

School Lunches of Yesteryear

Morning prep work: the calm before the storm

by Paula Bosse

Above, Dallas lunch ladies shelling what looks like black-eyed peas for an unidentified school’s midday meal. I can’t say I’ve ever imagined lunchroom employees ever doing something like this. In the 1920s and ’30s, schools used fresh foods when they could, but they were definitely using a lot of canned fruits and vegetables, too. All this effort — and all these women — for peas.

In a quick search for what school lunch menus were like in the late ’20s and early ’30s, here were a few delicacies that would never be found in a school cafeteria these days:

Roast veal
Sardine sandwiches
Creamed onions
“Italian hash”
Banana and peanut salad
Salmon loaf
Tongue salad
Stuffed dates
Prune whip/prune salad/prune pudding

Yummy!

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Sources & Notes

Photo from the Texas/Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library.

7 Comments

December 9, 2015

Winnetka Congregational Church, Org. 1914

The Oak Cliff church’s first pastor? (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

I stumbled across this photograph tonight and was really taken with it. It shows a man standing in front of the Winnetka Congregational Church in Oak Cliff, located at W. Twelfth and S. Windomere streets — on land now part of the property of the W. E. Greiner school. The church was organized in 1914, but by 1925 they were making plans to expand. A new church was built in 1929, just across W. Twelfth, facing Windomere.

The new building still stands, but Winnetka Congregational Church doesn’t seem to have made it past the 1950s.

Nice though that newer church is, I think I prefer the smaller one from 1914 with the uncomfortable-looking man standing in front of it.

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Sources & Notes

Top photo from the Tulane University Digital Library (with the name of the church misspelled as “Winnietka”), here.

I love Sanborn maps. Here’s one from 1922 which shows what the neighborhood looked like then. The original small wood frame church can be seen just north of a neighborhood completely undeveloped, except for the Winnetka School. Check out the very large map, here.

Background on the church can be found on the Oak Cliff Yesterday blog, here.

If you REALLY want to learn about this church’s history, there is a book, History of Winnetka Congregational Church, Dallas, Texas by Sarah E. Johnson (1935). Looks like the Dallas Public Library has a copy, here.

And, lastly, here’s what the church built in 1929/1930 looks like today. (The original church was built in the area seen in the background, now part of the Greiner campus.)

6 Comments

December 7, 2015

Dallas High School’s 1915 Basket Ball Season

A winning season for the girls!

by Paula Bosse

The girls’ basketball (or “basket ball”) team of Dallas High School (later known as Crozier Tech) had a great season in 1915! They won 7 of their 8 games, losing only to Fort Worth’s Polytechnic High (by one measly basket). Most of their opponents were trampled by the DHS team, several managing to score no more than a mere 2 or 4 points (!). And, let’s face it, without the drag caused by those elaborate and cumbersome uniforms and … um … headgear, DHS would no doubt have scored even higher.

Below, the roster (containing some great names like Helmo, Valliant, Floy, and Ollie).

And the wrap-up of the season, from the yearbook, with more than a hint of bitterness toward the Fort Worth team:

And the boys’ team? Oh dear. They won only 4 out of 8 games. But at least their uniforms were better suited to the sport.

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Sources & Notes

From the pages of the 1915 Dallas High School yearbook — the “Dal-Hi” annual.

2 Comments

December 6, 2015

HR Meeting at the Carousel Club

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

by Paula Bosse

Jack and the girls. …Before.

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Sources & Notes

I think this is the Carousel Club. It might not be. The source of this photo is a bad, bad, bad, spammy site with loud commercials. They get no credit from me. “No soup for you!”

3 Comments

December 5, 2015

Downtown Parking Innovations

Splendiforous parking garage, 1945

by Paula Bosse

Here are a couple of ways developers have attempted to cope with the parking needs of downtown Dallas. I’m not sure how long either of these parking garages lasted, but I give them both A’s for effort.

First, 1945: Nichols Bros. Garage & Rent-a-Car Service at 1320 Commerce (just east of Field). Just look at all these amenities — women and chauffeurs are not forgotten.

…Fluorescent lighting — Air-conditioned waiting room for customers — Beautiful powder room for women — Waiting rooms for chauffeurs — Complete facilities for auto storage, washing, lubrication and motor tune-up service.

1945 Dallas directory

I don’t know how long this lasted, but if you’re going to have a garage downtown, it might as well look like that one!

