Flashback : Dallas

May 29, 2024

A Few Photo Additions to Past Posts — #23

Hometown hero… (Dallas Historical Society)

by Paula Bosse

Time for another installment of whatever this is, in which I add photos I’ve recently come across to old posts on the same topic, in order to keep things together.

The photo above shows baseball great (and Dallas native) Ernie Banks, and his wife, Mollye, on a trip back to Dallas to participate in an all-star game and to be the man of the hour on Ernie Banks Day in Big D (Oct. 11, 1955). I’ve added this photo to the 2014 post “Ernie Banks: From Booker T. Washington High School to the Baseball Hall of Fame to the Presidential Medal of Freedom.” (Source: John Leslie Patton Jr. Papers, Dallas Historical Society, Object ID V.86.50.902)

Below is a somewhat odd-looking, down-at-the-heels house, as seen in 1975 — at the time, it was the HQ for community radio station KCHU. The once-palatial residence, built in 1897, was on Maple Avenue, a favorite residential street of the upper crusters. It still stands, and is, somehow, more beautiful today than it was when it was built 127 years ago. It is now Hotel St. Germain (2516 Maple). I’ve added this screenshot of a house that has seen some STUFF to a post from 2019, “The Murphy House — Maple Avenue.” (Source: screenshot and detail from footage shot in December 1975 by KERA-Channel 13, probably for their local show “Newsroom”; KERA Collection, G. William Jones Film and Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, SMU — watch the short report about KCHU on YouTube here)

This photo shows the former Powell University prep school at Binkley and Hillcrest, across from SMU. The school was dissolved in 1927/1928. This photo is from 1931, and the old place is looking a little shaggy. Not sure what it was at that time. The building still stands (or last time I looked, anyway!). Nice to see a horse grazing on the property (in the Park Cities…). This photo has been added to 2019’s “Send Your Kids to Prep School ‘Under the Shadow of SMU’ — 1915.” (Source: Brown Book, University Park Public Library)

In 2014, I wrote about the Metzger’s Milk home delivery drivers wearing a new uniform, which included Bermuda shorts and knee socks. This was pretty shocking at the time, and it made news around the country — it was featured in Life magazine, and there was even newsreel footage. I’ve added the silent footage to the post “Metzger’s Milkmen in Bermuda Shorts — 1955.” Watch the 1-minute silent clip from 1955 here. (Source: Grinberg, Paramount, Pathe Newsreels, via Getty Images)

For those who couldn’t afford to be a member of the swanky Lakewood Country Club, the nearby Bob-O-Links course was the affordable neighborhood answer for those looking to play an affordable round of golf. This matchbook cover art has been added to 2016’s “Bob-O-Links Golf Course — 1924-1973.” (Source: eBay)

I haven’t had a Great Flood mention in a while. I’ve added this photo (a real photo postcard) to the 2015 post about a boat that served an important role in rescuing victims, “The Nellie Maurine: When a Pleasure Boat Became a Rescue Craft During the Great Trinity River Flood of 1908.” (Source: John Miller Morris collection of Texas real photographic postcards and photographs, DeGolyer Library, SMU, here)

A photo of the all-dressed-up Oriental Hotel (southeast corner of Commerce & Akard), draped in bunting and various festoonage to welcome the Elks Convention to Dallas in The Year of Our Flood 1908, is now squeezed into 2022’s “Elks-a-Plenty — 1908.” Note the woman with the parasol at the bottom right corner. (Source: eBay)

Fast-forward to 1939 and a screenshot from a fantastic bit of color (!!) film brought to our attention a few years ago by author Mark Doty and local bon vivant Robert Wilonsky (I HIGHLY encourage you to watch the short film here). It shows the legendary (to me, anyway) animated neon Coca-Cola sign which once stood at the 3-way downtown intersection of Live Oak, Elm, and Ervay. I’ve added it to “Tomorrow’s Weather at Live Oak & Elm — 1955-ish,” from 2016. (Source: screenshot from a 1939 color film — see link above to watch it)

I posted about Salih’s earlier this year, and Mark Salih, the son of co-owner Jack Salih, sent me this photo showing the interior of the restaurant and a glimpse of the carved Western mural on the walls. Owner George Salih is on the far right, and his brother Jack is next to him. I’ve added it to “Salih’s, Preston Center: 1953-1977.” (Source: Mark Salih, used with permission — thank you, Mark!)

