Ft. Worth East Side Evolution - 2

NOTE:

Most maps used to illustrate this article are from the collection of Pete Charlton, who operates as Electric Books.  Large, HD scanned collections are available at a nominal cost.  Highly recommended.

Maps Credit: Pete Charlton ~ The Electric Books Collection.

This study was undertaken in order to better understand how our Meadowbrook - Eastern Hills - Handley neighborhoods originally developed into the area we recall as our childhood home turf.  If you are like me, anything that occurred before I got there (anywhere) was old history, thus of little consequence to the present day...no matter when "present day" is or was. 

But, that's not quite true.  To the extent some of those old memories and lessons learned impacted your future decisions, they could have become a significant element in your makeup. 

1920

Development extends east along the Dallas Pike and north to approximately where Meadowbrook Drive will soon be constructed.  Oakland Blvd. is the eastern boundary of the Ft. Worth city limits at this time.  

Residential neighborhoods exist in the Sycamore Hts., Tandy Addition, and Beacon Hill subdivisions just north of the Dallas Pike (East Lancaster) and south of where Meadowbrook Drive will run.  The Meadowbrook Golf Club will be built in 1922 on what is showing on this 1920 map as farm land east of Oakland Blvd.

Note the Interurban stops (circles) shown on this map.  The Dallas Pike and the Interurban run along the same right-of-way.  At the time this 1920 map was published, the Interurban had been running for about 18-years.  The Dallas Pike, as a portion of the Dixie Highway, was relatively new by comparison, dating to about 1915 or a bit later in this area.  However, the Dallas Pike as a transportation route, actually dated to at least the 1890s, when it was used by horse-drawn wagons as the principal road between Ft. Worth and Dallas. 

 

1929

By 1929, Meadowbrook Drive ran east to approximately Wilson Rd. (Jenson), then continues east as Ederville Rd.  Of interest on this 1929 map is the amount of subdividing consisting of unnamed residential streets, most of them unpaved.  It may indicate that a considerable amount of speculative preliminary development had taken place during the "Roaring 20s" only to grind to a halt during the Depression.  The Meadowbrook Golf Club failed about this time and ownership was transferred to the City of Ft. Worth.

During the 1920s substantial residential development took place around Oakland Park and the Beacon Hill subdivision south of Stratford Park.  Building is active in Edgewood Hts., Claremont Place, and Murray Hill Addition.  Sporadic home building took place in the Central Meadowbrook area between Oakland Park and the Meadowbrook Golf Club as well as eastward along Meadowbrook Dr.  The area was decidedly rural with the few houses in the area widely spaced.  Properties consisted of a few large farms and a number of smaller acreages.   

1937

Meadowbrook Elementary is shown on this map just one year after it was opened in 1936.  Shows a number of newly noted subdivision names.  This is also one year beyond the Texas Centennial celebration and probably about the time of Amon Carter's peak influence.

1940

A bus route is depicted by the dark dots along Lancaster, north along Tierney, and along Meadowbrook Drive.  This same route also shows on a 1936 map.  Development activity has extended east along Meadowbrook Drive and lightly north into the Central Meadowbrook section between the golf course and Oakland Blvd.  The area between East Lancaster and Meadowbrook Drive is showing light development and remains mostly rural.

Meadowbrook Elementary was built in 1936 and is shown on this map, south of Oakland Park.  That building will house grades K-9 until Fall 1954, when Meadowbrook Junior High was opened just across Meadowbrook Drive to the north on the triangular land bound by Ederville Rd. and Meadowbrook Drive.

1950

About 150 of us already living in the area enter 1st grade next year.  Development activity shows a further filling-in of the Central Meadowbrook area.  Weiler Blvd. has been constructed along the east boundary of the golf course sometime after 1945.  The entire Eastern Hills subdivision is still vacant at this point.  The first Eastern Hills homes will be built about 1953 along Blueridge Dr., bordering the golf course.  Blueridge will be located about mid-way between Meadowbrook Drive and Ederville Rd.  

Significant subdividing shows along the area north of Lancaster and south of Meadowbrook Drive, continuing east of Weiler toward Handley.  This is one of the first maps to show Meadowbrook expanding to join Handley along East Lancaster.  Many of the 60-70 "old guard" members (1951 Meadowbrook 1st graders) of our EHHS Class of 1963 move into the area about this time.

Meadowbrook Junior High will open Fall 1954 to accommodate the growing East Side population.  The WBAP television station and tower was built in 1948 just east of Oakland Park but doesn't show on this map.

Note the interesting depiction of the future Toll Road (today's Tom Landry highway) as an East-West Freeway extension.

1955

 

This c.1955 map shows the area just before EHHS was built and Lake Arlington has not yet filled.  WBAP has built its station and Central Meadowbrook has substantially built-out north to Kemble St.

The Eastern Hills neighborhood is just seeing its first (1953) homes built north of the future EHHS.  That entire neighborhood was thickly wooded and consisted mostly of a single large hill, rising from the school property to a peak at Blueridge Dr., then falling away to a low point along Ederville Rd.  Homes in this area generally contained 2000-2500 sq. ft. of living space and were custom built.  At the time they were constructed, they were about 50-100% larger than most of the housing stock in the East Side neighborhoods.

