Flashback : Dallas

A Miscellany: History, Ads, Pop Culture

Tag: Dallas TX

July 25, 2015

Thank You, Weird Hollywood!

weird_hollywood

by Paula Bosse

Thank you, Joe Oesterle, for the very flattering post on your (great) Weird Hollywood Facebook page! His mystery photo of the Gunther Castle was a lot of fun to research (the “castle” was at 2308 Pacific Avenue in Long Beach, California), and, yes, as a matter of fact, I’d love to help you research a building or person or old news story or mystery photo. I CAN be bought! If you have inquiries, please click the “Contact” tab at the top of the page and send me an email. If there’s something I can help you with, we’ll talk turkey.

As this is a blog devoted to Dallas history, the Hollywood stories are a bit scarce (even though classic Hollywood and entertainment history is a passion of mine), but there are a few. These Flashback Dallas posts might appeal to those new visitors more interested in Hollywood than Dallas: (click title to see post):

Thanks again for the kind words, Joe! And keep Hollywood weird!

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 24, 2015

The Magnolia Building, Pre-Pegasus — 1920s

magnolia-bldg_pre-pegasus_RPPC_smBeautiful!

by Paula Bosse

This is such a wonderful photo of the Magnolia Petroleum Building — even without Pegasus on top of it! When it opened in 1922, it was the tallest building in the state — all 29 stories of it. (It was so tall, apparently, that the photographer couldn’t get the whole building in the shot!) It certainly looks impressive — and impressively ominous — in this photograph. An added bonus is the beer-stein-shaped turret of the Adolphus Hotel peeking around at the left. Fantastic photo!

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Sources & Notes

Photograph from a postcard found on eBay; written on the back is this message to folks back home in Oklahoma City: “Arrived at 11:30 PM. in this burg. It’s some big place, believe me.”

Brief history of what is now the Magnolia Hotel, is here. (Pegasus was not placed on top of the building until 1934.)

Some more Flashback Dallas posts featuring my favorite views of the Magnolia Building (with and without Pegasus):

  • here — photos showing the major change in the skyline between 1929 and 1939
  • here — incredible photo of the skyline taken from The Cedars, by Alfred Eisenstaedt
  • here — the Magnolia Bldg. lit up at night, with the Mercantile Bank Bldg. in the background
  • here — one of my favorite postcards of Dallas, showing the city at night, with Pegasus the highest point on the horizon

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 23, 2015

Nardis Sign-Painters: “Everything In Sportswear” — 1948

nardis_sign-painters_ebay_1948You don’t see this much anymore (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

I’m sure there were people in the past who thought that advertising painted directly onto buildings was as tacky as billboards are today, but I love it, and, sadly this type of sign-painting has become something of a lost art. Here we see men painting a sign for the successful apparel manufacturer Nardis Sportswear (later, Nardis of Dallas). The company’s corporate headquarters appears to have been on Browder street, with manufacturing factories on N. Austin and S. Poydras streets. The sign in the photo would seem to have been painted on the side of one of the factory buildings.

nardis_1948-directory1948 city directory

nardis_1952-mapsco1952 Mapsco

I think all these Nardis buildings are gone, so we don’t even get any faded ghost signs to remind us that Dallas was once a large-ish garment manufacturing center.

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Sources & Notes

Photo — dated 1948 on reverse, with stamp of the Hank Tenny Studio at 1420 Wood Street — found on eBay.

My previous post on the Nardis company — “Nardis of Dallas: The Fashion Connection Between ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ and the Kennedy Assassination” — can be found here.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

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July 22, 2015

“Our First Joy Ride” — 1911

mule-joyride_pop-mechanics_jan-1912Mules taking a load off, Main & Ervay, 1911

by Paula Bosse

Flipping through the pages of a Jan. 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics — as one does — I came across a photo of a truckload of joyriding mules which was accompanied by this explanatory text:

mule-joyride_pop-mechanics_jan-1912-text

Ah, a publicity stunt. A Chicago newspaper offered a bit more background, and gave us the delightful phrase “joy-riding equine debutantes.”

mules_chicago-inter-ocean_102311Chicago Inter Ocean, Oct. 23, 1911

Another report added that the mules were “adorned with a collection of discarded women’s hats and bonnets elaborated with all the old ribbons, feathers and similar gee-gaws […] securely tied on with pink and red mosquito netting…. The procession was headed by Dallas’ most prominent business men in a brand new White 1912 ’30.'” (Automobile Topics magazine, Oct. 28, 1911)

Despite the fact that this, let’s face it, pretty unusual “parade” happened on Main St., with apparent participation by “prominent businessmen,” I can find no mention of it in local newspapers. Maybe because it was a publicity stunt and there was no advertising fee collected by the papers. The story ran in a handful of newspapers (Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, DC), and the Washington Post ran the photo below under the headline “New Way to Advertise Motor Trucks.”

mules_washington-post_102211Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1911

The White Motor Company (makers of the mule-laden truck) must have been quite taken with the unnamed entrepreneur’s banner, because they used the exact same wording on a banner draped on one of their trucks which was a featured attraction on Transportation Day at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

Let’s hope the original Dallas guy got a little something out of all this.