Finally, I recently updated an old post from 2014, “Ned Riddle: Dallas Artist and Creator of ‘Mr. Tweedy.'” My parents were fans of the Mr. Tweedy single-panel comic that appeared in newspapers around the country, and I used to read those little books over and over. Poor Mr. Tweedy. Nothing ever went right for him! I added this panel to the post. (Source: somewhere online — the panel appeared in newspapers on Nov. 5, 1969)

That should do it for now!

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3 Comments

May 22, 2024

Rudolph Gunner: Dallas Bookseller and Emperor Maximilian’s “Best Friend”

238 Main, circa 1894

by Paula Bosse

For the past several years, I’ve been posting bookstore-related posts on the birthday of my late father, Dick Bosse, an antiquarian bookseller who began his career straight out of SMU at The Aldredge Book Store, a literary landmark to many, which he eventually ended up owning. This year’s offering goes back to 19th-century Dallas.

Above is a photo of the bookstore owned by Austrian immigrant Rudolph Gunner, located at 238 Main (later 1006 Main), between Poydras and Martin. Gunner (1833-1911) had, perhaps, one of the most impressive and colorful historical pedigrees of any Dallas resident. He served in the Austrian navy all over the world, but his most important service was as confidante and aide-de-camp to Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota of Mexico in the 1860s. That story is too big to tell here (Wikipedia is here to help), but it’s interesting that a man who was often referred to as “Maximilian’s best friend” eventually wound up in Dallas in 1885 and opened a bookstore, first on Elm Street, later on Main.

My father had a fascination with Mexico and used to talk about Maximilian quite a bit. I wonder if he knew Maximilian’s right-hand man lived out his days in Dallas, having spent several years as a bookseller?

Dallas city directory, 1896

In a sidenote, Gunner mentioned in several interviews that he had a LOT of historical documents and souvenirs from his military career serving in the Crimea, Egypt, Africa, and, especially, Mexico. I winced when I read this passage from an article by A. C. Greene in The Dallas Morning News (“Bookstore Owner Once Was Colorful General — He Headed Maximilian’s Mexico Palace Guard.” DMN, Apr. 18, 1993):

[A]t the time of his death in 1911 [his] home was at 1506 Fitzhugh. [His wife] was still living there, with a considerable collection of historic memorabilia, books, medals and military items, when the home burned, destroying everything but Gen. Gunner’s sword with the emperor’s crest.

Wow. All of that, gone. (And to answer my question above, I’m pretty sure my father would have known this, if only because he read A. C. Greene’s columns and probably even discussed this with him on a visit to the store.)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo by Clifton Church, from his book Dallas, Texas, through a camera: a collection of half-tone engravings from original photographs (1894) — from the DeGolyer Library, SMU, here.

Read a first-hand account of Gunner’s time in Mexico in a Dallas Morning News article from Jan. 14, 1886 here; his DMN obituary (Aug. 25, 1911) is here.

Read previous Flashback Dallas articles on Dallas bookstores here.

I would love you to join me over on Patreon, where I upload Dallas history posts daily for subscribing members (as little as $5 a month!). If you would like to support what I do, check out Flashback Dallas on Patreon.

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May 15, 2024

Col. McCoy’s Residence, Commerce & Lamar — 1879

McCoy homestead… (photo: Dallas Historical Society)

by Paula Bosse

Imagine the “village” of Dallas in its very, very early days. 1852. That’s when pioneer Col. John C. McCoy (1819-1897) built the very pretty frame house seen in the photograph above. It had the honor of being the first frame house built in Dallas (and, in other firsts, McCoy had the distinction of being the first practicing lawyer in Dallas).

