Flashback : Dallas

2025 headline-grabber

by Paula Bosse

2025 is taking its sweet time to undarken my doorstep. I don’t want to unnecessarily drag people down by launching into the difficult year this has been for me, but… it’s been a difficult year. Dealing with my mother’s failing health and her ultimate death took its toll. One part of my life affected was my ability to consistently update this blog, but whenever I was lucky enough to be able to sit down and focus on it, it was a relief and a welcome distraction. I missed writing this year, and I hope I can get back into some sort of more frequent activity here. I love writing about Dallas, and I’m hoping 2026 and I can make it work again.

Thank you to everyone who has read and commented this year. My nominee for most annoyingly overused word of 2026 is “algorithm,” but I have to acknowledge that it exists, and that mine (once healthy-ish) is now weak and sputtering. The only “algorithm reach” I’m getting these days seems to exist for other people who have scraped my content and regurgitated it into something bland and lifeless that litters the internet under a variety of anonymous, AI-powered social media pages. So maybe I should add “massage the algorithm until it likes me again” to my list of New Year’s resolutions! 2026, I’m expecting better things from you!

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These are the most popular Flashback Dallas posts of 2025, determined by reader activity and ranked in order by the number of page hits, comments, shares, etc. Read the full post by clicking the link in the title.

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1.  “DALLAS CITY HALL” (November)

This post was far and away the most popular Flashback Dallas post of the year. The photo above of architect I. M. Pei standing next to an under-construction City Hall was the most “liked” photo I’ve ever posted on Instagram, with thousands of people “liking” it — and a few people expressing how sick they were of the whole topic. And the topic? “Discussions Are Being Held About Tearing Down Dallas City Hall.” I’m kind of sick of hearing people talk about it, too, but there are so many reasons why people should be talking about it that we can’t ignore it. I mean, how are people even seriously considering this? We’re living in crazy, crazy times, man.

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2.  “MY MOTHER, MARGARET WERRY: 1936-2025” (May)

It’s impossible to try to sum up the full life of anyone, much less a parent, in something like a blog post. But I tried. My mother was a wonderful person, and I am very lucky to have had her in my life. I wish she knew how many people read this post about her life.

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3.  “LULU ROMAN, 1946-2025” (April)

This one is out of left field, but, yes, Lulu Roman — known by most people for her appearances on the TV show Hee Haw — was a Dallas native (Samuell High School).

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4.  “FISHER’S ADDITION, WEST DALLAS” (August)

I’m happy this one ranked as high as it did, because I really enjoyed writing it. West Dallas represent!

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5.  “LOOKING FOR THE HISTORICAL DALLAS MORNING NEWS ARCHIVE AT THE NEW DALLAS PUBLIC LIBRARY WEBSITE?” (July)

The ability to access the scanned archive of The Dallas Morning News is something that would be hard for me to live without. Luckily, the archive is available online — free — for all who have a Dallas Public Library card (or who visit the library in person). “But,” I hear many of you ask, “where are the POST-1984 archives?” Short answer: no idea. There are various rumors, but it’s probably easiest to say that there are unresolved contract negotiations (or at least a lack of any sort of publicly available updates), and we’re all waiting to find out when access to those years will return. No one I’ve asked knows what’s going on with this. Let’s hope those missing years return soon!

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6.  “‘THE MIRACLE MILE’ AND THE UTTERLY CONFUSING LOVER LANE(S) — 1954 (July)

This is the same problem seen along Mockingbird as it changes from “west” to “east” and moves in and out of the Park Cities. If you don’t know what I’m talking about and you would like your head to spin right off your shoulders, click through to read about what’s going on along The Miracle Mile.

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7.  “STILL HERE…” (March)

This was just a little note to readers explaining why I hadn’t been posting regularly and that I hadn’t disappeared completely.

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8.  “AN ARTIST’S CONCEPTION OF A FUTURE DALLAS” (January)

A collection of cool drawings on what a future Dallas might look like, if only voters would vote for the new Master Plan and approve it!