Then in 1954, the 8-story Dallas Carpark at Jackson and St. Paul arrived (a second one at Jackson and Lane was under construction that same year). It was a franchise of the Pigeonhole Parking System of Spokane, utilizing “car-parking machines” invented by Leo Sanders of Spokane, Washington. I’m not exactly sure how these worked, but cars were hoisted and lowered on elevators, and the whole parking process, from start to finish, was conducted without an attendant ever actually touching the cars. Again, I don’t know how long this endeavor was in business (at least through the early 1960s), but — parking-garage-history neophyte that I am — I’ve never heard of such a thing. (There’s a video showing how it worked — thanks, “Not Bob” for posting this in the comments)!

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UPDATE: “Found” film footage of a family’s trip to Dallas in 1962 actually shows this pigeon-hole system in action. The whole short video is interesting, but the pigeon-hole footage is what got me really excited — it begins at the 1:32 mark.

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A couple of screenshots:

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Sources & Notes

Nichols Bros. ad from the 1945 city directory.

The 1951 Universal Newsreel segment can be found on Vimeo here (thanks to “Not Bob”).

1962 YouTube video of found footage can be seen here (thanks to Robert Wilonsky of The Dallas Morning News for posting this link!).

See photos and read about the elevator-centric Dallas Carpark at Jackson and St. Paul in these Dallas Morning News articles:

“Parking Gets Lift in Downtown Area” by Robert F. Alexander (DMN, Sept. 26, 1954) (with photos)
“Pigeonhole Parking Now in Operation” (DMN, Oct. 10, 1954)

See several photos of the “pigeon-hole” parking system in other parts of the country in the article “Pigeon Hole Parking — An Amusement Park Ride for Your Car,” here. Here’s one in Portland, Oregon (the Dallas Carpark was 8 levels high):

12 Comments

December 4, 2015

“Work and Play in Telephone Land”

Dallas women at work, 1925 (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Today at look at two ads seeking “young women of high ideals and ambition” to become telephone operators, one of the few careers open to women exclusively.

First, an ad from 1911 for the Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Company (click for larger image — transcription below).

1911

COMFORT and CONVENIENCE

The new building is equipped with every comfort and convenience for the operators. The entire third floor is set aside to their use, and there are the cafe, the rest room and roof garden. Taken all together the building is a model, designed and planned with the one purpose: That of the helpfulness of service. Representatives of the company feel that environment has much to do with the attitude of the employees.

The Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Company offers exceptional advantages to young women of high ideals and ambition. The way is open by which a PROFESSION may be mastered under the most pleasant and auspicious circumstances. You earn while you learn.

For information, apply to the principal of the operating school at the “Main” exchange, corner of Akard and Jackson streets, or “Edgewood” exchange on Harwood street, near Grand avenue.

Here’s an ad from 1925 for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, really pushing the idea that working as a switchboard operator is mostly rest and “a variety of diversions — sewing, dancing [!], reading, conversation”... more play than work, really!

1925

WORK AND PLAY IN TELEPHONE LAND

The telephone operator works between rests. Most of the time, it is true, she sits at the switchboard putting up the talk tracks for the subscriber, but in-between-times are periods for recreation, in which she has opportunity for change and relaxation. Attractive rest rooms invite a variety of diversions — sewing, dancing, reading, conversation — or just rest.

Miss Etta Mooneyham, Chief Operator at the Long Distance Office, at 4100 Bryan street, will welcome your visit any afternoon from two to five o’clock.

If you’re lucky, maybe Miss Mooneyham will ask you to dance.

Relaxing in one of the “attractive rest rooms” (1925)

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Sources & Notes

1911 ad appeared in the Dallas Morning News on May 29, 1911; 1925 ad (containing the photos at the top and bottom) appeared in the 1925 edition of “The Oak,” the yearbook of Oak Cliff High School (later renamed Adamson High School).

I’ve been fascinated by telephone operators my whole life. Ever wonder why operators have historically always been women? Watch an entertaining 5-minute video about why women took over the profession, here.

Also, read an interesting New York Times article about “telephone girls” (June 11, 1899), here.

Lastly, because I really want to post this ridiculous screenshot of what 19th-century operators apparently wore at some point, an AT&T industrial film called “The Nation at Your Fingertips”can be viewed here. (The few seconds showing this operator who surely would have experienced crippling next pain for the rest of her life begins at the 3:43 mark.)

See an earlier, related post — “Telephone Operators Sweating at the Switchboard — 1951” — here.

