Mustang Motor Cycle

I mentioned that Sam Scott and Bill Gilmore had neat Mustangs while we were incarcerated* at Meadowbrook and invited any reader to look Mustangs up. After learning recently that Sam had passed away years ago, it occurred to me that others besides my old classmates may be reading these scattered thoughts, it might be a reasonable idea to slant this blog a little differently.

Clearly, after losing good guys like Sam, Steve, and Leo at such young ages, I’m wrong to assume that we are all going to live long lives into some kind of utopian geezerhood. So, I will cover some of my thoughts more directly. Peers are welcome to comment and so are their children and grandchildren.

The $500 Mustang I spoke of was a beefy little motor scooter that was substantially faster and more powerful than the other motor scooters of the day—like $350 Cushmans and Lambrettas, etc. The Mustang had a throaty roar to it, while the Cushman sounded like muffled lawn mower, and the Lambretta was heavily muffled leaving it with a kind of burbling sound. As 13-15 year olds, motor scooters provided better mobility than a bicycle for those few years before reaching age 16 when we could get a real driver's license, if not a car to go with it. For those kids whose Dads would buy them a scooter, or for those who had jobs that enabled them to buy their own, a dramatically wider world opened for them. Think of it, for those with the added mobility travel to far away places like Arlington or even the West Side was possible. For the rest, there was still the bus or mom or dad to drive us around, but that was getting pretty old…so that’s why those motor scooters drew a lot of attention.

You can Google Mustang, Lambretta, and Cushman to learn a lot more about them than you ever knew back then. I think these scooters were mostly gone by high school when we could get our hands on cars. For those “bike” riders who wanted to graduate to something larger as they got older, the prevalent motorcycles then were made by Triumph, BSA, and one or two others. Within a few years they were all essentially replaced by a lightweight import from Japan…the Honda 350. Cheap, light, fast, reliable, who could compete with that?

*incarcerated? Ms. Sheets, Ms. Perot, Creel Phillips, and Mrs. Greenwood, that library lady who hated me...if you were there, what would you call it?


Rev it Up… Adios

Doomed to Repeat

You’ve heard the cliché that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, haven’t you? I was looking around for some old Texas pictures recently and happened on the one shown above. It was taken in 1904 and portrays a Coney Island tourist attraction featuring the 1900 Galveston hurricane and flood…the infamous one that claimed over 8000 lives and led to the construction of Galveston’s seawall.

The picture is from the treasure trove of century-old high resolution images posted online by Shorpy. Their images are so sharp that it’s often possible to pick out small detail and enlarge it for closer inspection. The vehicles at the right in the picture caught my attention…no horses! Hmm, early horseless carriages? Yep.

Another Shorpy reader posted a period ad identifying the vehicles and my mind started churning. There is a $2000 price shown in the ad; also, a 35-mile range, and some other detail information about those old busses. They are c.1904 battery powered transports, on the road just before gasoline engines went into the coming mass of horseless carriages about to hit the roads. Many of Shorpy’s images were taken around the NYC area, so in them you have not only state of the art photography, you also see cutting edge technology of the time.

Let’s think about this for a moment. That 1904, $2000 price translates to about $48,000 in today’s dollars and that 35-mile (electric motor) range before needing a recharge sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Don’t know if those old buggies were prone to bursting into flame, but recent news of GM and other “plug-in” car recalls due to fire hazards doesn’t give me too much confidence in them. I would also wonder why, after over a century, we haven’t been able to get any improvement on both range and cost? Especially if “plug-in” cars are such a great idea?

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.

For some interesting reading about the ultimate demise of passenger rail transportation, Google Great American Streetcar Conspiracy for a number of discussions about something I first heard in Los Angeles in the 1960s when the last of their Interurban cars were still running.
The picture below shows a restored Handley business district as it likely looked before automobiles whizzed by. A map of the Dallas-Ft. Worth Interurban line can be found HERE.



All Aboard

Car Development 1900 - 1965

This post is somewhat related to my earlier US highway posting HERE.

Shorpy, an online database of HD scans from very large, very old photograph negatives, is a terrific collection of originals from which to crop out small portions for a closer look at detail. 

Most of their pictures were taken in large cities where such hi-tech inventions as automobiles existed in numbers much greater than out in the hinterlands.  In them, especially NYC, you can actually see the transition from horse-drawn coaches to horseless carriages taking place.

The pictures are roughly spaced about 8-10 years apart in order to better illustrate the change in cars on the road.  The Goofy cartoon is one that I clearly recall from 1950s broadcasts of the Sunday night Walt Disney TV programs.  It depicts what was going on in California during the 1950s, but what Texas would not start seeing until about the 1970s as the highway system was built-out there. 

