Historic Dallas | Flashback : Dallas

November 23, 2023

Colony Club Billboard in Beautiful Kodachrome — Early 1960s

Downtown Dallas has it all…

by Paula Bosse

This. Is. A. Fantastic. Photo.

If only for the great, great, great Colony Club (“the best of the undressed”) billboard featuring Chris Colt (“the girl with the 45s”).

See this same view of the (one-time) intersection of Elm, Ervay, and Live Oak here and here. (The dazzling animated neon Coca-Cola sign was once where Chris Colt is showing off her 45s.)

I almost never post images with watermarks, but this photo is pretty spectacular. Look around the watermark!

I don’t know the seller of this color slide. I have no affiliation with the person. I get no cut in any sale. But I want someone reading this to BUY IT! Let’s keep this with someone who loves Dallas history! (And if you DO buy it and would like to send me a digital copy… well, I wouldn’t say no!) See this slide currently on eBay HERE. (HURRY!)

To see a naughty photo of Chris Colt, you can click on an antique collectors’ website here.

Colony Club ad, Nov. 22, 1962

And below is a photo of Colony Club owner Abe Weinstein in his younger years counting his moolah.

photo: Dallas Jewish Historical Society

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Sources & Notes

Top image is from a color slide in a current eBay listing here. (Seller’s title: “Original Slide Dallas St Scene Colony Club Coca Cola Billboards Southland Life.”) There is no date, but Golden Steer Barbecue opened at 1713 Live Oak sometime in 1961.

Abe Weinstein photo — from his days as the co-owner of Abe’s and Pappy’s — is from the Facebook page of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society.

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7 Comments

November 23, 2023

An Elegant Thanksgiving Dinner at the Windsor Hotel — 1877

by Paula Bosse

Behold, a feast of yesteryear (and this is just the game and fish dishes):

Dallas Herald, Nov. 25, 1877

AN ELEGANT DINNER

The champion dinner of the season will be served at the Windsor to-day. Colonel Whitla is anticipating Thanksgiving day in this dinner, but he tells us that he will not forget the occasion, which will be remembered in a suitable manner at his hotel. The bill of fare to-day is the most elaborate one yet presented to the patrons of the Windsor.

The manager took time by the forelock and made his orders by telegraph for the particular edibles for the occasion. Last night we were shown a bill of fare for the dinner, by Mr L. J. Faessler, chief cook of the hotel. We have neither time nor space to mention the same entire, but can say that among the game and fish appears green sea turtle, black and red groupper and the sheep’s head, venison, antelope, quail, wild turkey, jack rabbit, opossum, oysters on shell, deviled crabs, and red-headed and canvas-backed ducks, etc.

Hava a Happy (Possom-Free) Thanksgiving!

***

Sources & Notes

Top ad for the Grand-Windsor Hotel from the 1878 Dallas directory. Originally two hotels (the Le Grande Hotel and the Windsor Hotel), they were joined by a little “sky-bridge” over Austin Street when they merged. See the Grand-Windsor on the 1885 Sanborn map here. (The room rates of $2-$3 back then would be the equivalent of about $60-$90, if you trust inflation calculators.)

Article is from the Nov. 25, 1877 edition of the Dallas Daily Herald, via the Portal to Texas History.

More Flashback Dallas posts on Thanksgiving can be found here;

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4 Comments

November 21, 2023

JFK & Dallas — 60th Anniversary

by Paula Bosse

What more can be said about this subject? The city of Dallas and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy will, sadly, be tied together forever. I wonder how the city’s evolution would have been different had this horrible event never happened?