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9. “DALLAS IN THE ’20s” (September)

The only thing these photos had in common was that they were from the 1920s. It is what one would call “a smattering.”

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10. “LAKE HIGHLANDS VILLAGE — 1951” (April)

I live fairly close to this shopping area and was pretty excited when I saw this photo in a 1951 real estate ad.

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And this post closes out 2025, a year I am happy to see in my rear-view mirror. I look forward to a happier and more productive 2026, for all of us! As always, thank you so much for reading! And Happy New Year!

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Sources & Notes

See all three 2025 Year-End “best of” lists here.

See all Flashback Dallas Year-End lists — past and present — here.

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Copyright © 2025 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

I. M. Pei shows off his vision for a new City Hall (1970)

by Paula Bosse

2025 was not a good year for me. Or, sadly, for this blog. As most of my time and energy was spent caring for my mother and dealing with her difficult last few months, I feel that everything else around me suffered from unintentional neglect. After years of being possibly over-productive and posting perhaps too much (this blog contains almost 1,500 posts!), I looked at this year’s numbers, and I posted only 27 times — one month had no posts at all. And that surprises me, because, quite honestly, I thought the number would be a lot lower. I gotta get back on that horse. Thank you so much for sticking with me!

Because there were so few posts this year, I’ll decrease the number of year-end favorites to a lean Top Seven. Here are my personal favorites of 2025. I don’t know if I have a favorite, per se, but the one that I felt that I sort of had to write is my top post of the year, and the rest are listed chronologically. Click the titles to see the original posts (sources for all of the images used in this list will be found at the bottom of each of those posts).

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1.  “DALLAS CITY HALL” (November)

The prospect of our City Hall being torn down is pretty unbelievable. But, as a Dallas native who has written incessantly about my hometown for the past 12 years (and even before that), I have to say that, unbelievable as this is, it doesn’t surprise me. Except that this has eclipsed the standard Dallas stereotype of wanting something bigger and newer and shinier and pricier and glitzier and braggier and, now, emptier. We’re in a whole new dimension here. Not only is this a city hall (arguably the most important building in any city), this is an I. M. Pei building, one he designed for us — for the people of Dallas and for the city of Dallas. I look at Pei’s building almost every day. It means more to me now than it ever has. This post was written as an appreciation for an important work of public architecture by an internationally renowned architect, which is somehow — unbelievably — in danger of being torn down. But, to paraphrase the final, bleak, cynical line from a movie that was released when City Hall was being built, “Forget it, Jake — it’s Dallas.”

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2.  “AN ARTISTS’S CONCEPTION OF A FUTURE DALLAS” (January)

Check out this post to see several wonderful dark and moody sketches by artist Ignatz Sahula-Dycke that combine Art Deco and futuristic elements into super-cool visions of what public buildings and spaces might one day look like. The artwork is from around 1940, so we are living in that “future” right now.

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3.  “MY MOTHER, MARGARET WERRY, 1936-2025” (May)

My mother’s death is all I’ll probably remember about 2025 when I look back in future years. It helped to write this, but it’s the one thing I never wanted to write. I learned so much about Dallas from my mother, who grew up here. She had some wonderful stories that have shaped how I see our shared hometown.

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4. “WHEN BIG D HAD NO LOVE FOR BRUCE — 1974” (June)

My favorite posts to write are ones like this. I saw the ad below for a Bruce Springsteen show at the Sportatorium and wondered why I had never heard of that. …Because it never happened! That sent me down a Springsteen-in-Dallas rabbit hole (a sentence I can’t believe I just wrote). It’s always fun to stumble across some random piece of forgotten ephemera on the internet and then dive into the story behind it. And, as is usually the case, I ended up learning lots of interesting things in the process.

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5. “VAUDEVILLE AT THE SPORTATORIUM? — 1936” (July)

More Sportatorium! I discovered this story because of a truly unexpected ticket I saw on eBay. A lot of rabbit holes have involved the Sportatorium….

