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DFW in vintage photos

Posted on July 21, 2024October 9, 2024 by PAO Productions

Updated October 9, 2024 with additional historical information

Whenever I shop antique stores, estate sales, or online, I'm always on the lookout for unique and original snapshots and slides. If it's a photo of somewhere I've been, or of a scene or situation I find interesting enough, then it's fair game as long as the price is right. And when it comes to places I've been, few vintage images are more interesting than those of my own hometown and surrounding areas. Here are sixty-nine rare images of DFW spanning every decade of the 20th century, all taken from my personal collection.

Houston Street Viaduct, 1945

The Houston Street Viaduct (originally known as the Dallas-Oak Cliff Viaduct) was constructed in 1911 to connect Downtown Dallas with the then recently annexed community and former independent city of Oak Cliff. It was built to replace earlier connections that were destroyed by the Great Trinity River Flood of 1908. The originally planned streetcar line that was intended to traverse the bridge was finally constructed more than one hundred years later, entering service in April 2015.

Vintage photo collection series

Posted on July 17, 2024September 21, 2024 by PAO Productions

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.

Pacific-Akard parking garage, 1950s

Posted on June 23, 2024July 17, 2024 by PAO Productions

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.

Continue reading "Pacific-Akard parking garage, 1950s"

More vintage photo snapshots

Posted on May 22, 2024May 31, 2024 by PAO Productions

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.

Ghosts of DFW music history: West side haunts

Posted on April 30, 2024June 25, 2024 by PAO Productions

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.