Flashback : Dallas

September 19, 2015

“The Only Motel Located In the Park Cities” — 1964

A palm tree, a palm tree, my kingdom for a palm tree… (click for large image)

by Paula Bosse

Behold, an architect’s rendering of University Park’s first motel (… motel?!). With palm trees! (The architects — Barron, Heinberg and Brocato — were from Alexandria, Louisiana, where they might actually have palm trees. Perhaps they assumed they grew in Dallas. Or could be imported. Or just looked nice as a whimsical garnish.) Palm trees or not, look at that great mid-century design!

Plans for the University House Motel were announced in December, 1963 — it was to be built on Hillcrest at Binkley, right across the street from SMU by Edward T. Dicker, the man who built 3525 Turtle Creek. (Interestingly, according to a press release printed in The Dallas Morning News on Dec. 8, 1963, real estate transactions for the property involved a land lease from Shell Oil Co.) With 60 suites, it was the perfect location for hotel lodgings for parents visiting their children in college.

This was to be both a major commercial addition to University Park as well as something of an architectural departure. The closest hotel/motel alternative (according to the ad below, anyway) was farther away than might have been convenient for visiting families — the (also super-cool-looking) Holiday Inn was all the way down Central, just past Fitzhugh.

If I were a visiting parent, I’d probably choose the University House option because of its unbelievably close proximity to the campus. And if I saw the ad below, I’d definitely book a room — pronto!

(click to read text)

When construction was complete and the motel opened for business, the sans-palm-tree reality of the building had to have been a bit of a disappointment to anyone who had salivated over that sleek Mid-Century Modern drawing (even though I’m sure the interior decor was much nicer than most motels). Maybe it’s just me. It sort of looks like the drawing. …Sort of….

The University House hung on for several years, then changed ownership and names several times. It is now the site of the much-expanded and certainly much-swankified Hotel Lumen. Interestingly, the skeleton of the original building is still in there somewhere. As Alan Peppard wrote in the Dallas Morning News on Oct. 16, 2006 soon after Hotel Lumen opened, “The old hotel was gutted back to nothing but the concrete frame and rebuilt as a hip University Park hotel.” (To see what things look like now, click here — the renovated original building is on the left, the expansion is on the right.)

In the 21st century, Hotel Lumen is exactly the kind of hotel that comfortably-well-off-but-still-tastefully-hip SMU parents want to stay in when they arrive in town to visit the progeny. All that’s missing are a few palm trees….

***

The University House Motel ad appeared in the 1965 Southern Methodist University Rotunda yearbook. That same yearbook also contained the Holiday Inn ad and the photograph of the University House Motel. (The photo appeared over the yearbook’s cheeky “Why be discreet?” caption and was featured in the previous Flashback Dallas post, “The SMU ‘Drag’ — 1965,” here.)

The 1965 ad has the nightly rate at the University House Motel at $8 — about $60 in today’s money, adjusted for inflation. Not bad for parents who could afford to send their children to SMU and who weren’t staying downtown at the Adolphus, the Baker, or the Hilton.

Photos of Hotel Lumen — inside and out — can be found on their website, here.

Click pictures for larger images.

2 Comments

September 18, 2015

The SMU “Drag” — 1965

Hillcrest, looking south, just north of McFarlin (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Hillcrest, north of Mockingbird, up to Snider Plaza, and maybe all the way up to Lovers Lane. The Drag. Might as well be an unofficial SMU annex. Over the past several decades, some students may have spent more time in the businesses across the street from the western edge of the campus than they did in some of their classes. The look of the area has changed quite a bit recently, but views from the 1965 SMU yearbook are not drastically different from what it looked like up until just a few years ago — and in some stretches, some of the same buildings seen in these photos still stand. Unless something has gone terribly wrong, businesses along the SMU drag that cater primarily to an ever-replenishing SMU student body should never have a lack of customers.

The yearbook caption for the photo above: “Give me your tired, your poor … just give me your money.” (See this view from recent months, with traffic cones, here.)

Below, a few more photos from the 1965 Rotunda tribute to The Drag.

drag_smu-rotunda_1965 *

Looking north.

At Binkley, current site of Hotel Lumen.

Smoking welcomed. Preppy look, circa 1965.

drag2_smu-rotunda_1965

***

All photos from the 1965 Southern Methodist University Rotunda yearbook.

