bookmark_borderVintage photo collection series

Man with camera

Collecting vintage and antique photos is a pastime of mine. Most of my collection is acquired from antique shops and antique malls, estate sales, and from online purchases. On occasion, I post collections of these photos on this blog. This is a home page for these collected posts, and it will be updated as new collections are added.

bookmark_borderPacific-Akard parking garage, 1950s

As a casual collector of vintage photos and local ephemera, I am frequently on the lookout for unique and historical items. A few months ago, I came across a listing for an old Ektachrome slide dating to the 1950s, one which depicted a seven story parking garage somewhere in Dallas. Other than the city and the decade, no further information was available. Where exactly was this garage, and is it still standing today? It was an intriguing mystery, and one worth solving for someone with an affinity for local history. If the photo was indeed taken in Dallas, the slide would make a great candidate for my vintage photo collection, and I thus set about attempting to identify the building and its (perhaps former) location.

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bookmark_borderMore vintage photo snapshots

Here is another collection of vintage photo snapshots and slides, depicting (mostly) locations I have visited during various road trips across the U.S. and Canada. As before, these are mostly paired with my own photos of the same or similar locations.

Entering Idaho

Idaho was one of the last states I visited in the Lower 48, mostly because its location is not en route to any destination I've ever been interested in visiting. In 2021, I made the 110 mile drive north from South Jordan, Utah in order to set foot in the state and finally cross it off my list. I was struck by how much the Idaho welcome sign on Interstate 15 reminded me of the old Yahoo! logos. As shown in the top photo, the state once made use of a more traditional (but less eye-catching) style of design.
Entering Idaho, unknown date
Entering Idaho, unknown date
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bookmark_borderGhosts of DFW music history: West side haunts

This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks

During the latter 1980s, while the punk scene was maturing on the east side of the DFW Metroplex, a similarly loud, aggressive music scene was developing in parallel to it over on the west side. Dallas had its iconic, punk focused venues such as the Honest Place, the Hot Klub, Studio D, and the succession of venues to call 2111 Commerce Street home. Likewise, Fort Worth and environs had their own metal focused clubs such as Rascals, the Tombstone Factory, and Joe's Garage. These two scenes didn't exist in a vacuum, of course, and there was plenty of crossover between them (the Silver Dollar Rock Shop was located in Dallas, for example, and Fort Worth-based Rigor Mortis was famously managed and guided to a record deal by Jeff Liles, who once booked shows for the Theatre Gallery in Deep Ellum). But, musically and spiritually speaking, the early DFW metal scene was based mostly on the west side of town. The aforementioned Rascals, Tombstone Factory, and Joe's Garage will be subjects of future installments in this series, but sprinkled among these iconic venues were a number of smaller, less remembered haunts that also called the areas west of Dallas home. What were some of these, and what (if anything) remains of them today? In this installment of "Ghosts of DFW Music History," we'll take a look at four of them.

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bookmark_borderGhosts of DFW music history: Deep Ellum Live

This is part of a continuing series of posts exploring locations of former DFW musical landmarks

1998 Misfits show flyer
If it looks like it should be a barn from the outside, it's probably because it WAS... or it basically was, at one time. It was an urban barn whose inside was given over to western swing and dance and to a honky-tonk inspired atmosphere. Over a total of about seventeen years, 2727 Canton Street in Deep Ellum paraded through a whole series of different owners and target clientele, being known successively as Tommy's Heads Up Saloon, Tommy's Deep Ellum, The Institute, and The Venue, before finally settling in as Deep Ellum Live, the name it is most remembered by today. The list of acts to have taken the stage over its storied history reads like a "who's who" of the 1980s and 1990s local and national music scenes. But in 2004, Deep Ellum Live closed its doors for good and lay mostly dormant for over a decade, finally being resurrected from the dead by an entrepreneurial couple as part of their personal Deep Ellum reclamation project. What is the story behind this iconic fixture of the Dallas music scene? Continue reading "Ghosts of DFW music history: Deep Ellum Live"