In 1839, John Neely Bryan, a frontiersman, left Arkansas to scout locations for his dream — a town on the Trinity River in North Texas. Despite the difficulty in enticing settlers, by 1844, the townsite of Dallas had been laid out in half-mile square blocks and streets. Dallasites still disagree on whom the city is named for — Commodore Alexander Dallas, a well-known naval hero, or vice president of the United States George Mifflin Dallas. However all Dallasites agree that their innovative, forward-looking city has an abundance of historic structures and sites.
Pioneer Plaza is a four-acre public park with a stream and small waterfall. The popular site features the largest outdoor bronze sculpture in the world, and forty-nine bronze steers and three trail riders, commemorating the nineteenth-century cattle drives that traveled through Dallas. Adjacent Pioneer Park Cemetery contains the Masonic Cemetery, Odd Fellow’s Cemetery, Jewish Cemetery, and City Cemetery.
The Old Red Courthouse was built downtown in 1892. Four of the previous five courthouses had perished in fires, and as such, county officials were determined to build a courthouse that would last. The courthouse now serves as the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture. Image sourced from A History Lover’s Guide to Dallas, courtesy of the author.
Boomtown Dallas
Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture sits on land donated by Dallas founder John Neely Bryan and his wife, Margaret. In 1892, the Pecos red sandstone clad courthouse was built there, and dubbed “Old Red.” Following its addition to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, restoration began on the beloved landmark. Today, Old Red is home to the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture.
Reunion Tower, built in 1978, is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Dallas. The Geo-Deck offers stunning views of downtown landmarks, including Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum. Image sourced from A History Lover’s Guide to Dallas, courtesy of Donna Kidby.
Modern Dallas
Just like the Alamo
in San Antonio, and the Astrodome in Houston, Reunion Tower is an iconic Dallas
landmark. Built in 1978, the 561-foot tower features The Geo-Deck with
panoramic views of all of Big D, and a rotating restaurant (very trendy in the 70s).
Artsy Dallas
Dallas boasts the largest urban arts district in the U.S. In fact, Downtown’s Dallas Arts District spans nineteen blocks and nearly seventy acres. The crowning jewel is The Nasher Sculpture Center. For decades, banker and developer Raymond Nasher collected art, and eventually built his own $70 million museum, designed by Renzo Piano and Peter Walker. Opened in 2003 ,the 55,000-square-foot interior blends with am adjacent two-acre sculpture garden. Today, the Nasher has over three hundred pieces in its collection.
The only thing crazier than the story of Bella Gunness is what’s been happening on her old property ever since.
If you live in the Midwest, then you have heard of the
famous serial killer Bella Gunness. Born in 1859, she is said to have killed
more than forty people, including two husbands and all of her children at
various points in her life. She also killed suitors and boyfriends and
dissected their bodies like a butcher, feeding the remains to her pigs. She
evaded apprehension by faking her own death by arson and was never found.
If you’re interested in the paranormal, then it isn’t going
to be a surprise to learn that the murder site property is believed to be
haunted.
The farm that Bella once operated in La Porte now has many homes on the grounds. While I was trying to determine where the actual farmhouse once sat, many residents in the area were not surprised to be asked.
One senior in his nineties was able to pinpoint the actual
location. Knocking on his door on a Sunday afternoon, completely unexpected,
was a joy to him. He loved the company and enjoyed sharing his Bella knowledge.
He claims to have had an uncle who once worked on the Bella Gunness farm for
brief time. His uncle referred to Bella as being a determined woman with a
motherly warmth. Still, there was always something odd about her that made him
just a bit uncomfortable. Her temper was like a switch, and he witnessed her
have more than one outburst.
The senior I spoke with lived very close to the original property. Over the years, he’d become used to hearing sudden screams in the night and seeing strange orbs in the yard behind his home. When asked if the property was haunted, his eyes twinkled. Smiling, he said that he didn’t think it was—he knew it was.