To take a look at a map of the SMU campus from 1964, click here (DeGolyer Library collection, Southern Methodist University).

Click pictures for larger images.

12 Comments

September 17, 2015

Crossing Main Street

Life in the Big City…

by Paula Bosse

Turn-of-the-century traffic: buggies, bicycles, wagons, and people.

I first came across the image below in — of all places — a 1931 SMU yearbook and backtracked to finding the “color” postcard, above. The very grainy image (below) may just have been a black and white photo of this postcard rather than the original photograph, but it’s interesting to see them together. The yearbook identifies this as being Main and Akard, looking west on Main; it also dates it about 1906, but I think it’s earlier than that — there probably would have been evidence of automobiles on Main Street by then. Whenever it was, it seems like a pleasantly nostalgic frozen-in-time moment.

***

Postcard at top from the Watermelon Kid’s great site, here.

Weird, blurry black and white image from the 1931 Southern Methodist University Rotunda yearbook.

Click pictures for larger images.

3 Comments

September 15, 2015

Dealey Plaza, From Above — 1960s

Photo by David Lifton (Baylor University)

by Paula Bosse

Photo showing a mid-to-late-’60s Dealey Plaza and downtown Dallas, with the block just east of the Old Red Courthouse cleared for the eventual construction of the John F. Kennedy Memorial.

And today

Google Earth

***

Photo is by David Lifton, from the collection of Penn Jones, W. R. Poage Legislative Library, Baylor University, Waco, TX; it is accessible here. Lifton is an assassinationologist best known for his 1981 book Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Click pictures for larger images.

2 Comments

September 14, 2015

The Idle Wild Social Club: Life Magazine Presents Black Debutantes — 1937

Three of 1937’s debs (click for larger image and caption)

by Paula Bosse

In December of 1937, something appeared in a national mainstream magazine that had probably never appeared before: photographs of a society ball celebrating African-American debutantes. In the December 6, 1937 issue of Life magazine — in the recurring “Life Goes To a Party” pictorial feature — four pages were devoted to coverage of the annual Idle Wild Social Club ball (later Idlewild Social Club, and later Cotillion Idlewild Club — none of which is to be confused with Dallas’ 130-plus-year-old super-exclusive, white Idlewild Club). The letters this unusual pictorial elicited were either congratulatory or, dismayingly, shocked and irate. Although today these photos are nothing unusual, in 1937, to see African-Americans depicted in a magazine such as Life as just normal, everyday Americans, was exceedingly uncommon. To see photos of black high-society must have made people’s heads explode. So kudos to Life for running the only slightly patronizing story and for publishing some wonderful photographs.

Life magazine, Dec. 6, 1937

The Idle Wild Social Club was started in Dallas around 1918 by a group of socially well-placed black men — perhaps as a response to the white Idlewild Club. By the early 1920s they, like the white club, were presenting the cream of the crop of their young women to society in debutante balls. The ball covered by Life took place on November 18, 1937. The women making their debuts were:

Eddy Mae Johnson
Glodine Marion Smith
Lorene Marjorie Brown
Gladys Lee Carr
Gladys Lewis Powell
Hattie Ruth Green

The debs and their escorts (Life, Dec. 6, 1927)

Club members (Life, Dec. 6, 1927)

life_debs_120637-crowd “Social chitchatterers” (Life, Dec. 6, 1927)

life_debs_120637-couple (Life, Dec. 6, 1927)

Read the article and see additional photos featured in this pictorial here.

There was an outcry in response to the article, and some of it was shockingly ugly — read the letters to the editor about the “Negro Ball” that Life published in the next issue, here (use the magnification tool at the top of the page to increase the size of the text).

Here is the more progressive response, from the Jan. 1938 issue of the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis:

the-crisis-mag_jan-1938

Progress moves at a snail’s pace, but if coverage of a debutante ball can help to move things forward even a step or two … great!

***

All photos from Life magazine, Dec. 6, 1937; the scanned article (and, in fact, the entire scanned issue) is here.

The January, 1938 issue of The Crisis is available online; the page featuring the editorial is here. (This issue also has an interesting article, “Free Negroes In Old Texas” by J. H. Harmon, Jr., here.) The Crisis Wikipedia page is here.