Commerce and Lamar streets, 1879. Col. John C. McCoy, one of Dallas’ first “leading citizens,” built this house at the corner of Commerce and Lamar in 1852, and it immediately became a landmark in the village — the one frame house in a colony of log cabins. The photograph, made in 1879, shows Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Taggart, Col. John C. McCoy and Miss Eliza McCoy on the porch. Standing at the gate are Capt. John M. McCoy (nephew of Col. McCoy and brother of Mrs. Taggart) and Cora and Laura Taggart, his nieces. (Southwest Business magazine, June 1940)

See what this view looks like now, here. Sadly, the Colonel’s white fence and grove of trees are gone.

When I was looking at this photo, I thought I should check to see what it looked like on the hand-drawn map of Herman Brosius from 1872. His maps were celebrated for their incredible attention to detail. I wrote about this map in a previous post (here), and… yes! The house seen in the photo has been realistically captured in Brosius’ map. As seen below — in the center of a detail from the map — it’s right there, at the southeast corner of Commerce and Lamar (facing Lamar), just south of the Methodist church. McCoy owned the entire block, and he did not skimp on the trees.

Read about the life of Col. John C. McCoy in Sixty Years in Texas by George Jackson at the Portal to Texas History, here, and in the Handbook of Texas entry on the Texas State Historical Society site, here. He is almost as important to the history of Dallas as his business partner, John Neely Bryan.

mccoy-col-john-c_portrait_find-a-grave Col. John C. McCoy

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Sources & Notes

Photo from the Dallas Historical Society — it and the caption appeared in Southwest Business magazine, June 1940.

Detail of “A Bird’s Eye View of the City of Dallas, Texas” (1872) by H. Brosius is from the Dallas Historical Society and can be seen in a very, very high-resolution scan on Wikimedia Commons here (click map to really zoom in on the very precise details). I wrote about this map in the 2018 post “The Bird’s-Eye View of Dallas by Herman Brosius — 1872.”

Portrait of Col. John C. McCoy from Find-a-Grave. (McCoy and his family are buried in Oakland Cemetery. More on the family can be found in a video recorded at the grave site and posted on the Facebook group Friends of Oakland Cemetery Dallas, here.)

1 Comment

May 7, 2024

On the Line at Coca-Cola — 1964

Gleaming!

by Paula Bosse

The photo above shows the sunniest factory floor I’ve ever seen. You don’t think of factories filled with sunlight, but this is what it looked like inside the new Coca-Cola bottling works at Lemmon and Mockingbird in 1964. It’s gone now (as is that UNBELIEVABLY FANTASTIC ANIMATED NEON SIGN that made me look forward to nighttime drives to Love Field). All that remains is the small syrup plant (from 1948?). (…I think it’s a syrup plant. Or a warehouse. Or something syrup-related.)

The new plant opened in June 1964. The building had floor-to-ceiling glass — I’ve read reminiscences of people who remember driving by and seeing the work going on through those huge windows. I don’t know if there was bottling work going on after dark, but here’s a grainy photo from a Dallas Power & Light ad that shows the building at night, lit up like a stage.

Dallas Power & Light ad (det), June 1964

Speaking of which, The Dallas Morning News wrote this:

The bottling room, which fronts on Lemmon, has a glass front 254 feet long and 26 feet high to provide a view of the bottling process to the passing public. (DMN, June 9, 1964)

Free show!

The woman featured in an Employers National Life Group Insurance Company ad (below), might be the same woman seen in the photo at the top. Manning her station.

Employers National Life ad (det), June 1964

And what was rolling off the automated line? Coke, Sprite, and Tab. And something called Mission (grape and orange drinks). 1,860 bottles a minute (!).

