Postcard circa 1910. The Marsalis Sanitarium “Cool, quiet, modern. Seven minutes’ ride from Dallas News office.” was located  at 45 Marsalis, which would put it in the vicinity of Lake Cliff. It was in operation as early as 1906, when Doctors Reuss & Smart advertised their availability for surgery there. By 1909 Dr. J.H. Reuss had an additional practice at the Wilson Building in downtown Dallas. I find no mention of the Marsalis facility after 1910.

Probably the most-lamented fried chicken place I’ve found is Youngblood’s. I dimly remember seeing a Youngblood’s Restaurant at the Old Mill place during the State Fair of Texas about 1968, yet across the internet people swear it was the best chicken ever, and replications of its recipe can still be found.

Julius Harper “Pap” Youngblood was a cotton farmer in Speegleville, just west of Waco, when he bouht 500 baby chicks in 1930, raising them as a sideline to help make ends meet. (Ever hear recordings of Wolfman Jack hawking baby chicks over Mexican radio?) By 1942 “Pap” and his sons, Weldon and Ovid, had got the hang not only of raising chickens, but doing it “from the egg to the table”, processing and delivering feed for the poultry, and dressing the birds in their own processing plant. They opened their first restaurant in Waco in 1945 to advertise their business, and it was so successful they expanded to Dallas, opening their second restaurant in Oak Cliff in 1946 near Colorado and Zang. The above ad  announced the opening of that restaurant. By 1961 Youngblood’s was the fried chicken king of  Texas, with 60 chicken-raising farms around Waco, a chain of 14 restaurants, and about 500 people in their employ.

In 1967 Youngblood’s had more than 30 restaurants in Texas and  at least 6 franchise stores in the state. In 1968 they announced plans to expand with a nationwide franchising operation, but they were too late; the market was already flooded with other fried chicken franchises. That and a series of financial mishaps resulted in overwhelming debt, and all of Youngblood’s restaurants abruptly closed in 1969. Some of the restaurants were sold to Mickey Mantle’s Country Cooking, Inc. and the poultry processing operation was scaled back to about 12 people. By 1970 none of the Youngbloods had any association with their former operation.

Leslie’s originated in Waco, and that location seems to be famous for being the place where Billy Joe Shaver’s mom was a waitress. The first mention I find of Leslie’s in Dallas is 1939, when the Dallas Morning News mentioned it in a “Where to Go When You Eat” column. This postcard is from a few years later, when there were a whopping 9 locations around Texas. Leslie’s was at 2700 Ft. Worth Avenue, which would have put it almost directly across the street from Roth’s Cafe.

Leslie’s is listed in the Dallas phone book for 1951 but not for 1957. The site is now an empty lot.

Go here for a larger view of the building illustration from the postcard.

To see a larger view of this old sign now residing in the back lot of the Green Fiber plant in Waco go here and here.

F

We don’t mean to CROW but We Know Our Chicken

I found mention of Cliff Chicken Shack as early as August 1936, which means it may have pre-dated the more well-known Leslie’s Chicken Shack by several years. It may have been the first drive-in fried chicken joint in Oak Cliff. In 1942 the proprietor was listed as J.B. Cohen (or J.R. Cohen). By 1951, the Shack was out of business, and the building at 519 W. Davis (at the northeast corner at Llewellyn) had become Laden’s Food Market. The location was by turns a wholesale sandwich company, hardware store, carpet company, and an auto paint & body shop. The unlucky site is now home to Honduras Tire Shop.

photo by Terry Houchins

Is this old bridge still hanging over Clarendon? (somewhere west of the zoo)

Thanks to Steve Bonner for setting me straight on the bridge – here’s what he says:
This trestle for the interurban track crossing Clarendon was last used in 1948 when the interurban quit running to Waco.  The trestle extends father on the south side of Clarendon and is parallel to Moore St. on the east side of Moore..  It is all still there and is located east of the Dallas Zoo nearly to Corinth St.

Listed variously as Roth’s Cafe or Roth’s Restaurant, this eatery was in business from at least 1946 to 1967. 2701 Ft.Worth Avenue would have put the building in the same location as the old Bronco Bowl, maybe on the west end of the lot, right where the used car lot now sits in front of Home Depot. I have no recollection of the building, but that atomic tower must have been pretty cool.

photo courtesy of Steve Bonner

South Loop Drive-In opened March 31, 1950, with two showings of “On the Town” starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. The theater was located at 3030 Ledbetter, on the north side of the road, just west of Bonnie View and southeast of the Veterans’ Hospital. The drive-in was part of the Adelman theater circuit, which operated movie houses in Houston, Fort Worth, and Tulsa, as well as the Delman Theater (not a drive-in) in Dallas. Cost of construction was $150,000, which included innovations such as indirectly lighted walkways, a patio with lounge chairs, and a playground for children. I don’t think they would have got away with that Snow White mural on their theater today!

Both the South Loop Drive-In and the Delman Theater closed about 1968, and no obvious trace remains of this theater in the field that still fronts Loop 12.

As an occasional change from Austin’s, Fred’s was located just down Illinois a ways, at the east end of Wynnewood Village, 2226 S. Llewellyn. Fred’s existed in 1951, although I don’t know its original location. In the early sixties Fred’s had 7 locations, which included one in Irving and one in Richardson.

The remnants of The New Westerner Tourist Courts built in 1945 are stilll standing at 2514 South Zangs Blvd. at Elmore Street, about midway between Illinois and Saner Avenue. I used to think I must have been mangling street names by saying “Zangs” instead of “Zang”, because I never see it written with the s at the end anymore. This postcard tells me somebody decided to drop the “s” somewhere along the line. Will we ever find it? I think this card is late fifties or early sixties from the phone number, although it may have been some kind of reprint or corrected version of an earlier card. Below is another postcard view which includes the swimming pool area. The building is still in use as a motel, but you can see in the bottom photo the original sign is gone.

One more bridge before I get back to actual Oak Cliff subjects. This is a view circa 1906 of the wooden span that was located near the current location of the Houston Street Viaduct. It’s the bridge that was famously washed away in the flood of 1908. I read somewhere you can still find remnants of the piers in the river bottom near Cadiz Street, probably big ol’ Bois d’Arc stumps.