A few related Flashback Dallas posts from the past decade:

“Kennedy Memorial and the County Courthouses — Early 1970s” (2020)
“Jack Ruby, Boxing Fan — 1958” (2019)
“The JFK Assassination and Television Firsts — 1963” (2018)
“Newly Discovered Footage of Jack Ruby — 1960” (2017)
“Aerial View of the JFK Memorial — 1970” (2017)
“November 22, 1963: Will Fritz and the JFK Investigation” (2016)
“The Official Government Reenactment of the Kennedy Assassination — Nov. 27, 1963” (2016)
“HR Meeting at the Carousel Club” (2015)
“The First JFK Assassination Reenactment — 1963” (2015)
“Dealey Plaza, From Above — 1960s” (2015)
“The Southern Rock Island Plow Company” (AKA the Texas Schoolbook Depository) (2015)
“Old Red Goes Hollywood (sort of…) — 1964” (2014) (includes a link to “The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald,” the full made-in-Dallas film by Larry Buchanan)
“JFK Aftermath: Chaos at the City Desk — 1963” (2014)
“JFK’s ‘Last Hour In Dallas’ — 1963” (2014)
“The Sexton Foods Building and the Former Life of the School Book Depository” (2014)
“Nardis of Dallas: The Fashion Connection Between ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ and the Kennedy Assassination” (2014)
“Dear JFK: Welcome to Big “D” — Love, DP” (2014)
“Where to Put That JFK Memorial? — 1964” (2014)

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Sources & Notes

Postcard sent to me many years ago by someone known only as “Amy from Dallas.” (Thank you, Amy!) The text from the back of the card is here.

This postcard — which carries the title “President Kennedy’s Assassination and Memorial Site, Dallas, Texas/Collector’s Photo,” ©1964, Joe C. Melton, Publisher, Dallas — comes in more than one version. A later version has the same image, but with a couple of exceptions: the later version has an inset of a Kennedy half-dollar coin in the upper left corner, and the three guys standing behind the “Men of St. Bernard’s Church” memorial wreath have been completely erased from postcard history (as have the words “Men of St. Bernard’s Church”). Unless I’ve stumbled upon new conspiracy fodder, the photographer probably failed to get the men to sign a release form.

Side note: regarding that wreath, this sentence appeared in a Dallas Morning News article the day after Oswald was killed (“‘Oh, My God — He’s Dead'” by Joe Thornton, Nov. 25, 1963): “People took pictures of their families standing behind the white-flowered cross erected in memory of President Kennedy by the Men of St. Bernard’s Catholic Church.” St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic Church is in East Dallas, at 1404 Old Gate Lane.

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3 Comments

November 20, 2023

Jack Walton’s Hot Barbecue

Restaurant No. 1, Haskell & San Jacinto…

by Paula Bosse

Arden Lee “Jack” Walton was born in Panola County (on his World War I registration card, he listed his home as Fairplay, Texas, which a town name I’m certainly glad to know exists). After the war, he moved to Dallas and opened his first restaurant — Walton’s Place — around 1925 or 1926. By the 1930s, he seems to have settled on barbecue as his primary specialty and had several of his self-named restaurants/drive-ins around town, branching out to Fort Worth in the early ’40s.

The photo above, from about 1946, is probably Walton’s first location, at Haskell and San Jacinto in Old East Dallas. The two photos below — showing a man working on the neon sign — were taken at the same time. (The photographer, James Bell, was a Dallas native back in town visiting — he took tons of unusual photos, often focusing on trucks, buses, cars, juke boxes, and various coin-operated machines. I’m sure he liked the look of the truck. They’re definitely amateur photos, but they’re great.)

The photo that crops up on places all over El Internet (the photo below) is one which has a variety of conflicting information attached to it, including photographer, date, and location. As far as I can tell, I think the photo was taken by Arthur Rothstein in Fort Worth, in the very early ’40s (the FW location, at 1900 E. Lancaster, opened around 1940). I think most of the locations had a similar design. (See a typical menu here.)

Here’s another photo (location unknown):

from the book Smokelore

Walton was very successful in his toasted sandwich endeavors (he also made some savvy real estate deals). When he died, he was described as “the barbecue baron of Dallas.”

…When he died. Jack Walton died on Feb. 19, 1960, at the age of 62. He was visiting one of his restaurants, at Tom Field Circle and Hwy. 183. The manager — Jack’s brother-in-law — had been drinking on the job, and Jack fired him on the spot. So the brother-in-law shot him, telling the police later that Walton “started fussing at me and told me to get out.” He shot him at close range, so inebriated that only two of the shots hit their target. He was DOA at Baylor. (Read the AP wire story here.)