Some folks believe this step change in housing size and perceived ostentation from the new Eastern Hills residents caused a stir of resentment amongst the earlier, established population in the other East Side neighborhoods.  However, on review of the development time-line and first-hand recollection, it seems that there were simply not enough residents living in the partly completed subdivision to have actively originated some of the East Side’s perceived snobbery of that time.  Of course the Christmas decoration extravaganza of the late 1950s somewhat belies that thought.

I am aware of the early Eastern Hills neighborhood being the focal point of such antipathy from the wider view of the older Poly and Handley neighborhoods.  However, from a first-hand point of view, my own experience is different. 

Families who originally settled in the Eastern Hills section consisted, in part, of doctors, dentists, business owners, and a range of other professionals.  Many of them were WWII veterans who had gone to college on the GI Bill after the war and were in their peak earning years, typical age 35 - 45.  In fact, this was one of the early examples of what the advantage of higher education could provide for those able to achieve it.  Before WWII, substantial examples of obvious upward mobility, such as the Eastern Hills neighborhood represented, were quite rare.

The Toll Road is under construction at this time, but doesn't show on this map.

 1962

This 1962 map shows the East Side as it was about the time we graduated from EH.  Central Meadowbrook is essentially complete and the Eastern Hills neighborhood is nearing completion as the last of the vacant land down to Ederville Rd. is all that is left.  Early development north of the Toll Road in White Lake Hills has started.

Loop 820 was under construction when we were at EHHS and opened about the time we graduated.  This map shows the Loop still under construction.

Development continued eastward toward Arlington between Meadowbrook Drive and the Toll Road...I think Cook's Meadow came next.  About the same time or shortly afterward, Woodhaven was developed east of White Lake Hills, north of the Toll Road.

1971

By 1971, the build out of Meadowbrook-Eastern Hills was essentially complete.  Building in White Lake Hills shows some progress and the first homes in Woodhaven just east of White Lake will soon be built; also, a few streets have been added in the far north portions of the Eastern Hills neighborhood.  Loop 820 is complete in this area and construction between Lancaster and the Toll Road continues to move east.

1976

By 1976, the building of Woodhaven just north of the Toll Road was underway.  Filling in east of the Loop continued.

 ~1980

An undated Ashburn map thought to be about c.1980 is interesting in that it shows the subdivision names throughout the area.

Adios

EHHS 1956 - 2004

While reading a Ft. Worth Architecture forum yesterday, one of the guys who knew what he was doing praised a historic aerial website, so I took a look. The 4-picture collage above came from the site.

Each picture is the same scale and oriented with North at the top; Meadowbrook Dr. at the bottom; Monterrey at the top; and a portion of the golf course at the upper left corner. Viewing top row L to R, then bottom row L to R, the dates are 2004, 1990, 1963, and 1956, giving a 50+ year look at the changes.

I found the 1956 picture most interesting as it shows the land before site work had begun to build the school. It is believed that the land that EHHS sits on was formerly owned by Jud & Inez Perry.  Of course, the 1963 picture is how we recall it, and the more recent pictures show the additions of buildings and reductions of school grounds open space...why do some of we humans feel compelled to do that? Progress and growth is the quick answer, but I wonder...today, even with the addition of the 9th grade there are about the same number of students assigned to the school, and I think fewer of them graduate.

You can visit the aerial site and dig around for your own house and those of some of your friends. The 1956 aerials show the Toll Road under construction and a lot of my friends' houses not yet built--their lots were still wooded land.




Adios

Early DFW Maps

These 2 maps illustrate the DFW infrastructure in 1913 and in 1954. In the intervening 41-years the Dixie Highway followed by US 80 was built and the Interurban ended its service.

The 1954 DFW map shows the new SH 183 and a fair amount of the secondary roads that existed between the cities. This was the oldest map I’ve found showing the entire DFW area. Other maps dated 1950 and 1942 were separate pages for each city, indicating to me that there simply wasn’t enough of substance between the cities to warrant including the detail on a combined map.

My own recollections as a young boy in 1954 are that there were mostly wide open spaces between the cities and also between the 2 highways, 80 & 183. Later maps are readily available at various specialized websites which would show the area filling in. However, this 1954 map illustrates about the last year a map could be drawn still showing so much open space between Dallas and Ft. Worth.

In the 1920s to the 1940s you would have used either US 80 or a series of country roads to drive between the cities. Note that Lake Arlington does not show on the 1954 map as it wasn’t filled until 1957. Our trips to the grandmothers’ houses were taken on SH 183 to Loop 12 to Buckner and down to White Rock; or, down Harry Hines right through the center of Dallas on Commerce and out Grand Ave. to Garland Rd.

Adios

Old Highways - Learning to Drive

In doing the reading about the old DFW Interurban rail line for the previous piece, I ran across a number of opportunities to answer some long unanswered questions about roads and highways around the DFW area that I recalled from childhood. My road memories predate the D-FW Turnpike, I-820, LBJ, the Airport Freeway, and all the Interstate Highway system.