Adios

Toll Road – DFW Turnpike

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We called it the Toll Road at our house and when it opened in 1957, it really shortened the time it took to go into either Ft. Worth or Dallas. I was driving it when I was 13 or 14, with the parents in the car of course. There was a Howard Johnson’s service center about mid-way to Dallas, near the Arlington turnoff, Hwy 360 (HJ is the wide area at left in the 1957 picture above--the view is west toward Ft. Worth). Mom loved their fried clams and I think they were on a special on Wednesdays, so we ate out there frequently. For me, it was an opportunity to drive in a relatively safe environment…there was very little traffic in those early days on the Toll Road. It took us maybe 10-15 minutes to drive out there.

The nearest crossing is Hwy 360 (Watson Rd.) and the next crossing to the west is Hwy 157 (Collins Rd.). On the left (south) side adjacent to Toll Road just this side of Collins is where the ball park sits today. Six Flags was also built on the left (south) side of the Toll Road just on the other side (west) of Hwy 360. Going right (north) on Hwy 360 in this picture would take you to the west side of Greater Southwest Airport. Today that same road would take you into the south entrance of DFW. To the left a short distance on 360 is UT-Arlington. It goes without saying that everything in sight in this picture is completely built out today and has been for years.

A deal had been cut to get the road built and the deal was that once it was paid for by the tolls, the tolls would be dropped and the road turned over to the State. That day came in early 1978 and despite a spirited opposition put up by entrenched factions of the Turnpike Authority citing the need to keep their professional cadre of toll road experts together for future use, the toll booths came down as scheduled. It took just over 20-years to pay off the construction costs.
The 1965 map below shows the DFW area as it was just as we left EHHS for whatever life had in store for us. Current maps are readily available online if you want to compare with later development throughout the next 40-years. This site has a fine collection of HQ scans of old DFW area maps and other Texas cites. If the link fails, try enclosing the following terms in quotes and Google: Old Road Maps of Texas

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

Drag Racing Memories

I remember that we used to race some pretty cool cars back in the day BEFORE the Musclecars of the late 60's. Probably the quickest of them all was Dickey Anderton's Factory super stock Plymouth (62 or 63, I believe) 426 Ram Inducted Wedge Head (before the Hemi's). When he pulled in at the Chuck Wagon or the 28th street Clover Drive-in with the headers uncapped the entire metal awning system would rattle. No one would take him on.

Doug Moore might have been the closest competitor with his ‘32 Coupe or his later ‘55 Chevy 2-door post. I believe his ‘55 had a full race 377-inch Chevy small block. Then came Roger Enderbrock in a Black ‘64 Impala, 409-425 Horse. These three guys were two or three years older than most of us.

Big (literally) Joe Kennedy always had a fast car, too. His full size ‘64 Ford Galaxy convertible was supposed to have a 390, but I'm almost sure it was a 427 side oiler. It was VERY quick for a full size heavy convertible and a real girl getter also. Joe was a Great guy.

Wendell Jordan ran around with Joe and had a nice yellow Corvette. I'm not sure of the engine as he did not race it with us too often. I bought my ‘63 Dodge 440 2-door from Doug Moore. It was a 383 four-speed. It was one of the top two drag cars from our class of 63. I won many races out on loop 820 before and after school or on a convoy from the Chuck Wagon.

Terry Fricks had a nice, fairly quick ‘60 Impala convertible. It was silver and probably had a 409. Terry never told me. I remember also a close race I had with Jimmy Bilderback in his ‘62 Corvette 327-365 horse. Close by about 6 feet. I jumped him 5 or 6 car lengths off the line but he came on like rocket sled on the big end and almost won.

Benny Thompson, a good friend of mine, had a quick MOPAR, a ‘63 Plymouth 383. We sort of teamed up and used his car to tow mine to Kennedale a few times. I eventually modified my Dodge to B/modified production class and was able to post an 11:20 E.T. at 112 M.P.H. at Green Valley Raceway. Benny went on to work as a Police Officer in Ft.. Worth where he eventually retired I believe.

Johnny Gearhart had a VERY NICE Black ‘57 Chevy Bel-air. It was quick for what it was, and a real collector car too. As I recall some of these guys were Juniors but were still good friends and racers. Most all of the guys went to (the yet unopened) loop 820 and Randol Mill road. We used the North bound access road to race.

Races were either before school, at lunch period or right after school. The important top dog races were later on in the evening after a quick meet up at the Chuck Wagon, very seldom for money, as we spent it all on our cars. The notoriety for having the winning car was enough. Strangely enough I NEVER received a contest of speed ticket....thank goodness, because my father was the Ft. Worth Corporation Court Judge.

I hope this brings back some memories for some........James G.