Archive for the ‘Historical / Preservation’ Category

Join Preservation Dallas for their Holiday Party and Silent Auction at the Aloft Hotel in Downtown Dallas!

Enjoy hors d’oerves, beverages, a gourmet-theme silent auction, and tours of this incredible warehouse-turned-penthouse hotel. The silent auction will be showcasing local food & wine establishments-perfect for holiday gift giving!

Self Park is available for $6 at the corner of Young & Field Street
Hotel Valet is available for $10

R.S.V.P. is required
Admission to the party is FREE for Preservation Dallas Members
$15 for Non-Members.

The party will take place on the lower level of the hotel (below the lobby). For more information or to purchase non-member tickets, please visit their website at:www.preservationdallas.org

We are FREE because we live amongst the BRAVE…

Here is a listing of Memorial Day events:

DALLAS: The Arboretum is having its Memorial Day Family Picnic. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

DALLAS: The American Veterans Traveling Tribute is at the Superpages.com Center at Fair Park, featuring an 80 percent scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Open 7 a.m.-7 p.m.

DALLAS: The Department of Veterans Affairs is having a Memorial Day ceremony at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery that begins at 11 a.m. Guests are encouraged to use the parking lot and shuttle service from The Potter’s House.

FRISCO: VFW Post 8273 and the Frisco Garden Club are having the city’s annual Memorial Day ceremony at Frisco Commons Park, 8000 McKinney Road. The event begins at 9 a.m. and will last about one hour. Residents are urged to bring lawn chairs.

McKINNEY: A ceremony honoring Collin County’s African-American war dead begins at 1:30 p.m. at Ross Cemetery in McKinney.

PLANO: The city is having a Memorial Day event at the Plano Municipal Center beginning at 8:30 a.m. Monday. The featured speaker is Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady.

From the DailyMail UK:

The moment is one of the most iconic in American gangster folklore.

Exactly 75 years ago today, at 9.15am on May 23, 1934, two small-time Depression-era bank robbers named Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow died on a lonely road outside Gibsland, Louisiana.

They were killed by a 16-second hail of 187 automatic rifle and shotgun rounds, fired at their Ford V8 sedan.

The cigar-smoking gun moll: In fact, Bonnie didn’t smoke cigars and she almost certainly never fired a shot

Immortalised in Arthur Penn’s classic 1967 film, in which they were played by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, the pair the American press called ‘Romeo & Juliet In A Getaway Car’ earned themselves a place in the criminal hall of fame - joining infamous mobsters such as Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson.

But the true story of Bonnie and Clyde is very different from the Hollywood fantasy. And as two new books reveal, it is even more extraordinary.

Their deaths were certainly violent in the extreme. On the day of their demise, Clyde Barrow, who was just 25, was driving along in his socks, while Bonnie was eating a sandwich in the passenger seat.

Near Gibsland, they stopped to greet the father of one of their gang members - but it was a trap. A six-man posse of Texas and Louisiana troopers was waiting in ambush and opened fire.

No warnings were issued and the couple were given no opportunity to surrender. Clyde died instantly - the first shot took off the top of his head.

But Bonnie was only wounded and began screaming - a scream so terrible that their principal pursuer, former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, fired two more shots into the defenceless 23-year old at close range.

‘I hate to bust the cap on a woman, especially when she was sitting down,’ the laconic Hamer said afterwards. ‘But if it wouldn’t have been her, it would have been us.’

Their bodies were riddled with 25 bullets each, even though Bonnie Parker had never been charged with a capital offence.

The pair had become notorious after two years on the run and the crime scene quickly descended into a bizarre circus.

The making of a myth: Two kids from the slums of Dallas, Bonnie and Clyde became history’s most famous gangsters

Three of the posse left to collect the local coroner - but the remaining three allowed souvenir-hunters to swarm over the car.

One man tried to cut off Clyde’s finger with a pocket knife; another attempted to cut off his left ear. Blood-stained pieces of Bonnie’s dress were removed, as were locks of her hair.

When coroner J.L.Wade arrived, he recalled: ‘Nearly everyone had begun collecting souvenirs, such as shell casings and slivers of glass from the shattered car windows.’

Wade asked Hamer to control the crowd, and ensure that the car - complete with the bodies - was taken intact to the local town of Arcadia.

But the freak show didn’t end there.

After the four-door saloon had been towed back to the Conger Furniture Store and Funeral Parlour in Arcadia, and the bodies laid out for examination, the coroner allowed sightseers to view the remains.

Within 12 hours, the town’s population had ballooned from just 2,000 to an estimated 12,000, with spectators travelling across the state to see the grisly remains of Bonnie and Clyde - and the price of beer in local bars doubled in price as a result.