After WWII Air Corps service and further service during the Korean War, Dad bought his first house east of Ft. Worth just off Hwy 183. A few years later, he built his move up house near EHHS. My grandmothers, both widows, lived in Dallas; one in Oak Cliff and the other near White Rock Lake. Many of our Sundays in the 1950s were spent visiting one or both of the grandmothers, so I had plenty of road time on the old highways at an early age.

Two uncles lived in Corpus Christi and since that meant a free place to stay when we wanted a beach vacation on Padre Island, we made that long trip numerous times before the Interstates were built. I recall seeing old sections of abandoned highway pavement running beside the existing roadways and often wondering about them. Dad’s answers were always clipped and none too informative. I don’t think he knew much about the old roads himself…in his Depression-era childhood there wasn’t much money for elective motoring.

The old roadways shown above are very similar to the abandoned bits of pavement I recall seeing as a boy. One of my first cross country trips as a new driver was on the highway west to Weatherford about 1961, which was then still one of the original brick roads, like the left one above…and rough as a cob—I remember it well. Most of the remnants of the later concrete pavement, I recall seeing in the Meadowbrook-Handley area along Hwy 80.

Like the Interurban, the old highways were put down and obsolete before our time. What we saw was the post-WWII transition from the early 2-lane U.S. highway system to 4-lane divided highways, which then gave way to the Interstate limited access system we’ve been using since the 1960s. All those highway right of ways essentially used the same routes originally laid down starting about 1915. The 1957 Turnpike was an exception as it was laid down on an entirely new right-of-way. Both the Turnpike and 183 were huge improvements over our old Hwy 80, and effectively replaced the old Dallas-Ft. Worth Pike.

The maps below show the first 2 iterations of the highway (Hwy 80/East Lancaster) that passed through our Eastside neighborhood. The first route was called the Dixie Overland Highway and dated to 1915-1927. It was privately funded. Starting about 1926, the Dixie Highway was made a part of the U.S. highway system and renamed U.S. 80.

I think TX 183, today's Airport Freeway, was the earliest 4-lane divided highway built between Ft. Worth and Dallas and the first new highway built to augment U.S. 80 between the two cities. I remember riding my bike alongside it in the mid-fifties and it was a 4-lane divided highway then. A few years later, after getting my drivers license in 1961, I recall driving to Dallas on 183 and it being a nice, quiet country drive. This was before Cowboy Stadium, DFW Airport, or much of anything else was built beside it. I’m sure there was a turnoff to Arlington somewhere out there, but until reaching Loop 12, there just wasn’t much traffic.

“Old Highway 80” as my dad called it, was a different story. Since it had been in service for about 40-years when we attended EHHS, a lot of commercial building had taken root along its path through Arlington and Grand Prairie. I drove to Dallas on 80 a few times and recall it as a slow, stop and go effort dotted with a lot of stop lights. I also recall seeing a lot of 1930s vintage gas stations.

Believe it or not, I really learned to drive when I was 13 or 14. Dad’s new house wasn’t quite ready when school at Meadowbrook started, but he wanted me to start the year there, so he rode shotgun while I drove the 2-lane back roads through the Trinity River bottoms between NE Ft. Worth and Meadowbrook. There was nothing out there then, so the roads were very quiet. It was there that I got about 30-minutes of driving time each morning and learned to keep the car going straight. By the time I was 16, I had quite a bit of time behind the wheel…imagine trying to do that today!

Adios

Handley & the Interurban

In 1900 the Ft. Worth population was 27,000, Dallas – 43,000.

In 1930 the Ft. Worth population was 164,000, Dallas – 260,000 (+500%)

I’m not sure I knew in ’63 there had been an Interurban rail line that ran through Handley, but until doing a little study for this piece I really never knew what an Interurban was. The Ft. Worth – Dallas line started in 1902 and shut down in 1934—well before our time. If any of our parents recalled it, it would have been from their childhood.

It was a 29-mile electric line that whisked passengers along at 5-mph during its early days, but had upped the speed to about 65-mph by the 1920’s. The Handley power station out by Lake Arlington was initially built to feed the power needs of the rail line, not in its present configuration of large generating units, of course, but the 2 older, small units at the north end of the power block might have been used for the rail line. They’re no longer running.

Highway 80, or East Lancaster as we knew it in our neighborhood, started out as a portion of the Dixie Highway that ran from Los Angeles to Savannah. The Dixie Highway was constructed over a period of years from 1915 – 1927. The Interurban predated the highway by a couple of decades and no doubt was the principal means of transportation between Dallas and Ft. Worth.

The picture collage above shows some net grabs of the Handley-Ft. Worth area involving the Interurban. The park was built by the traction company as a tourist attraction at its Lake Erie which was later made a part of Lake Arlington at the northern end. Lake Erie was initially built to provide cooling water for the power station condensers.

The picture below shows a restored Handley business district as it likely looked before automobiles whizzed by.

All Aboard