To read coverage of earlier Idle Wild Social Club balls — published in the black-owned Dallas Express — see this from 1922, and this from 1923.

The African-American debutante ball has been called Cotillion Idlewild for many years now; information on their 2014 ball is here. (Again, this is not to be confused with the (white) Idlewild Club, which has been throwing heart-stoppingly elaborate balls in Dallas since the 1880s.)

Apparently there is a history of the club out there — Idle Wild Social Club History (1940) — and, according to WorldCat, appears to be available at nearby libraries.

Personally, I don’t really “get” debutante balls, but growing up in Dallas, I know that they’ve always been big, big, BIG deals. A. C. Greene’s snarky article “Social Climber’s Handbook” (D Magazine, October, 1976), is both amusing and informative; read it here.

10 Comments

September 13, 2015

“Dallas … Undisputed Medical Center” — 1946

Six of the city’s top facilities (click picture for larger image and caption)

by Paula Bosse

The photos above and the text just below are from a publication from about 1946 which was prepared for potential newcomers to the city in order to encourage them to move their businesses and/or residences to Dallas. This page focuses on the city’s superior medical centers, including Parkland Hospital, St. Paul’s Hospital, Scottish Rite Crippled Children’s Hospital, Methodist Hospital, Bradford Memorial Hospital for Babies, and Baylor University Hospital.

Locations of these and other “Hospitals and Dispensaries” can be found in this clipping from the 1946 Dallas city directory:

hospitals_1946-directory

***

Sources & Notes

Photo collage and text from “So This Is Dallas,” edited by Mrs. E. F. Anderson (Dallas: The Welcome Wagon, ca. 1946); photographs by Parker-Griffith.

Hospital listings from the 1945-46 Worley’s Greater Dallas (Texas) City Directory.

September 12, 2015

Thirsty For Something Stronger Than a Sarsaparilla? — 1890

ad-saloons_city-directory_1890-det “Remember Frank’s Place When Thirsty”

by Paula Bosse

According to the 1890 city directory, Dallas had roughly 145 saloons. That seems like a lot when the city’s population was only 38,000. That would be one bar for every 262 people — and this is before you take out all the residents who wouldn’t have been allowed in saloons, like African Americans, Hispanics, women, children, etc. (and I’m sure there MUST have been a few adult white men who didn’t drink…). And there were probably a lot more than 145 bars — this doesn’t include private clubs or “unlicensed” holes in the wall (I’m not sure how heavily enforced “licensing” was back then). So it could have been more like one bar for every 50 imbibing Dallasites. Call me crazy, but this seems like a disproportionate ratio of bars to customers. But depending where you fall on the how-many-bars-is-too-many spectrum, it might have been just the perfect number. It fact it might have been a veritable paradise.

(click me!)

Here are a few of the “popular resorts” of the day into which a white man could mosey and slake his big Texas thirst.

Meisterhans’ Garden
Mayer’s Garden
Glen Lea
Planters House
Pat’s Place
Frank’s Place
Ord’s Place
Two Johns
Two Brothers
Louis
Bohny’s Hall
New Idea
U Bet
Walhalla
Coney Island
Butchers’ and Drovers’
Q. T.
Eureka
Gem
The Wonder
Sample Room
Monarch
Casino
Little Casino
Red Front
Blue Front
Blue Corner
Buck Horn Corner
Sharp Corner
Mikado
Apollo Hall
Mammoth Cave
Headlight
Green Tree
Live Oak
Moss Rose
Sunny South
White House
Cabinet
Senate
Postoffice
Board of Trade
First and Last Chance
Turf
Black Elephant
Jockey
Union Depot
9-45
Dallas Club
Wichita Exchange
City Hall Exchange
Ross’ Exchange
Mechanics’ Exchange

That’s a whole lot of places to get drunk in.

***

Sources & Notes

Saloon ad from the 1899/1890 edition of Morrison & Fourmy’s Dallas City Directory.

See the complete list of saloons, with addresses and proprietors’ names, here.

Street names and addresses have changed over the years. Plot the location of your favorite bar by referring to an 1890s map, here.

In the nineteenth century, the word “resort” often denoted places a bit more unsavory than, say, Puerto Vallarta. A list of similar establishments might include “tippling houses, gaming houses, bawdy houses, billiard saloons, lager beer saloons, and other places of public resort” (source here).