At least one of Walton’s restaurants was taken over by the Semos family — the Haskell location lasted under non-Walton management for quite a while.

When I saw this matchbook cover several years ago, I was quite taken with the phrase “toasted chicken loaf.” What was a “chicken loaf”? I have to say, it didn’t sound that appetizing.

Chicken loaf was (apparently) a very popular food in days gone by, similar to meat loaf (it was made with chopped, shredded, or minced chicken, eggs, breadcrumbs/rice/some sort of cereal, etc., with the addition of hard-boiled eggs and/or pimentos and/or peas and/or whatever else was lying around). There are lots of ads in newspapers beginning around 1900 showing it as a “potted” meat, sold in cans alongside Underwood Deviled Ham and Vienna sausages, etc. I can understand this as a cost-saving meal during the Depression, but it was also very popular in restaurants (several local restaurants advertised that they sold entire take-out “loafs”), and it was a favorite of many as a Sunday dinner (or as a way to use leftover chicken in the pre- and post-casserole days). By the ’40s, recipes started adding the dreaded gelatin (“Jellied Chicken Loaf”). Um, yes. There was also … wait for it … MOCK chicken loaf! I’m not sure what that was, but it probably got people through WWII and food-rationing.

While searching for “chicken loaf” info in the Dallas Morning News archives, I saw a few delicacies listed in grocery ads which one might be hard pressed to find on the shelves of one’s local supermarket today: oyster loaf, liver loaf, and deviled tongue — all sold in cans. There was also a New Year’s Eve recipe in there for “Hot Sardine Canapes,” with toast “cut in fancy shapes.”

FYI.

***

Sources & Notes

First three photos were taken by James Bell in about 1946; they are from the James H. Bell Collection, Dallas Historical Society — they can be accessed here, here, and here. (I have straightened and cropped the photos.)

The photo which is probably by Arthur Rothstein is from the Traces of Texas Facebook page.

Menu detail art is from Worthpoint; matchbook scans from eBay.

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5 Comments

November 13, 2023

Ads, Ads, Ads, Ads, and a Few More Ads — 1916

Vibrolithic Pavement, y’all…

by Paula Bosse

I have always been fascinated by vintage advertising. I haven’t posted ads in a while, so here are a whole bunch of them, from 1916. 107-year-old ads. Let’s call them historical ads. All are from the same publication (linked at the bottom of this post).

My favorite ads are those that contain photos or highly detailed drawings of buildings, especially if those buildings no longer exist — like the one above, which has a long-gone Dallas landmark in the background: the ad for the VIBROLITHIC CONSTRUCTION CO. shows paving work going on in front of St. Mary’s College in East Dallas at Garrett & Ross (more can be found about the girls’ school in this post, scroll down to “St. Mary’s”).

CLEM LUMBER CO., 2500 Live Oak (at Hawkins). “Every stick a dry one.”

S. G. DAVIS HAT COMPANY, Jackson & S. Austin. Built in 1913 — still standing.

VOORHEES & BURDSAL, Photographers, 912½ Elm.

THE NEW GALLOUPE HOTEL, 2009 Main (across from the Municipal Building). “New, beautiful, best.”

GEO. W. LOUDERMILK FUNERAL DIRECTOR & EMBALMBER, 1935 Main. “First ambulance service in Dallas.”

THE NEWPORT THEATRE, 1505 Elm (near Akard, next door to the Queen Theater). A movie theater I’ve never heard of. It opened in 1915 and closed a couple of years later when it burned. “A family theatre for women and children.”

CHAS. OTT, Locksmith, etc., 1003 Elm. “Motorcycles, bicycles and supplies, locksmiths, guns, dynamite, ammunition […] second-hand safes.” Something for everyone! I wrote about Ott’s previously, here.

