Flashback : Dallas

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

***

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

***

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.

7 Comments

September 8, 2015

Thank You, Justin Martin / KERA 90.1!

by Paula Bosse

Thank you, Justin Martin, for inviting me to KERA 90.1 for my first-ever radio interview! I was a little nervous, but Justin was the perfect host, on and off the mike.

To listen to the interview, click here.

After the interview, Justin took me on a quick tour around the KERA radio and TV studios, which was great. Here’s Big Bird and a Teletubby friend watching over the station’s goings-on, like benevolent fluorescent gargoyles. (Okay, I looked it up: the green Teletubby’s name is “Dipsy.”)

Below are the two posts Justin asked me about, for those who want more of the background I might have been a bit too flustered to describe fully and/or coherently.

The male carhops in short-shorts: if I’ve posted one thing that has gone viral, it’s the photo of Love Field-area male carhops, which has been shared all over the place. The original post — “Carhops as Sex Symbols — 1940” — can be found here.

Also, the straightening and moving of the Trinity River: “The Trinity River at the City’s Doorstep” is here (see the comments of that post for more information and links to further information about the moving of the river).

Thanks again, KERA!

For those who might want to follow my frequent posts, see the “Twitter/Facebook” tab at the top of the page to learn how to receive notifications for new posts and for links to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

1 Comment

September 6, 2015

“Male Fixings” and Horse Manure — Akard Street, ca. 1906

George W. Cook Collection, SMU

by Paula Bosse

This great photograph shows Akard Street looking north from just south of Main. I especially like the sign for “Male Fixings” (a store selling men’s clothing accessories). Let’s zoom in to see that sign better (click photo to see a much larger image).

I also like the guy with the bicycle, next to the barber pole at the lower right, and the lone woman crossing the street. (There is a little girl in a white dress on the sidewalk on the right — about to cross Main — but everyone else in this photo is of the gender that might well patronize a business called “Male Fixings.”)

As indelicate as it may be to bring up the subject … I assume there were people employed to walk around the streets with shovels to clean up after all those horses? I’ve actually thought of this fairly often. It had to have been a major, major problem back then. I’ve just looked it up. The average horse pulling wagons and carriages produced, on average, 30+ pounds of manure and several gallons of urine daily, deposited willy-nilly whenever the need arose (which was often). Multiply that by hundreds. This article isn’t about Dallas, but I highly recommend “The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894” — you’ll learn way more about the subject than you may want to — read it here. That lady crossing the street? I bet she spent a good part of every day hiking her skirts and dodging dung.

UPDATE: I’ve updated the title to this post several times (you’ll notice that the URL of this post shows a different location and year). After spending time to pin down the date, it appears this photo was taken between 1906 and 1909, when the Draughon Practical Business College was located at the southeast corner of Main and Akard — and the Oliver Typewriter Agency was located at 114 South Akard. The original annotation of this photo says the view is Main Street, with Akard in the midground, but it appears this photo was taken just south of Main Street looking north on Akard. The photo is confusing because the Draughon’s sign is seen here on the Akard Street side, not the Main Street side. The main tip-off is the cupola seen atop the building standing at the northwest corner of Main and Akard — it is the Rowan Building, which housed the Marvin Drug Store, which I wrote about here.

Draughon’s Practical Business College opened its first Dallas campus (but its 27th location across the major cities of the south) at the southeast corner of Main and Akard in March, 1906. By the time the 1910 city directory was printed, they had moved to another location (in fact, in their first ten years in Dallas they had moved five times!). I’m not sure how long the business college lasted in Dallas — at least through the 1970s, possibly longer — but the institution seems to still be in business after something like 130 years. (Click ads below to see larger images.)

1906

***

This is another wonderful photo from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be accessed (and zoomed in on) here.

Another interesting article on the “manure problem” is “When Horses Posed a Public Health Hazard” — a blog post from The New York Times (which tantalizingly mentions herds of pigs roaming the streets of NYC) — read it here.

11 Comments

September 5, 2015

The Stoneleigh Court Apartment Hotel — 1923/1924

Still standing, still beautiful…

by Paula Bosse

Above, the Stoneleigh Hotel (originally known as the Stoneleigh Court Apartment Hotel) in 1923, in its final weeks of construction. When the Stoneleigh opened in October, 1923 at the corner of Maple Avenue and Wolf Street, it was a swanky apartment house, with hotel amenities (a few rooms were set aside for “transient” travelers). Thankfully, the Frank J. Woerner-designed building still stands and remains a lovely hotel.