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On further investigation into The Case of the Joyriding Mules, it appears that this was the brainchild of the General Manager of the White Motor Co., A. E. Creeger (or perhaps that of one of his gung-ho underlings). In a 1912 article in The Dallas Morning News, Creeger talks about the relatively soft truck market in Texas (!), and it’s easy to see why he was doing all he could to draw attention to his company’s line of trucks — even if it meant loading them up with “emancipated” livestock.

And here’s one of his ads from almost exactly one year after the mule stunt:

white-motor-co_dmn_101312Oct. 13, 1912

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Sources & Notes

Top photo appeared in the January, 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics.

The “parade” (which took place sometime in the middle of October, 1911) is seen heading west on Main Street, just about to pass Ervay. The inescapable Wilson Building dominates the photo, with the tall, white Praetorian Building in the background. The restaurant at the right — at 1705 Main — was the California Restaurant, a Dallas eatery specializing in Chinese food since at least the 1890s.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 18, 2015

Radio Broadcasting, 1922-Style

wfaa-control-room_belo_smu_1922WFAA “newsreader,” 1922 (click for larger image) Belo Collection, SMU

by Paula Bosse

This fantastic photo shows the interior of a little shack-like building on top of the old Dallas Morning News building at Commerce & Lamar, soon after WFAA radio had begun broadcasting in the summer of 1922. There are so many things I love about this photo. Let’s explore the details. (All pictures are larger when clicked.)

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The Magnavox speaker/monitor.

wfaa-control-room_belo_smu_det1

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The booster seat and the shoes that need a shine.

wfaa-control-room_belo_smu_det2

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The announcer at work. (I’m assuming this telephone was being used as an early microphone?) The newspaper is The Dallas Journal, sister publication of The Dallas Morning News which owned WFAA radio. The headlines appear to be about the nationwide railroad and coalminers’ strikes, both of which had been getting more and more violent throughout July of 1922 (violence surrounding the railroad strike led to Texas Governor Pat Neff declaring martial law in Denison that month).

wfaa-control-room_belo_smu_det3

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The control panel (which has its own fan).

wfaa-control-room_belo_smu_det4

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And an open window around the corner, in the supervisor’s office. Cross-ventilation and oscillating fans might not have been hugely effective in keeping operators and machinery cool in the summertime.

wfaa-control-room_belo_smu_det5

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Here’s another view of the “Operating Room,” as published in the DMN on June 25, 1922, the day before WFAA began broadcasting.

wfaa_operating-room_dmn_062522DMN, June 25, 1922

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Photo titled “WFAA Radio Original Control Panel” from the Belo Papers collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be viewed here.

A companion post to this, “WFAA’s ‘Altitudinous Antenna System'” — which contains a background of WFAA’s debut and several photographs — is here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on Dallas Radio and TV are here.

Click pictures for larger images.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 17, 2015

WFAA Radio’s “Altitudinous Antenna System”

wfaa_towers_1920s_belo-coll_degolyerSeems … “busy” … (click for larger image) Belo Collection, SMU

by Paula Bosse

Broadcast radio was very, very, very new when WFAA radio went on the air in June, 1922; it was Dallas’ second radio station, but it was the city’s first commercial station, and its debut was a BIG deal. (WRR had preceded WFAA, but it was mainly used for city business.) Figuring out where to place towers and aerials and antennae (which may all be the same thing, for all I know) was a major problem, with not a lot of precedents. So why not just do what they did in the photo above?

WFAA began broadcasting at 12:30 p.m. on June 26, 1922, and the day before that, a giddy and surprisingly technical article appeared in The Dallas Morning News (which owned WFAA). The full article is linked below, but this is the specific passage devoted to those towers/aerials/antennae:

wfaa-towers_dmn_062522DMN, June 25, 1922

I’m not sure if the photo at the top was from these first days (it appeared, undated, in the DMN in 1927), but here is a photo that accompanied the above article from 1922:

wfaa_tower_dmn_062522

Is that a little building? Why, yes it is.