Back to the sign for a second. I haven’t invested a LOT of time in a search (but *kind of* a lot…), but I have been unable to find footage of that truly wonderful, mesmerizing neon Coca-Cola sign. Living in an age of Instagram and YouTube, we just expect to find this sort of thing quickly, without having to set aside large chunks of time to devote to searching. If YOU know where film/video of that sign might be hiding… SPEAK UP!

A couple of shots of the exterior:

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo and last two photos are all by John Rogers and were probably taken around the time the plant began operation in mid-1964; all are from the John Rogers and Georgette de Bruchard Collection, UNT Libraries Special Collections, via the Portal to Texas History, here, here, and here.

A shorter version of this post previously appeared on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page in November 2023.

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4 Comments

April 30, 2024

Hotel Rodessia

“First-class style…”

by Paula Bosse

I’ve seen SO MANY postcards of Dallas through the years that when I come across one that is completely new to me, it’s pretty exciting. Especially turn-of-the-century-ish cards, like the one above. This is the first I’ve ever heard of the Rodessia Hotel, which opened in Oct. 1904 at 361-363 Elm (the address later became 1601½ Elm). The hotel proprietor (as well as the proprietor of the street-level saloon underneath it) was German immigrant Joseph F. Rode (1858-1911).

patreon_rodessia_hotel-rodessia_dmn_oct-1904 Dallas Morning News, Oct. 2, 1904

And, because it’s so unusual to be able to note something like this, I must mention that Rode’s wife, Victoria Virginia “Nannie” Rode, was also a business owner.

DMN, Oct. 7, 1894

Even though I hadn’t heard of the hotel, I did know about the building. In fact, I wrote a whole post about it: “S. Mayer’s Summer Garden, Est. 1881.” It would have been a building everyone knew at the turn of the century. Here’s what it looked like when it was a young whippersnapper:

It was built in 1881 by Simon Mayer and was the site for many years of his very popular beer garden. Around 1902 it became the Clifton Hotel, and in Oct. 1904, J. F. Rode opened his interestingly named Rodessia Hotel, which remained in business until about 1920 (it was run after his death by the Widow Nannie and her second husband). Around 1920, another hotel — the La France — opened. See the building at various times in the post mentioned above, here.

So. The Rodessia was in business for at least 15 years. I still can’t believe I haven’t seen it pop up in at least one Elm Street postcard or photograph until now. Better late than never!

(Note: In the postcard at the top, just to the right of the hotel, is the David Hardie Seed Co., which I believe continues today as Nicholson-Hardie stores.)

***

Sources & Notes

Postcard from eBay.

Photo of Mayer’s Garden from the Dallas Public Library: “[Mayer’s Beer Garden, Dallas, Texas”], Call Number PA87-1/19-27-1.

This post originally appeared in a shorter version on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page, which I enthusiastically invite you to subscribe to!

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2 Comments

April 20, 2024

Jimi Hendrix in Dallas, 4/20/69

Doug, Mitch, Noel, and Jimi

by Paula Bosse

Today is 4/20 Day. An alternate (or parallel) way to celebrate the already alternative “holiday” is to mark the anniversary of one of Jimi Hendrix’s best interviews, on the Love Field tarmac on April 20, 1969, given to Dallas reporter Doug Terry (still a college student when he was at WFAA-Channel 8). The band was in Dallas for a show at Memorial Auditorium. It’s just a fantastic, laid-back, cool interview.

I had tried contacting Doug several years ago to let him know this clip was racking up the hits on YouTube, in case he wasn’t aware it was there, but I didn’t hear back from him until this week! He had seen the post I had written about this interview and wrote a bit about that momentous occasion in the email. He also adds some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits I always find interesting (the following is used with Doug’s permission):

I was still a college student most of the time I worked at WFAA. I handed in my resignation after covering the north Texas pop festival in that same year. [Watch one of Doug’s reports from the Texas International Pop Festival here.] Your comment about being in a large city and its advantages was something that I did not fully grasp until years later. The access was wonderful, I saw Hendrix at least three times, on one occasion being in the dressing room with a camera when he warmed up for a show (that footage is nowhere to be found).