Originally there were 125 apartments (which ranged from 1-5 rooms each), all of which were fully furnished (linens, silver, kitchen utensils, dishes, telephones, etc.), and maid service was provided. There were also radios in every room (a pretty new-fangled thing at the time). Each apartment had a kitchenette and a private bath, and ice water was piped to all apartments. Another innovative feature was the Servidor delivery service which allowed residents and hotel staff to conduct transactions without ever having to look one another in the eye or exchange stilted chit-chat. There was a grocery store, a pharmacy, a beauty shop, and a barber shop on the premises. There were smoking rooms, billiards rooms, and lounges on the ground floor and a grand ballroom on the top floor. And apartments were “handsomely furnished, [with] a color scheme of taupe, blue and mulberry being observed alternately on the various floors.” Sign me up!

Below, an early ad (click to see a much larger image of the illustration on its own).

And, of course, the obligatory postcard in which the building looks familiar, but which its surroundings seem somewhat … romanticized.

stoneleigh_court_apartments

A grainy photo from the construction and its caption:

Dallas Morning News, April 22, 1923

***

Sources & Notes

Photo of the building nearing the end of its construction is from the application to the National Register of Historic Places, which can be found in a PDF, here. (Dallas Historical Society photo.)

Ad is from the 1924 Terrill School yearbook.

To read a lengthy article published a few days before the Stoneleigh officially opened — “Stoneleigh Court Most Pretentious Apartment Hotel in the Southwest” (Dallas Morning News, Oct. 14, 1923) (with “pretentious” used here in a good way!) — click here.

Not sure what an “apartment hotel” is? See Wikipedia, here.

The Stoneleigh is currently called “Le Méridien Dallas, The Stoneleigh,” and the official website is here.

5 Comments

September 4, 2015

Fly United to Chicago in Only Eight Hours!

How many buildings can you identify? (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Dallas, Texas as seen from United Air Lines passenger transport. The airplane has brought Dallas and Forth Worth within eight hours travel to Chicago and only one business day’s travel from New York.

Back when it took all day to fly to New York from Dallas.

This is another great aerial photo by the Fairchild Aerial Survey company, probably taken by Lloyd M. Long. Date-wise? Late-1920s? Before the Trinity was straightened (beginning in 1928), with land being cleared in the area that would become Dealey Plaza? 1928-ish? Or could it have been the very early 1930s? The United Air Lines promotional postcard was issued around 1932 or 1933.

It wasn’t until 1933 that United introduced its new Boeing “twin motor airline transports” and boasted that they would finally “bring the city within eleven and a half hours of New York City” (Dallas Morning News, Aug, 16, 1933).

Below is a photo from a Dallas newspaper ad showing one of United’s planes from the earlier, more carefree days of 1932, when passengers were still trudging through the skies at a more leisurely pace.

United Air Lines ad, detail, 1932

And an even earlier ad, from 1931, when a flight from Love Field to Chicago was nine hours long (today a direct flight from Love Field to Chicago takes about two hours and fifteen minutes). And if you wanted to continue to NYC, you had to board another plane and fly from Chicago to New York, adding another six and a half hours!

1931 ad

FLY

De Luxe Tri-Motored Ford Planes Manned by 2 Licensed Transport Pilots

NAT provides the most luxurious and modern plane service out of Dallas … every ship on the line is a Ford … tri-motored with the famous Wasp engines … two (instead of one) pilots … both licensed transport flyers. Meals aloft included in fare … magazines, maps, stationery … lavatories.

Air Transportation is More Than a Plane in the Sky!

When you fly with the pioneer, dependable National Air Transport division of United Air Lines, you ride with the largest air transportation corporation in the world. NAT and other divisions of United Air Lines have had 5 years’ experience … 25,000,000 miles of flying! … and employ only skilled ground crews and gov’t licensed mechanics. Fly NAT and enjoy the finest transportation equipment … U.S. lighted airway … radio … U.S. weather reports.