SEARS-ROEBUCK & CO., S. Lamar & Belleview. The “immense building” was built in stages between 1910 and 1913. Sears may be holding on for dear life in the 21st century, but its former HQ is thankfully still standing. (More here — scroll down to #10.)

IDEAL LAUNDRY, 3210-24 Ross Avenue. Oh, Ross, I don’t even recognize you anymore…. “Absolutely sanitary.”

W. A. GREEN & CO. department store, 1516-18 — still standing.

KLEIN BROS. CO., southeast corner of N. Walton and Junius. You might have seen this company’s name stamped in sidewalks all over town. “The sidewalk builders.”

SMITH & LAMAR, Booksellers, 1305 Commerce Street. “Don’t fail to visit.”

NEW PROCESS ROOFING & SUPPLY CO., 802-10 Cadiz (I think this is where the Alamo Drafthouse now sits).

EVEREADY STORAGE BATTERY CO., 431 S. Ervay (now the site of the Dallas Public Library). See what it looked like here. “Free from ruinous sulphation.”

THE PARK HOTEL, 1312 S. Ervay. Known in recent years as the Ambassador Hotel (which burned down in 2019) (is anything going to be built on that land?), the Park Hotel, on the edge of lovely City Park, was “a High Class family hotel.”

ELITE COSTUME COMPANY, 1812½ Main. AKA the Elite Dressmaking School & Costume Co., Miss Violet Blackmore, manager. “Everything up-to-date.”

EXCEL-SURE DYEING & DRY CLEANING CO., 4310-12 Elm. This unassuming building in Old East Dallas, just east of the intersection of Peak & Elm, is, surprisingly, still standing and is at least 110 years old.

Here’s a “then and now” comparison:

***

Sources & Notes

The ads in this post all appeared in a souvenir booklet, “Official Souvenir Program, State Fair of Texas: The Greatest Educational Institution in the Southwest, 1885-1916,” from the collection of the DeGolyer Library, SMU Libraries, Southern Methodist University — it can be accessed here.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting me on Patreon for just pennies a day/five bucks a month! I share mini Flashback Dallas morsels daily. More info is here.

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9 Comments

October 29, 2023

From the Vault: Yes, Virginia, Dallas Had a Greyhound Track (Briefly)

Oak Downs (photo courtesy Robert Hurst)

by Paula Bosse

Thanks to the great photographs shared with me by reader Robert Hurst, I learned about a long-forgotten bit of Dallas’ sporting history: the very, very brief time when greyhound racing was a thing in Big D. I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy looking into this, but it was incredibly interesting. And I sort of understood parimutuel betting for a tiny sliver of time. I really loved writing this! Check out the Flashback Dallas post from 2015, “Oak Downs: Dallas’ Brief Flirtation with Greyhound Racing.”

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October 23, 2023

Elm Street Store: Whiskey, Brooms, Cigars

Everything one needs…

by Paula Bosse

What more do you need in life than a gallon of whiskey, wine, or gin? And maybe some brooms. And a butter churn. The essentials. I don’t know anything about this photo, except that it does appear to be Dallas — you can see “Elm St.” on the brick wall at the left, just above an ad for Dallas cigar king P. P. Martinez. Not sure when the photo was taken — 1890s-ish? Below is a P. P. Martinez ad from 1908.

It’s hard to make out the “Special Prices” sign above the doorway, but some of the items you could purchase were rock and rye whiskey ($1.25 a gallon), port wine ($1.25 a gallon), and Holland gin (“only $1.50 per gallon”).

I had never heard of “rock and rye” whiskey until a few minutes ago. It was a whiskey cordial made with rock candy (!) and some sort of citrus or other flavor. So I’m guessing it was pretty sweet and powerful. It was often sold as a “tonic” because taxes were substantially less on medicines than on spirits. So goodbye, saloon staple, hello cough medicine! “Rock and rye” has made a recent comeback among whiskey-quaffing hipsters.

***

Sources & Notes

I have no idea where I found this photo back in 2014, but it’s great!