WFAA. It began as a 50-watt station. Its studios occupied all of a 9×9-foot shack on top of the old Dallas Morning News Building. Its antennae were strung from a water tank on the The New building to a 20-foot mast on top of the Texas Bank Building. (DMN, May 21, 1950)

When WFAA began, it broadcast from inside of and on top of the old Dallas Morning News building, which was located at Commerce and Lamar. By 1927, it had moved its studios to swankier digs in the Baker Hotel. Below, another description of how the rooftop aerial situation — the “altitudinous antenna system” seen at the photo at the top of this post — functioned at this time.

One of the big towers is on top of the lofty Dallas Mercantile Bank Building, while the other is atop the high Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway Building. The wires are connected with the WFAA operating room on the roof of the Dallas Morning News Building between the two other structures. (DMN, Feb. 20, 1927)

But back to that little shack. Let’s see it a bit closer. Here’s the exterior.

wfaa_rooftop-broadcasting-room_belo-degolyerBelo Collection, SMU

And here’s the interior.

wfaa-studio_ca1922_belo-degolyerBelo Collection, SMU

The generator and battery room.

wfaa_generator-battery_dmn_062522DMN, June 25, 1922

And the supervisor’s office.

wfaa_supervisors-office_dmn_062522DMN, June 25, 1922

And Dallas broadcasting never looked back from its humble beginnings.

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ad-white-electric-co-detail_dmn_062522Advertising detail, June 25, 1922

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wfaa-logo_dmn_062522

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Sources & Notes

Photographs from the Belo Records Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University. Top photo can be accessed here; rooftop “broadcasting room” (exterior) is here; “broadcasting room” (interior) is here. More photos here. (The interior and exterior shots of the studio seem to be from 1922. The announcer is reading from the DMN’s sister publication, The Dallas Journal, which contains an article about a subject hot in the news in July, 1922 — a strike by Kentucky coal miners.)

A Belo photo identified as showing the room containing the “Transmitter on top of The Dallas Morning News building, 1924” is here.

To read the article describing how WFAA (which, by the way, at some point stood for “Working For All Alike”) was put together — how it was literally put together — see the Dallas Morning News article “Most Complete Radio Station in the Southwest to Begin Broadcasting” (June 25, 1922), written by R. M. Lane, here, and the accompanying photos here.

See the companion Flashback Dallas post, “Radio Broadcasting, 1922-Style,” here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on WFAA radio can be found here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on Dallas Radio & TV can be found here.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 14, 2015

Neiman-Marcus / France-Texas / A-Z — 1957

n-m_french_ad_cover-smMais oui!

by Paula Bosse

Bastille Day again already? It seems to come earlier every year. Last year I wrote about the 1957 Neiman-Marcus French Fortnight — the very first fortnight celebration. This year I thought I would present a few of the pages from the lavish advertising supplement Neiman’s placed in the October, 1957 issues of American and French Vogue. The mini-catalog was titled “Neiman-Marcus Brings France to Texas, Everything From A to Z.” (Link to the entire ad insert is below.) Here we have “C,” “R,” “V,” and “Z.” Enjoy a flashback to fabulous ’50s fashion photography. And Happy Bastille Day!

n-m_french-ad_cn-m_french_ad_rn-m_french_ad_vn-m_french-ad_zClick to read a list of events and exhibits happening around the store.

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These pages are from a reprint of a 30-plus-page 1957 Neiman-Marcus advertising spread; from the collection of Stanley Marcus’ papers at the DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University. This is the very epitome of high-fashion advertising of the 1950s, and the sophisticated-but-fun-and-frothy art direction is wonderful. The entire mini-catalog has been scanned by SMU, and it can be viewed in a PDF, here.

My previous post “Neiman-Marcus Brings France to Big D — 1957” — which gives some background on this first N-M fortnight celebration and contains a great photo of the exterior of the downtown store elaborately decorated to resemble the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré — can be found here.

All images larger when clicked.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 13, 2015

Locomotive & The White Swan Building

white-swan-bldg_locomotive_flickr_colteraBack when the N. Lamar area was a bit more industrial

by Paula Bosse

Just a quick one today: loco chugging past the White Swan Building.

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Sources & Notes

Image from Flickr, captioned “Vintage postcard: MKT railroad engine, White Swan Building, Dallas, Texas”; viewable on Flickr here.