In an interesting side-note, the first pilot to fly a mail plane between Kansas City and Dallas (on May 12, 1926) was Richard Dobie, brother of Texas literary legend, J. Frank Dobie. In 1926 he flew a Curtiss Carrier Pigeon; in 1933, he’d worked his way up to the speedy and powerful Boeing. He flew for United for several years.

***

Sources & Notes

Top image is a promotional postcard, found on eBay.

Read more about the tri-motor airplane (manufactured by the Ford Motor Company and affectionately known as the “Tin Goose”) in the article “Ford’s Tri-Motor” by Edward J. Vinarcik (Advanced Materials and Processes, Oct. 2003) here.

All images larger when clicked.

3 Comments

September 2, 2015

The Giant Cash Register at the Texas Centennial — 1936

Before Big Tex we had Big Till (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

What’s not to love about a 65-foot-tall cash register? And how appropriate that this larger-than-life attraction was featured at the bigger-than-big Texas Centennial Exposition at Fair Park in 1936. This building, shaped like a very large National Cash Register (made under the auspices of noted designer Walter Dorwin Teague), served two purposes: its interior was an exhibit space to show off the company’s line of cash registers, and its exterior served as a giant tally board which was updated hourly to display the number of Centennial visitors. A similar giant cash register had been a popular feature at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933/34, and it was decided to commission one for the Texas Centennial (another one would show up at the New York World’s Fair in 1939).

At the risk of turning into a blog-realized Monty Python sketch (“This is Uncle Ted at the front of the house. This is Uncle Ted at the back of the house. And this is Uncle Ted at the side of the house….”), let’s take a look at this great big cash register from several slightly different angles.

Here it is under construction.

Here it is glowing in an ad with a tantalizingly dynamic illustration (click to see the illustration larger).

June, 1936

That text?

Towering in the air the height of a six-story building, this is the largest National Cash Register the world has ever seen.

In giant figures at the top of the register Centennial attendance is recorded.

Look for this outstanding feature of the Texas Centennial. See the electrical recording device accumulating the total of all attendance as the turn-stiles click, at each gate.

The huge figures at the top of the giant register tell the whole story of the Centennial attendance. A modern National Cash Register in your store will give you the whole story of what is happening in your business.

Here it is in a photo that, admittedly, looks a lot like the top photo — but take a closer look — those shrubs have gotten shrubbier.

And here it is towering over Mr. Fred S. Benge of Norman, Oklahoma, the Centennial’s millionth visitor. According to the report below, when Mr. Benge passed through the gates into Fair Park on June 25, 1936 (less than three weeks after the opening of the Exposition), the giant cash register numbers flipped over to “1,000,000” and the poor man was “pounced upon” by Centennial officials eager to make a spectacle of the momentous occasion. (In this photo, and two others I’ve seen, Mr. Benge does not look particularly amused at the situation.)

ncr_greenfield-indiana-daily-reporter_080636 The Greenfield (Indiana) Daily Reporter, Aug. 6,, 1936

UPDATE: Another photo of a somewhat stoic-looking Benge is here. An entertaining article about Mr. Benge’s big day is here. I sure hope Fred didn’t mind being described as a short and bald-headed jobless mechanic.

And here’s the “official photo,” which is a little bland and dowdy, but at least you can see what it looked like head-on.

And here it is, as seen from the other side of the lagoon.

Where exactly was this “six-story cash register” located? I believe it was at San Jacinto/1st Avenue & Forest Avenue (now MLK). I think it might have been one of the two unnamed attractions I’ve circled on the “Key Map of the Grounds.” (See the full unmarked map, from the University of Texas at Arlington, via the Portal to Texas History, here.)

You can see it in a detail from a photo of the Centennial fairgrounds I posted previously (see that post here) — the cash register is circled at the top right.

(click for larger image)

I’ll just keep adding new photos as I come across them. Below are two photos from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU (info is here and here). One of them shows a family standing in front of it — since Big Tex hadn’t arrived on the scene yet, this was as good a giant “thing” to stand in front of as anything!

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Sources & Notes

Top photo is from The Year America Discovered Texas: Centennial ’36 by Kenneth B. Ragsdale (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987); the photograph is from the collection of Texas author Elithe Hamilton Kirkland (Love Is a Wild Assault) who worked as the director of school publicity for the Centennial.

The State Fair of Texas Archives photo of the cash register under construction is from Fair Park by Willis Cecil Winters (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010). Another photo of the NCR register can be seen in Winters’ book here — in the bottom photo, it is the dark square in the background, left of center — you can see how it towered over everything around it.