But it wasn’t just the public who were fascinated by the death of these two outlaws.The lawmen who shot them also wanted their piece of history.

Romeo and Juliet in a getaway car: Bonnie and Clyde’s real death was far more horrific than the 1967 film’s depiction (pictured, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway)

Hamer and his men took the arsenal of machine guns, rifles and pistols they found in the car, as well as the 15 false number plates that Clyde used to confuse his pursuers.

All were later sold as souvenirs.

Bonnie Parker’s clothes and saxophone, which had also been in the Ford, were taken by the lawmen, too. When her family asked for them to be returned, their request was refused.

They, too, were sold as souvenirs.

Even the ‘Death Car’, as it was known, became the subject of a bitter battle. Although it had originally been stolen by Bonnie and Clyde from Ruth Warren of Topeka, Kansas, the local Parish Sheriff in Arcadia, Henderson Jordan, a member of Hamer’s six-man posse, claimed it as his own.

Ms Warren hired a lawyer to reclaim it and within weeks was renting out the car for £100 a week - a staggering sum in those days - to Charles W. Stanley, who called himself ‘The Crime Doctor’.

He took it around the country to help plug his popular crime lectures.

Stanley made a fortune out of the fame of Bonnie and Clyde - a fame that was fanned by their funerals. After the bodies had been transported to Dallas, where their families lived, the funeral directors put them on show.

Ten thousand people - many of them drunk - turned up to see Clyde Barrow’s body before the Dallas police were called to disperse the crowd.

One man even offered Clyde’s father £7,500 for the corpse.

Nickel and dime robberies: Bonnie and Clyde’s attempts to make big money was laughable

Bonnie Parker’s mother, Emma, estimated that 20,000 people filed past her open casket - although for the most part they remained orderly.

Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger sent flowers. But amidst all the hype and hoopla, one truth remains.

The myth that has surrounded Bonnie and Clyde since that fateful morning 75 years ago bears little resemblance to reality.

As American reporter John Guinn says in a new book, Bonnie and Clyde were, in fact, ‘perhaps the most inept crooks ever’. He calls their two-year crime spree ‘as much a reign of error as of terror’.

To discover the real Bonnie and Clyde, we need to travel back to those dusty roads of Louisiana and find out how two kids from the slums of West Dallas fell in love and traded their lives for a brief moment of celebrity - transmitted across the world by the new cinema newsreels and photo agencies.

The pictures of Bonnie Parker, for example, with a cigar between her teeth, beret on her head and a pistol in her hand, swept across the U.S, earning her the sobriquet: The Cigar-Smoking Gun Moll.

It made her and Clyde Barrow as famous as baseball player Babe Ruth or film star Mary Pickford.

But the reality was quite different. Parker didn’t smoke cigars and she almost certainly never fired a shot. Clyde Barrow had mocked up the photograph to sustain their myth as glamorous gangsters.

In the flesh, they were as far removed from the images created by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as it is possible to imagine.

For a start, Bonnie was barely 4ft 11in tall and weighed just over 6 and a half stone, while Clyde was only 5ft 3in and a little over eight stone.

Often described as ’short and scrawny’, he liked to wear a hat to make him look taller.

Both were also crippled. Clyde walked with a pronounced limp because in 1932 he’d hacked off his left big toe and part of a second toe to get a transfer out of the notoriously tough Eastham Prison Farm in Texas.

Meanwhile, Bonnie’s left leg was badly injured in a car accident the same year.

She was trapped in the car when it burst into flames, and escaping battery acid burned her left leg down to the bone. She could barely walk for the last 18 months of her life,and either hopped everywhere or was carried by Clyde.

Their lives certainly weren’t glamorous either, spending night after night sleeping in the back of a stolen car hidden deep in the woods and eating cold pork and beans from a tin.

Even as bank robbers, they were bunglers - and knew it.

Bonnie and Clyde mainly committed what Guinn calls ‘nickel and dime robberies’ from ‘ mom and pop grocery stores and service stations’, stealing between $5 and $10 from hardworking people struggling to survive the Depression and the Dust Bowl drought that devastated America’s farming heartland.

So how did this young couple come to hypnotise America?

Born in Rowena, Texas, on October 1, 1910, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was the second of three children born to her bricklayer father Charles, who died when she was just four.

After his death, her destitute mother, Emma, moved the family to the slums of West Dallas, known then as ‘the Devil’s back porch’.

Poor though she was, Bonnie was clever, attractive and strong-willed.

At school, she excelled at creative writing, particularly poetry, and rapidly became a warm-up speaker at rallies for local politicians.