Click pictures for larger images.

3 Comments

December 3, 2015

Sivils Drive-In, An Oak Cliff Institution: 1940-1967

Oak Cliff’s landmark hangout (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

When J. D. Sivils (1907-1986) and his wife, Louise (1918-2006), brought their “Sivils” restaurant to Dallas in June 1940, their Houston drive-in of the same name had already been featured as a Life magazine cover story, garnering the kind of incredible national publicity that any business owner would have killed for! And all because of their carhops — “comely, uniformed lassies” whom Mrs. Sivils insisted on calling “curb girls” (which might have a slightly different connotation these days…). Life — never a magazine to overlook pretty young girls in sexy outfits — not only devoted a pictorial to the “curb girls,” they also put one of them (Josephine Powell of Houston) on the cover, wearing the Sivils’ uniform of (very, very short!) majorette’s outfit, plumed hat, and boots.

Feb. 26, 1940

Louise Sivils and a prospective “curb girl” (Life)

Four months after the blitz of national attention the drive-in received from the Life story, Sivils came to Dallas. The drive-in was located in Oak Cliff at the intersection of West Davis and Fort Worth Avenue on “three acres of paved parking space.”

The day the drive-in opened, a photo of the not-yet-legendary Sivils appeared in The Dallas Morning News (see “Sivils to Open Dallas Place Thursday,” DMN, June 27, 1940). Other than this, there is surprisingly little in the pages of The News about this drive-in’s opening — surprising because it became such a huge part of the lives of Oak Cliff’s teens in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. It’s one of those places that seems to have reached almost mythic proportions on the nostalgia scale.

Sivils didn’t quietly sneak into town, though. Take a look at this very large, very expensive newspaper ad, which ran the day before OC’s soon-to-be favorite hang-out opened. (Click for larger image.)

June 26, 1940

Nationally Famous for Food and LIFE
SIVILS COMES TO DALLAS!

Texas’ largest drive-in
Opens tomorrow
(Thursday 3:00 PM)

You’ve heard about “Sivils”! You’ve read about “Sivils” in LIFE Magazine and you’ve seen a beautiful “Sivils Girl” on the cover of LIFE Magazine! But now Dallas has a “Sivils” all its own! Come out tomorrow. See Texas’ largest drive-in. Enjoy “Sivils” famous food and ice cold beer or soft drinks. “Sivils” special ice vault assures the coldest drinks in town!

75 Beautiful “LIFE Cover Girls” to Serve You

All Kinds of Ice Cold Beer and Soft Drinks
Juicy Jumbo Hamburgers
Fried Chicken
Tenderloin Trout Sandwiches
K.C. Steaks
Pit Barbecue
All Kinds of Salads and Cold Plates
Delicious Sandwiches
Complete Fountain Service

Sivils – “Where All Dallas Meets”
At intersection West Davis and Fort Worth Ave.
Three Acres of Paved Parking Space

100-150 “curb girls” were employed by Sivils at any given time in those early days, and it was open 24 hours a day. The place was hopping. Sounds fantastic. Wish I’d seen it.

via Flickr

eBay

Below, a scanned menu (click to see larger images):

via eBay

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Sources & Notes

Top postcard from the Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers Postcard Collection on Flickr, here.

Read the 4-page Life article (and see several photos of the Houston “curb girls”) here (use the magnifying glass icon at the top left to increase the size of the page).

Interesting quote from that article:“They work in 7½-hour shifts, six days a week, for which they get no pay but average $5 a day in tips.” Doesn’t sound legal…. (The Inflation Calculator tells us that $5 in 1940 money is equivalent to just over $83 in today’s money.)

Sivils closed in 1967, possibly because Mr. and Mrs. Sivils wanted to retire, but it seems more likely that Oak Cliff’s being a dry area of Dallas since the 1950s was killing its business. Check out the News article “Big Head Expected as Oak Cliff Beer Issue Foams” by Kent Biffle (DMN, Aug. 17, 1966) which appeared just months before another election in which the “drys” outvoted the “wets.” (More on Oak Cliff’s crazy wet-dry issues, here.)

J. D. Sivils was interviewed in a short documentary about Dallas carhops, filmed in the early 1970s. In it, he talks about the early days of Sivils and — best of all — there is film footage galore of the drive-in from his collection. Watch it in my previous post — “‘Carhops’ — A Short Documentary, ca. 1974” — here. (Below a screenshot of Sivils from the film.)

