The adventures and various works of a photographer, road tripper, former patron of the local arts, aspiring app developer, and late night coffee drinker and conversationalist.
These are the primary online resources I've utilized in researching my historical posts. Note that the Ghosts of DFW Music History series makes use of various other online and human sources in addition to these, including personal interviews, social media pages, and articles from other publications. But for my other posts, these are the most [fruitful/producing results] sources I have regularly consulted:
For the Dallas Public Library-based archives, you'll need an account based on your Dallas Library card. Information on how to obtain this access can be found HERE. As far as printed materials go, the following are also good resources:
Dallas: The Deciding Years - A Historical Portrait by A.C. Greene, published 1973 by The Encino Press
Dallas Yesterday by Sam Acheson, edited by Lee Milazzo, published 1977 by Southern Methodist University Press
Dallas Rediscovered: A Photographic Chronicle of Urban Expansion 1870-1925 by William L. McDonald, published 1979 by The Dallas Historical Society
This Used to Be Dallas by Harry Hall, published 2020 by Reedy Press
And if social media is your thing (it isn't for me, but I do sometimes utilize it as a necessary evil for my research), here are some active groups on Facebook that are worth a look:
I picked up these ticket stubs inside a Fort Worth antique store a few months ago. The original theater operated from 1922 until sometime in the 1970s, eventually being demolished to make way for a 20-story office building. The theater opened in 1922 as the Hope Theatre and underwent multiple name changes until being christened The Capri in 1960.
Continue reading "Capri Theatre ticket stubs"
Dallas is home to a healthy community of photographers and photography studios in the digital era. While the widespread prevalence of easy, convenient cameras in everyone's mobile device makes everyday photography easier than ever, there is still a niche carved out for professional work when it comes to memorializing important events or, just as importantly, people. This was no less the case in the earlier days of photography, in the days before Kodak and the Brownie camera made picture taking easily accessible to the masses. The portrait studios that operated in the late nineteenth century captured images on plates of glass and produced printed vanity photos, or "cabinet cards," by the dozen for those seeking to memorialize their own likenesses, or those of their family members or families. But while these studios helped create a valuable record of many early communities, their own legacies have so often been erased by over a century of urban development, with little to no evidence left to recall their one-time locations near city centers. In this post, we're going to go on a sort of "walking tour" of several such locations in the city of Dallas, and take a look at the stories behind seven early Dallas photography studios.
The tour area
This series of images presents a view of one portion of downtown Elm Street over a period of approximately 11 decades. The view is facing east in the general area of present-day Akard Street.
This first postcard, published by S.H. Kress & Co. around the early 1910s, shows Elm Street as it would have appeared circa 1911/1912. Kress was a five and dime chain of stores that once dotted the country, known for its distinctive architectural designs and, later, for its segregationist company policies. According to contemporary newspaper articles, the Kress store shown in the postcard was commissioned and built in 1911 for a cost of $38,000 (around $1.2 million in 2024 dollars). The Wilson Building, seen behind the W.A. Green & Company building, housed the Titche-Goettinger Department Store until the end of the 1920s. The vantage point of the artist is Scollard Court, or present-day Exchange Place, renamed to the latter following the 1916 construction of the Exchange National Bank. Today Exchange Place is little more than a narrow, alley-like walkway sandwiched between the one-time Exchange bank building and that of its rival Republic National Bank, long since christened "Money Alley" and designated as a historical landmark. Note the streetcar lines running down the center of Elm Street.
While working to compile photographic images for my DFW in vintage photos post a few months ago, I managed to get my hands on an old postcard for the city of Plano. If you didn't know, finding and acquiring historic images of the city of Dallas proper is not especially difficult; all you really need is a bit of vigilance and a healthy dose of patience while keeping an eye out at antique stores, estate sales, and online auctions. Just give it some time, and the photos will turn up. Finding interesting period photos of the suburban areas, though, can be considerably more difficult. So it was with some delight that I acquired this particular real photo postcard. And, unlike other similarly aged RPPCs that I've found, this one came with a mystery attached: where was the Plano Dam?
Plano Waterworks, circa 1907