The historic White Swan Building is located at 2200 N. Lamar, just north of Woodall Rodgers; it currently houses the House of Blues.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 11, 2015

Newsboy

newsboy_RPPC_ebay_sm“Nickel a copy, mister.”

by Paula Bosse

In 1912, The Dallas Morning News reported that there were over 700 newsboys in the city of Dallas, over 200 messenger boys, and “hundreds of other working boys between the ages of 6 and 17” (DMN, July 19, 1912). Some of these boys were working to help out their families, but many were homeless. Child labor was a major concern throughout the country, and most larger cities, such as Dallas, had “newsie homes” and associations to look after the interests of the boys.

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Sources & Notes

Newsboy photo found on eBay.

To read “Story of a Street Waif” (DMN, Dec. 22, 1912) — a somewhat Dickensian fictionalized account of a resilient Dallas newsboy written by Mrs. M. L. Kauffman (Sam Houston’s granddaughter, the former Margaret Belle Houston) — click here.

Photographer Lewis Wickes Hine had perhaps the greatest impact on the reform of child labor laws. Hine traveled the country photographing and interviewing working children in order to put a human face to a growing problem. Some of his photos can be seen here; his Wikipedia entry is here.

Photos of newsboys from previous Flashback Dallas posts can be found here.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 10, 2015

Salvador Dali Brings “Nuclear Mysticism” to Dallas — 1952

dali_union-station_feb-1952_dplDali does Dallas (in a slanted doorway at Union Station)

by Paula Bosse

The artist and pop phenomenon Salvador Dali came to Dallas in 1952 to present a lecture at McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus as part of the popular Community Course series. This was during his “Nuclear Mysticism” period, during which his paintings were influenced by the atomic age, science, and religion. One of the examples of this direction in his art is his painting “Raphaelesque Head Exploding” from 1951.

dali-raphaelesque-head_1951“Raphaelesque Head Exploding”

This 1952 American lecture tour included at least three stops in Texas: Houston, Fort Worth, and Dallas. Dali and his wife, Gala, arrived in Dallas on the afternoon of Thursday, February 14, 1952, after the artist had spoken at a members-only event and luncheon at Fort Worth’s River Crest Country Club earlier in the day. The lecture at McFarlin Auditorium was on Saturday night, Feb. 16. One wonders what he did in Dallas on his free day Friday.

While in Dallas, Dali was interviewed at the Baker Hotel by Paul Crume of the Morning News, a bit of an odd choice, in that Crume — author of the very popular front-page “Big D” column — was generally the paper’s go-to humor writer, an indication, perhaps, that Dali was considered less of a serious artist than as a quirky and larger-than-life entertainer. Which… fair enough.

One of the interesting little morsels that Dali told Crume was that he was amazed that his dreams in Texas had all been in technicolor, a relative rarity for him.

“Astonishing! In New York, all black and white. In Texas, all in color. In Italy, everybody dreams in color. In France, not so much. It is very mysterious. But in Houston, I am dream in color twice. And then, last night here [in Dallas].” (DMN, Feb. 17, 1952)

Dali loved dreaming in technicolor and mentioned it several times throughout his career. This little tidbit from Earl Wilson’s column in 1944 is amusing (if weighted down by Wilson’s unfortunate lapses into dialect).

dali_earl-wilson_112644New York Post, Nov. 26, 1944

To dream in technicolor every time “is very dangerous. Dreams in color every time is a terrific symptom of madness.” …I’m not sure what that says about Texas and/or Texans.

dali-caricature_technicolor

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Sources & Notes

Top photo (dated Feb. 15, 1952) shows Salvador Dali standing in a slanted doorway at Union Station in Dallas (it seems likely that the photo was taken on Feb. 14th when he arrived in Dallas from Fort Worth, and was then published on Feb. 15th); it is from the Hayes Collection, Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library (Call Number PA76-1/7171).

(Regarding this crooked door frame at Union Station: when Dali saw it he exclaimed, “A Dali-an door!”) (He would have loved Casa Magnetica at Six Flags.)

Articles about Dali’s visit to Dallas can be found in the archives of The Dallas Morning News:

  • “Key to New Art Revealed by Dali” (It’s Mysticism)” — an unbylined review, probably written by Paul Crume (DMN, Feb. 17, 1952)
  • “Texas Tints Dreams of Artist Dali” — interview by Paul Crume, conducted in the Baker Hotel (DMN, Feb. 17, 1952)
  • “Big D” column by Paul Crume (DMN, Feb. 19, 1952)

An entertaining 1965 appearance by Dali on Merv Griffin’s talk show can be seen here. He talks about dreaming in “glorious technicolor” at about 4:55. And, I mean… it’s just a great example of Dali as entertainer.

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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

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