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6. “FISHER’S ADDITION, WEST DALLAS” (August)

I guess a lot of what I write about is spurred by seeing a photo or an ad or, in this case, a postcard and saying to myself, “What am I looking at here?” Researching this one was fun. Even more fun was having people see the post and contact me to say they had found what this same view looks like today. And even more fun was unexpectedly meeting those people and being able to thank them in person for giving me a sort of “closure” to the arc that began with seeing a postcard with a mysterious “Fisher’s” written on it and having no idea where this place I had never heard of once was.

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7. “DALLAS FIRE DEPARTMENT TRAINING TOWER, FAIR PARK — 1936” (October)

Yep. Same story: I saw this photo and wondered what I was looking at and why I had never seen this tower structure before. With help from people who follow the Flashback Dallas Facebook page, I found out what it was and then delved in and really enjoyed learning about this weird “building” incongruously plopped down in Fair Park. (Also, this look into the history of a forgotten Dallas building earned the ignominious distinction of being my LEAST-VIEWED POST OF THE YEAR!)

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And there they are, my personal faves of 2025. Not a banner year, but I was always happy (and relieved) when I could get away from everything and immerse myself in my hometown’s oddness and/or greatness.

Check back on Wednesday to see the readers’ most popular posts of 2025 (number 7 in the list above will definitely not be on that one!).

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Sources & Notes

As they are posted, the three Year-End “best of” lists from 2025 will be here.

See all Flashback Dallas “Year-End” lists — past and present — here.

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Copyright © 2025 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

“Gathering Pecans” by Otis Dozier (Amon Carter Museum)

by Paula Bosse

We’ve reached the end of another year. Time for lists! Here’s my first of three end-of-year lists. This one gives me an excuse to share some of my favorite artworks and photos one more time. Here are my Top 15, plus a couple of bonus pictures I shared on social media but not on the blog. These are my favorites from 2025, listed in the order in which they were posted. Click the titles to see the original posts.

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Above (a bit out of chronological order), is a 1941 mural (oil on canvas) by Dallas artist Otis Dozier titled “Gathering Pecans,” a New Deal work commissioned by the U.S. government to hang in the Arlington Post Office. It now hangs in the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. There is more below about the post this appeared in, “Hunting Pecans in the Park.” (Source: Amon Carter Museum of American Art)

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From a January post that I absolutely LOVED but which got criminally low traction out in readership-land: the futurist drawings of artist Ignatz Sahula-Dycke that appeared in the post “An Artist’s Conception of a Future Dallas.” I have always been a fan of futuristic illustrations (check out the spectacular work of artist Hugh Ferris — who was an obvious influence on Sahula-Dycke’s style — here), and the fact that we’ve got Deco-futurist “visions” of what Dallas might look like in the future is, for me, a fantastic combination. This is one of my favorites: the depiction of a new central library, with excitable text from (most likely) the Tracy-Locke advertising company, which employed Sahula-Dycke. (Source: Dallas Master Plan Vertical Files, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library)

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Speaking of the central library — where I now work (in the Dallas History & Archives department) — I saw this wonderful architectural drawing of the current downtown library when I pulled open a large print drawer. I think I gasped and then promptly snapped this photo. (This drawing of the future library even includes the library’s prized sculpture by Harry Bertoia hanging inside the entrance.) From the March post “A Few Photo Additions to Past Posts — #24.” (Source: Dallas Public Library Archives, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library)

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One day while browsing around eBay, I came across a perfectly nice postcard of Main Street — in fact, I don’t think I had ever seen the postcard — but I have to admit, I didn’t get really enthusiastic about it until I zoomed in on the “hat,” seen below in a cropped detail. From the May post “Whimsy on Main Street — ca. 1906.” (Source: eBay)

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I think more people than you might realize are mildly obsessed with all-things-Sportatorium. This aerial photo of the original Sportatorium (which burned down in 1953 and was rebuilt) (but not as a hexagon!) is amazing. From “Vaudeville at the Sportatorium? — 1936,” posted in July. (Source: from World Class Memories, a wrestling website)