There are two aspects to mention about that interview. First, I was a weekend reporter and late night news anchor at Ch. 8 and I assigned myself to go interview him. In those days, one could call up the airlines when a notable person was coming in and they would give the flight number and arrival time. Amazing. Most of the people at the station at that time probably had no idea who Jimi was and wouldn’t have cared if they did know.

The other interesting point is the work of the photographer. Ordinarily, we did over the shoulder interviews, the camera to the back and side of the reporter. The fact that this was shot from the side made all the difference. As a shooter, he was not otherwise outstanding but this interview would be much less interesting if it had been shot in the traditional line-up sort of way. The two bandmates goofing around was distracting but great.

Thank you so much for getting in touch, Doug!

My original 2017 post about this interview (with the film clip of Jimi, Mitch Mitchell, and Noel Redding at Love Field) — which includes additional info about Jimi’s other performances in Dallas — is here: “Jimi Hendrix, Glen Campbell, Tiny Tim — In Dallas (…Separately), 1969.”

jimi_WFAA_042069_SMU_b

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Sources & Notes

Screenshots from the WFAA Collection, G. WIlliam Jones Film and Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, SMU.

Excerpt from Doug Terry’s email to me (April 16, 2024), used with permission.

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April 15, 2024

Oak Cliff: No Germs, No Mosquitoes, No Malaria — 1907

Nov. 1907

by Paula Bosse

It’s 1907. How is it you’re not scooping up real estate in Oak Cliff?!

Aside from that “no saloons EVER” thing, it sounds positively idyllic.

On the Hills of Oak Cliff
When Thinking of a Home for Your Wife and Children You Need

- - First — Altitude
    Where the air is clear and free from mosquitoes and malaria.
  - Second — Water
    Clear and Pure and Free From Germs

In Oak Cliff these things predominate, you are on the hills, higher than Dallas, south of the river, and where your breezes come direct from the country, and, as for water, the water running in the Oak Cliff mains is from the great Nelms Well, illustrated on this page, and is the purest and clearest water in Dallas County.

Ask City Chemist Chisholm, or Water Commissioner Sullivan, or Water Superintendent Nelms, they are the three men most competent to pass on this question, and will verify these facts.

The water does not come from Bachman’s Dam or any branch of the river, but deep down in the earth, hundreds of feet, from God’s reservoir, gushing out like a great spring and sparkling like diamonds.

People living in Oak Cliff are healthy and live long. They cannot help it when breathing pure air and drinking clear water.

In spite of the present financial stringency Oak Cliff is building on, and her citizens have great faith in the future of Dallas.

As an evidence of this fact, Mr. J. F. Zang has this week let the contract for over $1,000.00 worth of cement walks to be laid on Zang’s Boulevard and other streets.

Lake Cliff, the beautiful, with its thirty acres of park scenery, its lake and its many costly improvements, is situated in Oak Cliff, and is one of the popular attractions of Dallas.

Oak Cliff has the combined advantages of city and country; it has gas, sewerage, water, electricity, streetcars, telephones, cement walks, and it is only ten minutes’ ride from its center to the center of Dallas; and it has the country scenery so much desired — hills and valleys, great oak and pecan trees, numerous springs and other rural scenes.

Raise your children where there are no saloons. By special act of the Legislature saloons are forever debarred from the territory of Oak Cliff.

Kidd Springs, one of the loveliest parks in Dallas, with the largest springs in the city, is in Oak Cliff, and is one of the leading resorts.

J. F. Zang’s home once stood at Zang and 6th and had what was probably the finest possible view of downtown Dallas, then or now.