The “shrubbier” photo is in the collection of the Dallas Historical Society, but I found it here, not identified as being the one at the Texas Centennial (if you click the picture in this interesting article, it will be super-super-gigantic).

Walter Dorwin Teague (1883-1960) was the man who not only designed the National Cash Register exhibit building, he also designed other Centennial-related attractions, including the Ford Building and the nearby cool-looking new-concept moderne Texaco station (at Commerce & Exposition). Read about him here.

1936

There were hopes that the Texas Centennial Exposition would attract in excess of ten million visitors over its six-month run, but the final numbers were just under six-and-a-half million. Pity. We had that great big tally machine sitting there and everything. Waiting.

Most pictures larger when clicked.

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August 31, 2015

Akard Street Looking South, 1887-2015

Akard Street from Pacific, ca. 1898, via Cook Collection, SMU

by Paula Bosse

I realized the other day that I have an inordinate number of photographs and postcards showing Akard Street looking south — usually taken from Pacific or Elm, so I thought I’d collect them all together. Some of these aren’t dated, so they’re not in strict chronological order, but I’ve made a half-hearted attempt to make sure horse-and-buggy photos are before the men-in-straw-hat-boaters, which are before the women-in-Miss-Crabtree-dresses, which are before the cars-with-rounded-bodies. It might be easiest to just assume they are not in chronological order. (All photos are larger when clicked — a couple are really big.)

The oldest is from 1887, when North Akard was still called Sycamore Street, and before the Oriental Hotel was built at Commerce and Akard in 1895.

Next up, an incredible photo, taken around 1898, a detail of which appears at the top of this post. The Oriental Hotel can now be seen at the end of Akard, at Commerce, where Akard used to make a dog-leg turn before continuing south, giving the appearance of a dead-end street.

via George W. Cook Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU

Another, with the Adolphus Hotel (built in 1912) now on the right, across Commerce from the Oriental. The tall building across Akard from the Adolphus is the Southwestern Life Building. The Gentry photography studio was at the southeast corner of Elm and Akard from 1912, which is probably the date of this postcard image. Construction of the Busch Building (now known as the Kirby Building) began in December, 1912.

via eBay

From 1925, with the new Baker Hotel having replaced the Oriental Hotel. This area was now being called “the canyon district” or “the canyon.”

In this great Frank Rogers photo, the canyon walls are getting higher, with the Adolphus Hotel firmly anchoring the Commerce corner across from the Baker.

via eBay

By the time this photo was taken in about 1936, Pegasus had become a part of the skyline, perched atop the Magnolia Petroleum Building. (Note the Queen Theater at the northeast corner of Elm and Akard.)

via Legacies History Journal

This photo is from the early- or mid-1930s — LOOK AT ALL THOSE PEOPLE.

via the DMA’s Uncrated blog

As opposed to this one, which has NO people in it.

via eBay

More canyon, this view showing the super-cool art-deco-y building at Elm and Akard with Ellan’s hat shop on the ground floor, late-1930s.

This candid photograph, a little deeper into the canyon, is one of my favorites. (Click to see a gigantic image.)

via eBay

From 1951 — a bit grainy, but a slightly closer view of the side of the Queen Theater at the left and the Mayfair department store, built in 1946, at the right:

akard_dpl_1951 via Dallas Public Library

And, finally, today. Pegasus and the Adolphus are still there, but the Baker Hotel was demolished in 1980, replaced by the One AT&T Plaza/Whitacre Tower.

via Google Street View, 2014

***

Sources & Notes

The photo dated by SMU as “circa 1898” is titled “Akard Street from Akard and Pacific Avenue Intersection”; it is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University, and it can be viewed here.

The circa 1936 photo showing Pegasus is from the Spring, 1989 issue of Legacies — here; it is from the Hayes Collection, Texas/Dallas Archives Division, Dallas Public Library, and is attributed to Denny Hayes.

The photo showing “ALL THOSE PEOPLE” is from the Dallas Museum of Art’s Uncrated blog — here — is from the Dallas Municipal Archives. They have the date as “1940,” but Liggett’s Drug Store was gone from Elm and Akard by 1936.

Other sources as noted.

Click pictures for larger images — sometimes MUCH larger images.

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