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I can’t fully explain why I love this photo so much. I guess it falls under the “nostalgia for a time I never knew” category. It looks nothing like Dallas. The house in the foreground was somehow still standing until three or four years ago. From the July post “McKell Street’s Golden Age.” (Source: real photo postcard from eBay)

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I’ve seen so many postcards of Dallas over the years. So many! But I’d never seen this one. And I’d never heard of a place called “Fisher’s.” Read about it in the August post “Fisher’s Addition, West Dallas.” (Source: eBay)

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I love this fantastic photo from the August post “Martinez Brothers, Eagle Ford — 1939.” (Source: Dallas Neighborhood Stories Grant Collection, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library)

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I love homes designed in the 1910s, the 1920s, and the 1930s. This is one of many houses I’ve come across while doing this blog that I’ve deemed “dream homes.” It’s from “Dallas in the ’20s” from September. (Source: R. M. Williamson Collection, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library)

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It seems like I should have seen this aerial view of Fair Park before, but I don’t think I had. It’s pretty amazing. It’s from the National Achives and Records Administration (NARA) and was shot over Fair Park (and the surrounding neighborhood) during the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936. The photo was uploaded to Wikipedia in a very, very high resolution. It’s spectacular. Click the photo below to see the image on Wikipedia and keep zooming in! From the October post “Dallas Fire Department Training Tower, Fair Park — 1936.”

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I thought this was the perfect photo for the time-change! From “Time to Fall Back, Unless You’re Hanging from the Mercantile,” posted in November. (Source: Richards Group Collection, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library)

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The unthinkable is happening: the City Council is mulling over the idea of tearing down Dallas City Hall, designed by internationally renowned architect I. M. Pei. How is that even possible? This is my favorite photo of Pei, which I found while going through Dallas Times Herald photos and vertical files at the library. It’s such a great image (taken by Times Herald photographer Jay Dickman in 1976). A lot of people seem to like it as much as I do — this photo has garnered more response on Instagram than anything else I’ve ever posted. From the November post “Dallas City Hall.” I also liked the two photos I took of the iconic building, one of which I’ll include in this list. (Sources: Dallas Times Herald Collection, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library; photo of City Hall at sundown taken by Paula Bosse on Oct. 23, 2025)

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The companion to the Otis Dozier mural at the top of this post is this photo of mothers and children collecting pecans in White Rock Lake Park. More than any other photo I posted all year, this took me back to my childhood, when my brother and I often went to White Rock Lake to gather pecans with our mother on crisp autumn days. From the November post “Hunting Pecans in the Park.” (Source: Hayes Collection, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library)

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Bonus if you’ve read this far: Speaking of Instagram, the photo below was one I found in the library’s photo archives (such an amazing thing to have access to!), and I had hoped it would be shared on the DPL’s social media platforms during Classical History Month, but, for whatever reason, it didn’t make the cut — so I shared it on my Instagram (but not on the blog). I love this photo so, so much. It shows Walter Hendl, conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1949 to 1959, intently studying a music score in 1953. (Source: Hayes Collection, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library)

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Bonus #2. In March, I went to the Preservation Dallas-sponsored tour of the Scottish Rite Cathedral downtown, a place I had always wanted to see inside of. I meant to write about it but managed to post only a few of my photos to the Flashback Dallas Patreon account. This was one of my favorites — a view from the second-floor balcony looking west. I should still post those photos here on the blog! (Source: photo by Paula Bosse)

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Lastly, 2025 was the year I lost my mother. I included this very sassy photo of her as a child in the May post “My Mother, Margaret Werry: 1936-2025.” 2025 had its ups and downs (mostly downs), but this photo always makes me smile. (Source: author’s personal collection)

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There they are! Check back before the end of the year to see other year-end “Best Of” lists.

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Sources & Notes

As they are posted, the three Year-End “best of” lists from 2025 will be here.

See all Flashback Dallas “Year-End” lists — past and present — here.

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Copyright © 2025 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.