Dallas Morning News, Oct. 26, 1900

This might have been a house being built in Zang’s Crystal Hill Addition:

I have to admit, this just looks like a water sprinkler, but here’s the “Nelms Well” in action:

I had never heard of the “Nelms Well.” It was the first deep artesian well in Oak Cliff (1907), and it tapped into a million gallons of spring water, which was, at the time, enough to satisfy the needs of Oak Cliff residents and to slake their thirst for the pure, clear water that put all other Dallas County water to shame.

Richard Nelms, the City Water Superintendent, is seen at the far right in the photo below. The well was named in his honor. And, again, the water? Let me just repeat the rhapsodic ad copy: “the purest and clearest water in Dallas County… [from] deep down in the earth, hundreds of feet, from God’s reservoir, gushing out like a great spring and sparkling like diamonds.” In other words, Oak Cliff had some damn fine water.

***

Sources & Notes

Ad printed in Dallas newspapers in November 1907.

A couple of water-related Flashback Dallas posts that might be of interest:

This post originally appeared in a different version in a Flashback Dallas post on Patreon.

8 Comments

April 7, 2024

Daily Flashbacks

City Park: Children and dog (and cat?)

by Paula Bosse

I always feel I have to apologize for any sort of self-promotion. Sorry if this is tiresome, but this is a periodic reminder that I have a Patreon page, where I post daily Dallas history posts for a teeny-tiny $5 monthly subscription. Somehow, I’ve been doing this for a year, as of April 2nd. The financial support has been very much appreciated. As I fight to stay afloat on the scary, choppy waves of under-employment — trying to keep my head above water — it has been a literal godsend. If you’re curious what the posts are like, there are occasional “free” posts if you scroll down the page, but most are for patrons. I try to write on topics I haven’t written about here on the blog — or at least present new photos or info. Join us!

Every couple of months, I compile a list of the subjects I’ve covered so you can see what sorts of things I’ve written little post-lets about. (See the previous lists here.) Here’s what I’ve written about in February and March:

MARCH 2024

Blaine Nye: Smartest Guy in the NFL? – 1971
Willie at the Longhorn Ballroom
Roof Repair at Pennsylvania & Meyers – 1926
Apparel Mart, Frighteningly Large
KCHU-FM HQ
White Theater, South Dallas – ca. 1946
Northern Texas Traction Co.
H. L. Hunt, Hawking His Wares at the State Fair of Texas – 1971
Business Center of the Great Southwest – 1905
Mystery Planing Mill – 1949
Dallas Morning News Buildings: Old & New, Cheek by Jowl – 1912
Skyline, Feat. A Dying Windsor Hotel & Harris-Lipsitz – 1911
Hot-Rodders
Green Skies Over Dallas – 1951
SMU, As the Crow Flies – ca. 1953
Auto Showroom, Oak Cliff – 1950s
Women in Aviation – 1943
Cycling in Dallas – 1880s
Preston Royal Shopping Center’s Fab Neon Sign – 1955
Corner Market, Carpenter Ave. & Myrtle St. – ca. 1946
Signed, “Yearning in Dallas” – 1906
Burger House, Est. 1951
Greetings from Coriscana/Spending Time with Lefty Frizzell
Live in DFW: CCR, David Cassidy, Led Zeppelin, Tom Jones – Aug. 1971
Cotton Mill Kindergarten – 1913
S. H. Lynch & Co.: Rolls Royce HQ – 1940s
R. C. Hickman, Dallas Photographer
Skyline Motel: “You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave”
Texas Seed & Floral Co. – 1911