I’m wondering if “respectable” women were allowed as customers in the larger beer gardens in Dallas at this time? If anyone has info on this, I’d love to know.

Was drunkenness a goldmine-like source of city revenue? Oh yeah. See my previous post “Police Blotter — 1880s,” here. Building a greater Dallas, five bucks at a time.

4 Comments

September 11, 2015

Brown Cracker Co. Cracker Wrappers

The saltine-wrapping room

by Paula Bosse

I will stop and look at great length at any photograph containing a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt in this photo belonged to the Brown Cracker and Candy Company, a large and important Dallas manufacturer and employer. The cracker, cake, and candy factory opened in 1903 in a brand new building in the industrial area just south of McKinney Avenue (the part of town that borders downtown, now known as the West End). Best known these days as the West End Marketplace building, the structure still stands and, in fact, has just been purchased and is about to undergo renovation.

DeGolyer Library, SMU

As the new building was nearing completion, the company charter was filed in April 1903, and just a few short weeks later, the factory opened itself up for inspection by the community.

brown-charter_dmn_040303 Dallas Morning News, April 3, 1903

DMN, May 29, 1903 (click for larger image)

The open house was packed — several thousand people (mostly women) showed up to tour the plant, fascinated by the inner workings of the city’s newest business, a manufacturer of crackers and sweet treats. Of particular interest must have been the two giant brick ovens on the the second floor, which used more than one ton of coal daily, and the huge copper kettles used in candy making on the top floor. There were also things like chocolate dipping machines, starch machines (?), and marshmallow heaters (I don’t know what that is, but I want to see one in action — could it have been a “marshmallow beater,” like the one seen here?).

DMN, May 31, 1903

The main reason to open the factory to the public for inspection — other than as a PR-managed meet-and-greet — was to let the people see for themselves just how CLEAN the place was. This was at a time when unsanitary food handling and manufacturing practices were much in the news (see here) — concerns which ultimately led to the enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 — and the above article stresses that visitors were impressed by the factory’s “spotless cleanliness” (“The floors they said could be eaten from without discomfort…”). In regard to the “cracker wrappers” pictured at the top, the company wanted to make sure everyone knew that their products were wrapped and boxed — gone were the days of shoppers dipping their (probably unclean) hands into the old “cracker barrel” full of loose, stale crackers.

crackers_dmn_040603 DMN, April 6, 1903

Let’s take a closer look at the top photo, probably taken around 1920 (click pictures for larger images).

ad-brown_dmn_122003 DMN, Dec. 20, 1903

(click to read text)

brown-cracker_1922-directory 1922 city directory

ca. 1905

ca. 1908

1919 (eBay)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo, titled “Wrapping Saltines at Brown Cracker and Candy Co.,” is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas image collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be accessed here.

Written on the back of the photo: “Miss Bessie Manning, 2724 Roadwood [sic] avenue, Dallas, Texas.” Bessie Manning (born Bena Manina in 1899 to Italian immigrants), began working at the Brown Cracker Co. (with a brother and a sister) around 1917 but wasn’t living on Rosewood (later North Harwood) until 1919; she left Brown in 1921 or 1922. She isn’t identified in the photo, but she is, presumably, one of the women on the left; she would have been about 20.

bessie-manning_1920-census Bessie Manning’s occupation, 1920 census

The color postcard showing the Brown Cracker Co. is also from the Cook collection at SMU; it is here.

The Sodaette ad is from Library of Advertising by A. P. Johnson (Chicago: Cree Publishing Co., 1911).

The photo from about 1905 is from the promotional brochure titled “Come To Dallas” (Dallas: Dorsey Printing Co., about 1905), in the collection of the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University; more info is here.

The photo at the bottom is from Greater Dallas Illustrated, The Most Progressive Metropolis in the Southwest (Dallas: The American Illustrating Company, 1908; reprinted by Friends of the Dallas Public Library, 1992). The informative company profile that accompanied the photo can be read in a PDF, here.

All other ads and clippings as noted.

Another very informative article which details the specifics of the building and its machinery — “New Dallas Industry, Brown Cracker and Candy Company About to Begin Operations” (DMN, Apr. 6, 1903) — can be read in a PDF, here.