This post appeared in a slightly different form on my Patreon page a few months ago. If you’d like to receive daily Dallas-history postlets, check it out!

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8 Comments

October 16, 2023

Herbert A. Kline’s “Miniature Coney Island” at the State Fair of Texas — 1909

by Paula Bosse

Herbert A. Kline (1873-1934) was a showman and promoter from Michigan who provided acts to several state fairs and large carnivals in the U.S. — his heyday appears to have been the 1910s. In 1909, he brought his troupe of performers and sideshow features to the State Fair of Texas. Most of the photos in this post are from promotional material for that 1909 season, with most of the photos showing Kline’s traveling “amusements.”

Two weeks before he got to Texas, he posted this ad in the entertainment trade magazine Billboard — I hope Capt. Sorcho (“the great deep-sea diver”) dropped him a line.

sfot_kline_billboard_100209 Billboard, Oct. 2, 1909

“THE BEAUTIFUL ORIENT” — included were dancers, gun-spinners, magicians, acrobats, and — somehow — wedding ceremonies. It also boasted “the cleanest and most refined dancing-girl show in America.”

“SUPERBA, THE BEST” — a collection of vaudeville-type performers, including one woman whose “talent” appears to be that she was attractive.

“MRS. D. H. KINCHELOE, WARBLER” (a whistler/reader/vocalist/pianist from Kentucky — her name is misspelled below) and “THE GREAT McGARVEY, FEMALE IMPERSONATOR” (Bert McGarvey was known for a nicely turned-out ankle, charisma, magnetism, and a specialty number called “The Sacred Cobra Dance”). They — along with Galetti’s Musical Monkeys — would appear after the more high-brow operatic singers.

“THE IGORROTE VILLAGE” — native peoples of the Philippines gave a sort of presentation on how they lived, employing what might be seen as primitive customs in daily life. (A description of a “performance” in New York’s Central Park noted that there were demonstrations on how to shrink heads, which might have been too “exotic” for Dallas.)

John T. Backman’s Troupe of Glass Blowers — this was absolutely fascinating (the sign alone!). Check out this entertaining article about the sorts of things these people did.

Also in Kline’s family of traveling show-folk:

A creature half-reptile and half-human
Russian Prince Midget, who speaks three languages, weighs less than 16 pounds, and whose crib was a cigar box
Alice, The Wonder, “who is acknowledged by the press and the public to be the strangest girl in all the world”
Schlitzie, the Aztec Wild Girl, “whose head is no larger than an orange” (this is most likely the sideshow performer best known for appearing in Tod Browning’s cult movie “Freaks”)

Here is an image from an eBay item, showing where these photos came from.

There was also a “ride” called “THE HUMAN ROULETTE WHEEL.” It was probably more fun for the spectators than for the participants.

Houston Post, Nov. 7, 1909

The prospect of being flung off a human roulette wheel might have been daunting to women of the period, who wore heels, corsets, long skirts, and big hats. Below are some typical fairgoers of the time, in a souvenir photo taken at the 1907 State Fair of Texas (Louis Block of Fort Worth, Miss Ray Goldsmith of Dallas, her sister Grace Goldsmith Rosenblatt, and Grace’s husband, David Rosenblatt). Imagine these people wandering around Fair Park and stopping in to see “the strangest girl in all the world” and watching people being hurled off a spinning disk.

via eBay

New York Clipper, Oct. 1912

This ad for a South Dakota fair — a few months before Kline’s stop in Dallas — shows descriptions of several of the acts. (“A tiger that rides horseback.”)

Aberdeen (South Dakota) American, June 9, 1909

And a promotional article sent to local papers ahead of Kline’s arrival.

McKinney (TX) Weekly Democrat Gazette, Oct. 14, 1909

***

Sources & Notes

All photos from a brochure/handbills listed earlier this year on eBay; sources of ads and other images as noted.

So many Flashback Dallas posts about the State Fair of Texas — here.

I’m on Patreon, where I post daily. Check it out!