She dreamed of becoming a star on Broadway, but nothing materialised, and just before her 16th birthday she married a neighbourhood thug called Roy Thornton.

The couple separated in 1929, but they never divorced, and Bonnie was still wearing Thornton’s wedding ring when she died alongside her partner-in-crime five years later.

Born just south of Dallas, on March 24, 1909, Clyde Chestnut Barrow, was the fifth of seven children. His was a poor, farming family, who were forced off their land by the drought.

Robin Hood adventures: During one robbery, the pair got away with just $1.75

A car fanatic, he was first arrested in 1926 when police confronted him over a rental car he’d failed to return. His second arrest came with his elder brother Ivan ‘Buck’ Barrow, when the two were caught stealing turkeys.

The brothers would quickly progress to stealing cars.

Buck would eventually become a member of the bank-robbing Barrow Gang, formed by his younger brother. His wife, Blanche, would also join the gang.

On January 5, 1930, one of Clyde Barrow’s friends invited him to a party, where he met Bonnie for the first time.

With his dark wavy hair and dancing brown eyes, she was instantly attracted to him. She told friends he had nice clothes ‘and fancy cars’, even if she knew they might be stolen.

Bonnie’s mother said later: ‘As crazy as she’d been about Roy, she never worshipped him as she did Clyde.’ The gangster love story that was to enthrall a nation had begun.

Less than two months after their meeting, Clyde was arrested and spent the next two years in jail, some of it at Eastham Prison Farm.

Prison life did not treat the diminutive Barrow kindly: he was repeatedly beaten up and sodomised by fellow inmate Ed Crowder.

In late October 1931, Clyde responded by beating Crowder to death with an iron pipe - his first killing. But a fellow prisoner, already serving life for murder, confessed to the crime as a favour and Clyde was never even charged.

At the end of January the following year, Barrow took an axe to his toes in an effort to escape the brutal regime at Eastham. Ironically, he was paroled just five days later.

Reunited with Bonnie, Clyde resolved never to return to jail and, to take revenge on the Texas prison system, vowed to organise a jail-break from Eastham.

In the next two years, Bonnie and Clyde’s haphazard exploits became ever more dramatic, as small-scale robberies led to desperate attempts on banks, and the Barrow Gang roamed across five rural states.

Their attempts to make big money were at times laughable, though. One risky bank bust saw them get away with just $1.75.

Despite this, ‘America thrilled to their Robin Hood adventures’, in the words of one columnist. ‘The presence of a female, Bonnie, escalated the sincerity of their intentions to make them something unique and individual - even at times heroic.’

The gang usually kidnapped, rather than killed, any lawmen they encountered, releasing them with the money to get home - which only helped to fuel their celebrity.

But there was nothing heroic about their gang’s escape when they were surrounded by police at a motel near Kansas City in July 1933.

They blasted their way out using Clyde’s favoured Browning Automatic Rifles, but Clyde’s elder brother Buck was shot and injured, while Buck’s wife, Blanche, was all but blinded by flying glass.

Six days later, they were surrounded again at an abandoned amusement park near Dexter, Iowa.

Bonnie and Clyde escaped, but Buck was shot in the back and Blanche was again hit by flying glass. Buck died five days later.

Increasingly desperate, Clyde sought reinforcements by organising a break- out from Eastham Prison Farm in January 1934, releasing at least four prisoners, three of whom joined his gang.

But during the jailbreak, a guard was killed, which brought the full weight of Texas law enforcement down on the Barrow Gang. Former Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer was charged with catching Bonnie and Clyde - for a fee.

Before he could do so, however, Clyde and one of the prisoners he’d released, Henry Methven, killed two highway patrolmen in Southlake, Texas, on April 1, 1934.

Those killings soured the public’s attitude to Bonnie and Clyde, and indirectly led to their deaths - though Methven later confessed he alone committed the killings.

It was Methven’s father who tempted Bonnie and Clyde to that lonely road outside Gibsland just a few weeks later, in exchange for a promise of leniency for his son.

And so, on that warm, muggy May morning 75 years ago, Bonnie and Clyde drove into gangster history.

In a twist of fate, within months America’s other most famous gangsters met a similar fate. In July, John Dillinger was gunned down; in October, Pretty Boy Floyd was killed by Federal agents; and in November, Baby Face Nelson was shot to death.

But the infamy of Bonnie and Clyde outlives that of their rivals.

And should anyone doubt it, they need only remember that their bullet-riddled Ford, along with Clyde’s blood-stained shirt, is on display in a Nevada casino to this very day.

• Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story Of Bonnie & Clyde by Jeff Guinn is published by Simon & Schuster at £14.99. To order a copy (p&p free), call 0845 155 0720.