To see the Brown Cracker Company’s specs on a Sanborn map from 1905, see here; to see where it is on a modern map, see here.

For current info on what’s about to happen to the building (much expanded over the years), see Steve Brown’s Dallas Morning News article, here.

And, yes, a teenaged Clyde Barrow apparently worked there briefly, for a dollar a day.

13 Comments

September 10, 2015

White Mule, Red Whisky, & “Wicked Liquid” — Moonshining In, Around, & Under Dallas In the 1920s

Busted!

by Paula Bosse

I recently came across an article from 1925 describing a whole world of hidden activity that went on beneath Dallas’ downtown streets. This cartoon and paragraph about moonshiners and bootleggers conducting business in underground storm sewers was particularly interesting:

moonshine_sewer_dmn_050325-cartoon

moonshine_sewer_dmn_050325-by-george-gee Dallas Morning News, May 3, 1925

I searched and searched for news of this subterranean moonshining operation but was unable to find anything. I did, however, find some interesting stories from the ’20s, when it seems moonshining and bootlegging were going on absolutely everywhere.

For example, one such operation was going on in a “large cement-lined room” underneath a tailor shop in the 200 block of South Akard, which was accessed by a small “elevator” through a trapdoor.

moonshine_akard_dmn_121425 DMN, Dec. 14, 1925

One was in operation underground in Oak Cliff in the 900 block of South Montclair (click to read).

DMN, Dec. 11, 1924

Then there was a still operating in a South Dallas cemetery.

DMN, Sept. 4, 1924

Over in Tarrant County — at Lake Worth — some outside-the-box-thinking moonshiners were hiding stills under the WATER.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Nov. 19, 1921

Up north on Preston Road, a massive still was discovered — one of the largest ever found in the Southwest. This operation was above ground, in a barn. 7,500 gallons of corn mash was emptied by legendary Texas Ranger M. T. “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullus, who “removed his shoes and rolled up his trousers when he began pouring out the mash. At one time a large room in the barn was four inches deep in mash, and Gonzaullus waded in the liquid” (DMN, Dec. 23, 1922).

DMN, Dec. 23, 1922

During this incredibly productive and creative period in DFW history, there were different levels of moonshining: there were people making small batches of so-called white lightning for “home use” (kind of like Mayberry’s Morrison sisters who provided small “medicinal quantities” of “elixir” to Otis Campbell), and then there were massive “distilleries” involving large networks of bootleggers and making big money. The former were usually “jest folks,” but the latter were generally professionals, often dangerous and armed-to-the-teeth. The quality of the product varied markedly. This was a handy primer:

moonshine_FWST_120420 FWST, Dec. 4, 1920

My favorite moonshine-related story appeared in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It was about drunken rats “staggering” in the streets of Dallas. Star-Telegram publisher (and famous Dallas-hater) Amon Carter must have cackled as he read this. I’m surprised the headline wasn’t bigger.

moonshine_rats_FWST_062621 FWST, June 26, 1921

A whole passel of confiscated stills — having been emptied of their contents into nearby gutters (the cause of Big D’s apparent rampant rodental inebriation problem) — can be seen in the photos below, displayed for the media in 1921 by the sheriff’s office in a “perp walk” of inanimate objects. “Your tax dollars at wok.” It’s a good thing Prohibition would last only another … twelve long years.

stills_dmn_050821 DMN, May 8, 1921

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Sources & Notes

Top photo — taken by Frank Rogers — appeared on eBay a few months ago. It shows a moonshine operation somewhere in Dallas County, with Deputy Sheriff Ed Castor in there somewhere.

All other newspaper clippings as noted.

The initial Dallas Morning News story about the goings-on in the sewers and tunnels beneath downtown was “A Peep Into Dallas’ Real Underworld” by George Gee (a very entertaining writer who doesn’t seem to have been with the DMN long — I wonder if his name is a pseudonym?); it appeared on May 3, 1925 and can be read here.

A very informative article on local moonshining and bootlegging appeared in the DMN — “Now Bootleggers May Weep At Sight of Strange Display” (meaning those photos just above of confiscated stills); it was written by Ted Dealey and appeared on May 8, 1921 — it can be read here.

Prohibition wasn’t ever going to work. Read the Handbook of Texas entry about the movement in Texas, here.