FEBRUARY 2024

Love Field, New Terminal – 1940
North American Aviation Training School/Futura Lofts
Highland Park Village, View from a Rooftop – 1977
Metzger’s Milk: “Ends the Quest for the Best”
Salih’s, Preston Center – 1968
Commerce Street: “View Showing Post Office”
The Fairgrounds, From Above – 1920s
Republic Bank: Marble, Glass, and Gold
Saloon
Conley-Lott-Nichols Machine Co. Building
Famous Black Dallas Malt Liquor
Cadiz Viaduct’s “Spectacular Neon Electric Sign” – 1937
KRLD Studios – 1965
Lined Up To See “Davy Crockett” at the Majestic – 1955
Johnny’s Supermarket, Columbia and Beacon – 1959
“Lovers’ Lane” at Fair Park – 1909
Glen Lakes Country Club, Teen Fave – 1959
C. C. Davidson: A Mystery Schoolhouse and Children in a Park
Antone’s/Antoine’s – Snails and Po’ Boys on Harry Hines
Flamingos
The Old Randall Place, Masten Street
New Phone: “Direct, Instantaneous, and Secret” – 1913
Park Cities Baptist Church – 1959
Dallas Theater Center’s Vinyl Membrane – 1965
Rock Creek Inn BBQ – 1946-ish
Boat Date, Kidd Springs
Stephen Tobolowsky Wishes You a Happy Groundhog Day!
The Chuck Wagon, Fair Park – 1936

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Sources and Notes

Photo “[Children and Dog in a Park]” is from a real photo postcard with the stamp of Dallas photographer C. C. Davidson (I don’t know if he was the photographer or whether his company was merely printing the postcards for a customer to send to friends and family) — from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU Libraries, accessible here.

One last blast of the ballyhoo: if you’d like to see what I do on Patreon, see the subscription page here. Five bucks a month. A post every day. Subscribe, read everything there, and unsubscribe before the next payment cycle rolls around, if it isn’t the pure, joyous experience I’ve been going on about. I’m perfectly fine with that! Don’t want no pig in a poke.

April 7, 2024

From the Vault: I Give You “Totality” — 1878

146 years ago…

by Paula Bosse

You may have heard that DFW is in the “eclipse path” of the historic total solar eclipse that will happen on Monday, April 8, 2024. “Totality” will occur in Dallas at about 1:40 PM and will last approximately 3 minutes and 51 seconds. If you have even a shred of interest in things like this, just know that DFW won’t experience another total solar eclipse until the year 2317. …Just so you know.

Five years ago, I wrote about the previous locally experienced total eclipse, which favored Fort Worth over Dallas (this year, Dallas will experience “totality” for almost 4 minutes, Cowtown will have to do with a mere 2 and a half minutes): “Viewing the 1878 Solar Eclipse in North Texas.” That post has been racking up the hits recently, as interest has grown in this whole eclipse thing. Check it out! Also, check out the links at the bottom of that post, which link to contemporary newspaper accounts of the 19th-century event.

Also, you might want to check out these sites for info on the 2024 eclipse in Texas:

NASA
NationalEclipse.com (scroll down for Texas info)
NationalEclipse.com — see times for all Texas cities in the total-eclipse path

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Sources & Notes

Photo from the Tarrant County College NE, Heritage Room, via the Portal to Texas History.

5 Comments

March 26, 2024

The Forest Theater You’ve Never Heard Of — ca. 1912-1914

Forest & Colonial in 1914 (courtesy Mike Cochran)

by Paula Bosse

There are so many posts I’ve begun but, for whatever reason, never finished. This is one of them. I started this one in 2015! I was sidetracked by a family member’s lengthy health setback, and I just never got back to it. But I’ve thought about it every time I’ve written about something in South Dallas.

This great photo — from about 1914 — was sent to me by Mike Cochran (he has a site on Denton history here). It shows a theater with a tie to his great-grandfather, Oscar F. Gould, who became something of a legend in the running of Interstate theaters in Dallas and Fort Worth (most notably the Majestic Theatres in both cities).

I think the reason I never finished the post was because it was hard to research. The theater lasted only a couple of years, and its name was incredibly confusing!

The Forest Avenue Theatre/Theater was in operation in, for sure, 1913 and 1914 — and possibly part of 1912 and part of 1915. It was located at 1638 Forest Avenue (now MLK Blvd.), at Colonial. The owner appears to have been Mike’s great-grandfather, O. F. Gould — as he was busy with the Dallas Majestic at the time, the Forest was managed by his son, Harry Gould.