After shaking hands and thanking the friendly man for his
time, I knocked on a door just down the road. A woman opened the door, not in a
very good mood. After explaining to her that I was looking for information
regarding Bella Gunness, she laughed—not a friendly laugh but something more
sarcastic. She said that she was tired of people poking around the area and
disturbing the peace. Then, right before shutting the door on my face, she
said, “Damn kids trying to catch a glimpse of those strange balls of light.
Things make my dogs bark at all hours. I am sick of it!” Despite her rude
goodbye, she confirmed for us that she’d seen the lights that the friendly
senior had mentioned.
A La Porte police officer claims to have been called to the property many times for the sounds of disturbances at a family home that was not occupied. Neighbors called police fearing that there were looters or trespassers on the empty home’s property. One time it sounded like there were people fighting inside when the officer arrived on the scene. The inspection of the perimeter showed that there was no one around.
For the past century, the legend of Diana of the Dunes has grown as wild as the environs in which she lived. Diana, whose legal name was Alice Mabel Gray, became famous in 1915, when she stepped onto an old path in the dunes and followed it to the edge of Lake Michigan.
Today, of course, this area is part of the Indiana Dunes National Park and is dotted with many nearby towns. Before 1900, however, most people considered the dunes largely uninhabitable; the press often referred to it as “trackless wasteland,” unexplored and loosely claimed. The steel industry had started to move into the area, but it was still not as welcoming as today.
A postcard of Waverly Beach in Chesterton, Indiana, in the early 1900s. The area is now known as Indiana Dunes State Park.
That’s why Alice chose to escape there. She found permanent shelter in an abandoned shack near a sandy ridge, turning her back on Chicago and all the incumbent responsibilities of living and working in the city. Alice, intelligent and free-spirited, had responded drastically to society’s rigid conventions: she excused herself completely from its rules and routine.
At age thirty-four, this Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago traded her single, working woman’s life for a rougher, yet more thoughtful, existence in the untamed dunes of Indiana, some forty-five miles southeast of the city. From the doorway of the shack she claimed as her own, Alice fearlessly guarded her privacy and her right to live in the sand hills—alone.
Her audacity bewitched and befuddled enough eager reporters that Alice quickly became an enigma, a prime target for front-page news in an era of sensational headlines; she grew legendary in her own time. When they weren’t calling her a goddess, reporters treated her like a sideshow performer, a mystifying and curious misfit.
Although given other nicknames by reporters and townspeople—for example, Nymph O’ the Dunes—Diana of the Dunes instantly took hold when it was suggested by a Chicago newspaper in the days just after her discovery. A November 1916 headline blared, “‘Nymph’ Alice Now a ‘Diana’”; below it, in the article’s second paragraph, she was compared to mythological Diana, the Roman huntress. The writer noted that she was a better shot with her rifle than most local men—especially when it came to duck hunting:
“This strange woman is recognized here as a veritable Diana. Nimrods who returned with one lone duck as a result of a hunt in the dune observed with envy a score on the line at Miss Alice’s windowless cabin.”
Read diary excerpts from Alice’s own voice in Diana of the Dunes by Janet Zenke Edwards >
In an early interview, granted nine months after Alice’s arrival in the sand hills, a Chicago reporter quoted Alice as saying that the life of a wage earner in the city was akin to “slavery.” To escape the inequality and incivility of the work world and probably, too, to escape a difficult love relationship in the city, she sought a solitary life in the Indiana dunes—her inspiration derived from a poem by Lord Byron titled “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” in which he wrote the line, “In solitude, where we are least alone.”
During her years in the Indiana dunes—the final ten years of her life—neighbors and reporters alike took copious and creative notes, assigning traits and activities to Alice, both true and false, which are still reflected in prevailing stories. The most popular is that she bathed naked in Lake Michigan (as soon as the ice began breaking up, so some of her contemporaries reported, although Alice denied this) and did so often, running a length of beach to dry her body.