Read an entertaining WFAA article about how openly Prohibition laws were flouted in Dallas, here.

You know what Wikipedia is good for? Reading about moonshine, more moonshine, and corn whiskey. If fails me, however, on Mason jars, so I went here and learned a few things about why moonshine was usually sold in these famous “fruit jars.”

Another photo of confiscated stills displayed on the steps of the old Municipal Building/City Hall can be found in my previous post “Prohibition Killjoys,” here.

Check out a photo of the booming business in a Dallas speakeasy in the post “Hoisting a Few in the Basement Speakeasy,” here.

Since you’re in the mood, why not settle back and watch a scene from the “Alcohol and Old Lace” episode of The Andy Griffith Show, here. Otis Campbell’s darkest day.

4 Comments

September 9, 2015

Ebby Halliday, 1911-2015

Ebby in Big D, 1957… (photo: Ebby Halliday Realtors)

by Paula Bosse

(Feb. 2019: This post has been expanded since its original publication on Sept. 9, 2015.)

Ebby Halliday — the Dallas realtor known instantly by just her first name — died September 8, 2015 at the age of 104. Ebby was not only stunningly successful in the world of Dallas real estate, she was also something of a pioneer in paving the way for other women to establish and find great success in business. There are several obituaries that will present a more complete overview of her life (see links at the bottom of this post), so I’ll just post a few odds and ends that have caught my attention.

Vera Lucille Koch grew up in Kansas, and according to her 1929 Abilene High School yearbook, she was inordinately active in all sorts of clubs and sports. Here are a couple of photos from that yearbook (most images are larger when clicked); the first one shows her with the debate team.

And the second one shows her with her “Forensics” teammates (she excelled in reading competitions, although I’m not exactly sure what that means, as most “forensics” events involve debating). Rather amazingly, this scanned yearbook has her signature!

These two extra-curricular activities served her well in her later career — she obviously learned a lot about the effectiveness of persuasion at an early age.

After school, she spent several years working in department stores selling women’s fashions (including a stint in Omaha, where a vivacious young Vera can be seen in a fantastic photo posted by D Magazine here). Ultimately she arrived in glamorous Dallas around 1938, where she began life as a Dallasite managing the women’s hat department at the downtown department store W. A. Green. Most accounts have her entering the real estate business while still selling hats, soon after the war — almost by a fluke. Legend has it that one of her customers mentioned to her husband, famed oilman Clint Murchison, that he might want to utilize Ebby’s sense of style by having her decorate a few of his newly-built houses in Far North Dallas in order to increase sluggish sales; she was apparently so successful at this that she decided to pursue selling houses on her own and eventually established her own realty company.

I’ve always wondered about the name “Ebby” — what was it short for? Ebby Halliday is the only Ebby I’ve ever heard of. Turns out that she made the name up, sometime between graduating from high school in Kansas and coming to Dallas. In a 1983 Dallas Morning News interview, she explained how Vera Lucille Koch became “Ebby Halliday”:

“I was selling hats when one of the buyers who I admired a great deal told me I had to get rid of Vera Lucille. She said it was the silliest name she’d ever heard. I needed something more sophisticated. I thought about it and came up with the name Ebby. That sounded very, to me, like I had a lot of class.” (DMN, Sept. 25, 1983)

The paragraph ended with two sentences added by the writer of the article:

The name Halliday came from an early first marriage. That husband is now deceased.

The somewhat dismissive tone of those last two lines is interesting, because that husband, Claude W. Halliday — whom she appears to have married in 1947 (although an earlier marriage license for the couple had been issued in 1945 in New York) — is almost non-existent in newspaper searches. C. W. Halliday (1908-1965) was described in a 1957 article about Ebby as being “engaged in an investment and building corporation.” In his 1965 obituary, C. W. was described as “head of C. W. Halliday Realtors and a partner in Ebby Halliday Realtors.” When C. W. died in 1965 — several years he and Ebby had divorced (and the same year Ebby married Maurice Acers) — it was Ebby who acted as informant on his death certificate. Mr. Halliday’s real estate career began about 1946, a year or so before Ebby opened her own retail millinery business. Ebby and C. W.’s marriage lasted for over 12 years, but most traces of him seem to have vanished into the ether.