The North Texas Tollway Authority says its board has chosen to name 121 after former Texas state Rep. Sam Rayburn.

With this change, the 121 Tollway will be known as “Sam Rayburn Tollway.”

Rayburn represented the 4th Congressional District, a 16-county area, in the mid-20th century. His district included large counties like Collin, Rockwall, Grayson, Fannin and Lamar.

Rayburn is a historical figure in Texas politics, having been the longest-serving speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to date. It’s a role he carried from 1940 to 1961 and was an iconic Texan known for his integrity, patriotism and fairness. During Rayburn’s time in Congress, he oversaw the passage of the creation of the Interstate Highway System.

If you live in suburbia, this is going to be “unusual”. If you live in Deep Ellum, this will be another Friday nite.

Assassination City Roller Derby members skating across canvas to make art, a Black Sabbath tribute band made up of kids, and performances from the Velvet Kittens burlesque troupe.

The roller derby league is presenting the event, and proceeds from the cash-only auction will go to the Oak Cliff Foundation, which is dedicated to renovating the historic Texas Theatre. In keeping with the league’s purpose and name, the themes for the works by about 25 artists are roller derby and Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. Hors d’oeuvres from local restaurants and more music are also on tap.

Be part of the action at Club Dada (2720 Elm Street, Dallas, 75226). Tickets are $10.

Editor’s Note: There have been many comments left on the closing of the Larry Morgan Music store. Today, however, Janie Arnold-Autry commented on the post and her info is so rich in historical details, that it warrants its own posting.

I would like to add my memories of my dad’s store, which became Arnold & Morgan. It started out in the small building across the street from GHS. Clyde & Betty Box had a record store in half of the building and my dad, Jim Arnold, had the other side—it was full of pianos and a few organs. (James M. Arnold - died 1971 when his airplane crashed). It was just Arnold Piano Co. at that time. I remember it well because I had to walk there everyday after school and answer the phones and of course do my homework. I loved the record store and listening and dancing to the music.

Mr. Morgan and my dad traveled together in ministry BEFORE the music store was birthed. Mr. Morgan was the praise leader and my dad played the Hammond organ for an evangelist named Jack Coe. When Rev. Coe died, my dad had the piano business to fall back on because his dad E.S. Arnold had a small piano store in Kaufman, TX. My grandfather could take a piano apart and put it back together and make it like new. He taught my dad the same trade.

My dad asked V.E. Morgan to come to Texas and partner up with him in the music business. Mr. Morgan and his family lived in Springfield, MO at that time. Mr. Morgan came to Texas for a number of months (lived with us in our house in Garland) before bringing his entire family to join him. He was a wonderful man…like a second dad to me. It was like the Lord had the plan and dad & Morgan followed the map and made the jouney. At one time, our entire family worked at the store.

After Mr. Morgan and dad split the business, my dad opened The Music Mart in Haltom City,TX (Ft. Worth). I worked in the Ft. Worth store as did my brother, Jimmy. When dad was killed in the airplane crash, my mother gave the store to my brother. The McBrayer brothers bought out the piano & organ side and Jimmy had the guitar side of the building.

(Does anyone remember when the flood came?) Duck Creek flooded…it was awful. But the store survived after many hours of sweeping mud and water out of the building.

I had the honor (just kidding) of dusting pianos and sweeping the floors…after school each day. I just happened to like being there to check out all the good looking guys too…I had a crush on several.

I am still very close friends with Mrs. Morgan, Kaye Morgan-McCurdy and Gary Morgan. I was called “little sis” in the Morgan household when we were kids. Kaye is my dearest friend to this day.

Larry will be missed by many of us. May he rest in peace.
God Bless You All, Thanks for reading my thoughts, Janie Arnold-Autry

Some people in Dallas are a flutter because it might cost up to $1 million dollars annually to protect former President George Bush. This is a high estimation and it’s due to the increase in police patrols, escorts, etc. as Bush lives his life and conducts business in this city.

While Dallas, and the state of Texas, are fortunately in better financial condition than many other parts of the country, it is still a situation for consideration as budgets are being tightened in case of any future shortfalls.

This is all understandable; however, the long term vision of what Bush brings to Dallas should be considered at this time as well. Not only will Dallas benefit from the property taxes on his home, there will be a large benefit to the tax base upon the opening of his presidential library at SMU.

Thousands of people annually will visit Dallas which is a boon to the hotels, airlines, transportation services and restaurants. This offers the city of Dallas a revenue stream that most cities would dearly give their first born for.

We must all focus on the long term benefits of having Bush in the city of Dallas as it will be a benefit to us all and future generations for decades to come.