Read the article “Carhops, Curb Service, and the Pig Sandwich” by Michael Karl Witzel (Texas Highways, Oct. 2006) in a PDF, here (increase size of article with controls at top of page).

Another Flashback Dallas post on drive-in culture — “Carhops as Sex Symbols — 1940” — is here.

Click pictures for larger images.

31 Comments

December 2, 2015

“Carhops” — A Short Documentary, ca. 1974

Schlitz on its way…

by Paula Bosse

The carhop is an oddly American invention — and it began here in Dallas in the 1920s, with boys and young men serving customers in cars at J. G. Kirby’s Pig Stand drive-in restaurants. In 1940, Sivils hit Dallas, but this time with young women as servers — young women in skimpy outfits. There was no looking back — from then on, pretty girls showing a lot of leg and hoping for big tips carried trays of food, soft drinks, and beer to cars full of waiting customers.

One of the few remaining “old school” drive-ins is Keller’s on Northwest Highway, still doing good business today. Around 1974 or 1975, SMU film teacher Pat Korman made a short documentary about Dallas carhops past and present (the result, it seems, of reading a Dallas Morning News article by Rena Pederson). He interviewed B. J. Kirby (owner of Kirby’s steakhouse on Lower Greenville and son of Jesse Kirby, founder of the Pig Stand pig-sandwich empire, which, as legend has it, had the very first carhops), J. D. Sivils (owner of Sivils drive-ins, who, along with his wife, was an important figure in the evolution of curb-side dining), and Jack Keller (owner of Keller’s Hamburgers). The three businessmen reminisce about the early days of drive-in restaurants in Dallas as a lot of cool historical film footage unspools and photographs from the ’20s to the ’50s are flashed on the screen. Also interviewed are four women carhops who were working at Keller’s at the time, talking about their jobs.

It’s a cool film. Big cotton-candy hair, accents you wish were still around, and cans and cases of Schlitz, Schlitz, Schlitz.

The 14-minute film is in two parts on YouTube. Here is the first part:

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And here is the second part:

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Below, screenshots of the interviewees.

Sandy

Shirley (as of Jan. 2015, she’s been a fixture at Keller’s for 50 years!)

Rita

Nancy

B. J. Kirby

J. D. Sivils

Jack Keller

No. 5 — 80¢

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Sources & Notes

“Carhops” — filmed sometime in the early ’70s — was directed by Patrick Korman, shot by Ron Judkins, and produced by Don Pasquella. It premiered at Jesuit High School in April 1976. The film is on YouTube in two parts, here and here. (By the way, if you look at the YouTube comments under part two, you’ll see a comment from Sandy herself. She’s still looking good in the avatar photo.) (The music at the beginning and end of the film is great! I’m pretty sure it’s the legendary steel guitarist Ralph Mooney and the equally legendary guitarist James Burton; I love those guys! I urge to go get a copy of their album “Corn Pickin’ and Slick Slidin.'”)

Rena Pederson is thanked in the credits. She wrote a great article in The Dallas Morning News called “Carhops Fading, Those Were the Days” (Aug. 25, 1974) — she interviewed many of the same people seen in the film.

The Keller’s Northwest Highway location celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Shirley — one of the carhops featured in the film — has worked there since it opened in 1965. As of Jan. 2015, she was still there! Go by and see her! Check out a Lakewood Advocate story on Shirley, here.

Also, take a look at a Dallas Morning News article on Keller’s 50th anniversary, here — scroll down to the slideshow to check out some great photos from its early days.

Read about sexy male carhops who plied their trade in skimpy outfits — a short-lived fad in Dallas inspired by the success of drive-ins like Sivils — in my previous post “Carhops as Sex Symbols — 1940,” here.

10 Comments

December 1, 2015

American Airlines, Planes-a-Plenty — 1951

by Paula Bosse

A few photos of Love Field, hangars, and American Airlines airplanes, all taken in 1951 by Russell Lee for a story in Fortune magazine.

american-airlines_briscoe-2

american-airlines_briscoe-3

american-airlines_briscoe-4

american-airlines_briscoe-5

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Photos ©Dolph Briscoe Center for American History; all photos are by Russell Lee from the collection of his photographs at the University of Texas at Austin. I am unable to post links because I can no longer find them on the website (!).

This time pictures aren’t larger when clicked. All apologies to fans of the wonderful Russell Lee, for these less-than-crisp images.

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