Alice, with weathered skin and a rather indistinct frame, seriously studied dunes flora, read voraciously and wrote manuscripts that she kept private; some of her writings were later stolen, others lost to time—a partial diary survives and is appended. She fished and bought salt, bread and other staples in town. Suspected of stealing food and blankets when times were hard, people also said she borrowed sturdier shelter from vacationers who owned property in the dunes while those owners were away. She walked endlessly, dressed simply in makeshift skirts or khaki pants, talked softly and boldly quoted poetry to intruding reporters.
Seeded by those early reporters, Alice’s tale rooted quickly and deeply in regional history, blossoming as legends do. Even today, her story continues to sprout wild, hybrid shoots of both truth and rumor. The names of local businesses, a town festival, a street, vacation homes—even the naming of a sand dune—have paid homage to Diana of the Dunes. Ghost stories, each with invented details and all claiming reports of Diana “sightings,” are published in print and online. Local librarians are quick to point out that Diana of the Dunes is a favorite research subject at the reference desk.
Each of these details speaks to the truth and timelessness of Alice Mabel Gray’s remarkable story.
Eventually known as “Where the West Begins,” Fort Worth returns time and again to the main stage of Texas yore. True crime, Texas Rangers and Indians, celebrated food, even world-famous architecture are found in Fort Worth history. While everyone knows about the Kimbell Art Museum and the famous Stockyards, they may wonder what landmarks and institutions preceded the city’s current attractions. Here are a few of Fort Worth’s sites and tales lost to time.
Thanks to Mike Nichols, author ofLost Fort Worth and the amazing DFW-based blog Hometown by Handlebar, for these great glimpses of Fort Worth past.
The Fort
In June 1849, looking for a site on which to establish Fort Worth, U.S. Army major Ripley Arnold and Texas Ranger colonel Middleton Tate Johnson explored the confluence of the Clear and West Forks of the Trinity River. They settled on a bluff above the river which provided three advantages: water supply, timber, and a strategic view to monitor Indian activity.
By 1853, as colonizers settled around the fort, the frontier began to shift to the west. More forts were needed on the new frontier, and the army abandoned Fort Worth. The civilian population thrived after the military moved on. Fort Worth was a bona fide town.
St. Elmo Hotel: The second stomping ground of notorious serial killer H.H. Holmes
Ever hear about America’s first serial killer? In 1892, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes built a hotel in Chicago near the World’s Fair of 1893. Actually, the hotel was a labyrinthine “murder castle” of sixty rooms, where the doctor was suspected of killing as many as twenty-seven.
In 1893, Holmes began a romantic relationship with Minnie Williams of Fort Worth. Minnie and her sister had an inheritance of land on Commerce Street in downtown Fort Worth. Holmes planned another hotel for the booming frontier town — this one was adjacent to the opera house, one block from the Natatorium, livery stables, theaters and restaurants.
At some point, both Williams sisters disappeared, but Holmes, the inveterate crook, was eventually nabbed for horse thieving. Following his arrest, Holmes confessed to killing two people, and was found guilty of only one. After Holmes was hanged, ownership of his Fort Worth hotel was tied up in court. By 1900, the “castle” was the LaClede Hotel, then the St. Elmo Hotel, and in 1925, the Holmes building housed assorted businesses. In 1952, it was torn down and replaced by a parking lot. Who knows what the infamous Holmes had in mind for Fort Worth…?
Spring Palace Exhibition
Texas Spring Palace poster. Courtesy Tarrant County College NE, Heritage Room, Fort Worth, Texas.
In the late 19th century, Fort Worth had an image problem. The western frontier town had been made famous worldwide as “Cowtown.” City leaders planned the Texas Spring Palace exhibition, and invited each county in the state to display its natural resources, art, crops and products in the massive structure. Think World’s Fair. Built in just thirty-one days—between Main and Jennings Streets on landfill of the Texas & Pacific Railroad.