Family lore suggests that the Forest was the first suburban theater in Dallas. There might have been a couple that pre-dated it in South Dallas and Oak Cliff, but it definitely is a very early moving-picture house outside of the downtown area.

The main Forest Avenue theater confusion has to do with its name. Oscar Gould’s theater was at 1638 Forest Avenue from… let’s just say 1913-1914. It was on the southwest corner of Forest and Colonial, in the heart of the lively South Dallas business district. About the time the Forest closed, the Colonial Theater popped up across the street, at 1702 Forest Avenue, on the southeast corner of Forest and Colonial. (I don’t think there was any relation, but there had been a previous Colonial Theater downtown about 6 years earlier — it can be seen in the foreground of the right side of this photo, at what would now be 1520 Main.) At some point, the Colonial changed its name to… guess what? The Forest Theater! THEN… in 1949, decades later, it changed its name back to “Colonial.” Why? Because there was a NEW Forest Theater (my head…), several blocks away, at 1914 Forest Avenue (which is still standing and is perpetually being re-envisioned). I don’t know how much arm-twisting was done, but in order to, I guess, prevent confusion between the modest neighborhood theater and the much larger and more sophisticated showplace down the street, the (second) Forest reverted back to “Colonial.” And that didn’t last long, because, in the blink of an eye, the “Colonial” at 1702 Forest disappeared and was replaced in 1949 by the Theater Lounge, which started out (I think) as a club presenting Black entertainment, before it eventually became Barney Weinstein’s famed South Dallas stripper mecca. So, there were (at the very least) three different Forest theaters, two (or, really, three) Colonial theaters, and two Theater Lounges.

That paragraph is why it’s taken me 9 years to write this post.

These buildings are still standing. Below is what the original Forest Avenue Theater looked like in 2019, before renovation work began on the block. (The numbering is different these days. See a 1922 Sanborn map here. The theater would have been in the “MainView” building.)

Google Street View, May 2019

See the most recent Street View, here (the “original” Forest Avenue Theater building is on the right, the Colonial/Forest/Colonial/Theater Lounge is on the left).

Oscar F. Gould was an interesting person, and I hope his great-grandson Mike Cochran has written about him (and will direct me to a link I can add here). He protested the state law that made it illegal for theaters to open on Sundays, going so far as to be fined multiple times and to sue the state.

Fort Worth Record, Jan. 1, 1922

O. F. Gould, Exhibitors’ Herald, Jan. 9, 1926

I like this related tidbit. The man who ran the Forest Avenue Theater was Oscar Gould’s son, Harry Gould, who, like his father, had a long and respected career running theaters. When the Forest closed, he operated theaters in Waco, Houston, and eventually Fort Worth. After several years, he ended up at the Palace in Fort Worth. This is a photo from his days at the Palace — the 1936 photo ran with this caption in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Harry Gould, manager of the Palace Theater, points out the electric light which has burned continuously for the last 28 years, except when the current was shut off at the electric company’s power plant. Gould and other showmen who have been connected with the palace are superstitious about the light, believing it will bring good luck as long as it remains lighted.

I think the bulb is still burning, into what must be its 116th year. That’s a pretty good bulb. It was moved — still burning — when the theater was demolished and, last I saw, was in the Stockyards Museum in Fort Worth. (The lightbulb was profiled by Channel 8 in 1973, in a short, filmed report here.)

Thank you, MIke Cochran, for sharing your family photo! I’m sorry it took me NINE YEARS to write this!

***

Sources & Notes

The top photo is from the collection of Mike Cochran, used with permission. (Thank you, Mike!) On the left of the photo was Chapman’s Pharmacy, and at the right was Leader Grocery,

The movie showing is “A Man’s Faith,” produced by Siegmund Lubin and released in 1914.

Photo of Harry Gould and the lightbulb (Sept. 25, 1936) is from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, here.

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