But back to the name “Ebby.” When the former Vera Lucille Koch arrived in Dallas around 1938 to work at the W. A. Green department store, she was listed in the city directory as “Mrs. Vera Eberhardt.” I’m not sure where the “Mrs.” came from (had she been married before she arrived in Dallas?), but it’s certainly easy to see that “Ebby” probably came from “Eberhardt,” a name which was either a husband’s surname or the name she described as having created for herself because it sounded sophisticated.

eberhardt_vera_ebby_1939-directory 1939 Dallas directory

In June, 1940, 29-year-old Ebby married KRLD broadcaster Royce H. Colon. Their marriage lasted only a few years, but it was during this time that the city directory shows her using the name “Ebby” professionally, while still working at Green’s.

Mrs. Royce Colon, 1940

colon_1941-directory
1941 Dallas directory

colon_1942-43-directory 1942-43 Dallas directory

In Mr. Colon’s 1975 obituary it was stated that he had begun his career in real estate (with Majors & Majors Realtors) at a time which would have coincided with the years he and Ebby were married. This is to take nothing away from Ebby’s incredible accomplishments, but if that were the case, it seems that she might have had some (at least rudimentary) background in real estate before Clint Murchison asked her to spiffy-up some new houses he was having trouble unloading. It’s possible she may have entered her new profession with more in her quiver than simply a flair for interior decoration. Ambition may have seemed unladylike and immodest for a “career gal” in the 1940s, even for someone as independent and focused as Ebby. I wonder if her “origin story” might have been softened a bit to play down her ambition? Whatever the case, it didn’t take Ebby long to make her mark on the world of Dallas real estate, and, in so doing, establishing for herself a national reputation as both a top realtor as well as a major inspiration and mentor for women in business.

Below is the type of article about Ebby Halliday’s accomplishments which ran constantly throughout her career. (Most images in this post are larger when clicked.)

The Tennessean, Nashville, TN, Sept. 7, 1958

But back to that hat shop.

The first mentions I found for the shop Ebby Millinery (one of several boutique shops which operated in the still-beautiful old home at 2603 Fairmount), were in August, 1947 — an article in The Dallas Morning News described the shop as having “opened recently.” Ebby (who had recently become Mrs. C. W. Halliday) opened the shop in partnership with Dallas hat designer Annabelle Derrieux Bradley.

Aug. 10, 1947

The shop’s bold decoration sounds … bold:

…Ebby Millinery’s French Room is decorated with bottle green walls and carpets and accented with striped drapes of deep shocking pink and chartreuse. The designing room has a touch of the Victorian with frilly white curtains and oversized wallpaper roses against a bottle-green background. (DMN, Aug. 20, 1947)

Oct. 26, 1947

When Ebby decided to pursue her new real estate business full-time, Derrieux and her husband took over the shop and eventually renamed it Derrieux Hats.

The first real estate ad I could find that featured Ebby’s name is this one, from 1948:

DMN, Aug. 5, 1948

And she was off like a rocket.

Below are a few photos of Ebby I’ve come across which I particularly like.

1956, Charm magazine (“the magazine for women who work”) (via Candy’s Dirt)

Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal, Sept. 22, 1957

Austin Statesman, Jan. 25, 1966

1966 (via Candy’s Dirt)

This photo is interesting because a version of it appears in the May 15, 1966 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald under the headline “The Texas Millionairess” with one slight difference: instead of posing above the Dallas skyline, she is shown posing above the Sydney skyline while on a trip to Australia.

And here she is in later days: the undisputed grand dame of Dallas real estate. RIP, Ebby.

ebby_wfaa

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is one of three in this post which appeared in a Candy’s Dirt slideshow here (slideshow photos are from the archives of Ebby Halliday Realtors — there are tons of great photos there!).

Highschool photos of Vera Koch are from the 1929 yearbook of Abilene (Kansas) High School.

Ebby Halliday Acers died Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015. A few of the online obituaries/tributes in the local media:

Dallas Morning News, here
Dallas Business Journal, here
D Magazine, here
Ebby Halliday Realtors website, here

A great article on a typical day at work for the 96-year-old Halliday (!) appeared in D Magazine in July, 2007; read Candace Carlisle’s article “Ebby Halliday: The Woman Who (Still) Sells Dallas,” here.

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