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3 Comments

October 9, 2023

“Thrilling! Inspiring! Gorgeous!” — 1936

by Paula Bosse

I don’t think the 1936 Texas Exposition at Fair Park could have oversold itself. It was everything it promised. The sensory overload must have been almost debilitating!

The night beauty of the Texas Centennial Exposition at Dallas is breath-taking! Rainbow-hued fountains, rippling flags, colorful buildings, thousands of constantly changing lights blending into a symphony of thrilling, inspiring, gorgeous effects… A glamorous fairyland of scintillating light, color and cool water that alone will repay your trip. SEE this marvel of beauty!

“Have the time of your life in Dallas! […] Joyous days and nights of holiday-making await you … in one of the most magnificent settings ever conceived! […] The Texas Centennial Exposition at Dallas is being enthusiastically applauded as the most magnificent spectacle ever attempted on the American continent.”

“World’s Greatest Show for 50¢… Ample Tourist Accommodations… Come to Dallas!”

(According to the Inflation Calculator, 50¢ admission in 1936 would be equivalent to about $10 in today’s money. 10¢ hamburgers would be about $2, and 5¢ cold drinks would be about $1.)

“Dallas: Night Spot of the World! / Dallas: Day Spot of the World!”

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Sources & Notes

Images from a promotional brochure offered recently on eBay.

Check out many previous Flashback Dallas posts on the Texas Centennial here.

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2 Comments

October 3, 2023

The “Shadow” Flashback

Only 9¢ to see ALL OF THIS!

by Paula Bosse

Apologies for what some may consider spam, but a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do. Self-promotion has never been one of my strong suits.

I maintain a Patreon account elsewhere on the internet. It’s a place where patrons very generously support my Flashback Dallas work by pledging a monthly sum of $5, $10, or $15. In return, I do little mini-posts every day. I’m as surprised as anyone that I’ve managed to post every single day for the past six months.

Here’s what patrons saw on Patreon in September (there are a couple of posts from the end of August):

Ride the Texas Star!
Cowboys vs Eagles: SEVEN Interceptions (1971)
Terrill School for Boys: Campus Buildings – 1915
Geo. W. Baird Wants Your Business – 1859
Action Speedway, 837 West Davis – 1960s
Dallas Cotton Mill “Openers” – ca. 1905
The White Rock Stand Cafe – ca. 1946
JFK Memorial Under Construction – 1970
Gaston Avenue Gas Pumps – 1933
Cotton: “A Good Crop” – 1908
“The Early Birds” on WFAA
The Tomato House, Farmers Market: S. Pearl & Cadiz – 1959
The “Japanese Colony” in Dallas – 1905
Interurban 362
Miss Hockaday Has Got It Going On – 1950
Colonial Motor Co., South Dallas – 1920s
Southland Center Under Construction – 1957
Portland Cement
Kirby Curbs
City Temple Presbyterian Church
Stoneleigh P (Pre-Fire) – 1970s
Cotton Bowl Hotel, 600 S. Haskell
Home Sweet Home: Pre-Fab Housing – 1944
Commerce Street Newsstand
The Glamour of the Newsstand
Forest Avenue (MLK Blvd.) – 1921
The Hilton Hotel/The White Plaza Hotel/Hotel Indigo
The “New” Texas Theatre – 1965
Reunion Tower, First Draft/Griffin Square Tower
Flying Saucer, Now on Exhibition – 1950
The Davis Texan (Davis Hat Co.) – 1946

If any of these topics seem so tantalizing that you’d like to see them covered in expanded posts here, let me know.

And, if a list like this whets your appetite for daily morsels of Dallas history, consider joining me you know where.

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Sources & Notes

“Flying Saucer” photo (cropped slightly) was taken at the 1950 State Fair of Texas by Squire Haskins; photo is from the Squire Haskins Photography Inc. Collection, UTA Libraries Special Collections — more info is here.

If you’d like to peruse a list of the rest of my posts on Patreon, you can see them in “The ‘Other’ Flashback Dallas….”

Thank you (and sorry about the spam!).

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