The sprawling wooden building was an exciting melange of Victorian and Asian styles, with arches, columns, balconies, cupolas, round portals, square pagoda-like bays and flags atop spires. Topping it off was a large Moorish dome that rivaled the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
The Texas Spring Palace exhibition opened on May 29, 1889, and was deemed a success in its opening season. At the end of its second season, a fire swept through the wood structure, and the palace burned to the ground in fifteen minutes, with only one fatality. A fountain honoring the victim is located near the site of the Texas Spring Palace.
“Mike doesn’t just write history, he tells the story of days gone by in an interesting and delightful way. It’s all there, the good, the bad and the ugly. If you think history is a dull and boring, just read this book about my hometown.” – Reader Review
The politically and socially turbulent 1960s changed the United States forever. Groups of mostly young Americans sought to overturn the status quo for African Americans and to end the contentious Vietnam War. National groups brought their message to all corners of the nation, finding energetic followers on college campuses. One such group, the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New MOBE), arrived at Texas State University in 1969. Suddenly, the conservative college town of San Marcos, Texas (where President Lyndon Johnson himself went to school) was thrust into antiwar movement, when a group of Texas State University students staged a peaceful antiwar demonstration, with fewer than 50 protesters sitting silently.
The San Marcos 10 are cordoned off and surrounded by cowboys and jocks. Image sourced from The San Marcos 10: An Antiwar Protest in Texas, courtesy of the University Archives, Texas State University.
In the judgment of the university administration, this assembly is a violation of established university policies as set forth in the student handbook. I hereby direct you to leave this area within three minutes. Any student remaining beyond that time will be suspended from school until the fall of 1970.
Floyd Martine, Dean of Students
Most dispersed, but the remaining students would later come to be known as the San Marcos 10, and would be suspended from Texas State then and there.
The crowd was screaming at us…‘Love it or Leave it!’ ‘Let’s string ’em up!’ All kinds of ugly things…
Sallie Ann Satagaj, Student
Even though the
protesters had wide-spread support, appeals to the Student-Faculty Review
Board, on the argument that their constitutional rights had been violated, were
denied. Later, the ACLU filed a civil lawsuit against the school administration
in the U.S. Western District Court in Austin, where they argued that the
administration had crafted “policy which [violated] the rights of
freedom of speech and assembly granted under the First and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution.”
U.S. District Court denied the group’s appeal for reinstatement, as did the
Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and in May 1972, the San Marcos 10 suspension
appeal was submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it let the lower court’s ruling stand, and the San Marcos 10
lost all of that year’s school credit.
The university administrators felt the protests were very embarrassing. They wanted to make sure it never happened again. They still felt they could rule with an iron hand, and they did not like being second-guessed. They wanted to punish the participants, so they did.
Joe Saranello, Student
The nationwide Vietnam moratoriums on college campuses throughout 1969 had succeeded in refracting the public’s opinion of President Nixon and of the Vietnam War. The San Marcos 10 and members of their generation helped end an unpopular war, and teach later generations that peaceful protest can amplify noisy ideas.
Views from Bob Adam’s pictorial history on Indiana Basketball, Hoosier High School Basketball. BUY NOW>
Indiana is the first state that comes to mind when one thinks of high school basketball. There are the reports of the first game played in the state, in 1894, and there are the memories of high school gyms were filled beyond capacity. (Indiana is home to 15 of the largest 16 high school gyms in the nation.) Now, with another season only a few weeks away, it’s the perfect time to look at these rare and powerful images of the state’s favorite sport.
In the early twentieth century, basketball spread to Hoosier high schools like Williamsport High School. Note the heavy uniforms worn by these players to protect themselves while playing on outside courts made of gravel and cinders.
Williamsport High
The 1913 Frichton girls in action during the 1912-13 season.
The Girls Played, Too
The 1921-22 Decatur girls won thirteen straight games to finish the season undefeated. This team lost only three games in three seasons.
1921- 1922 Decatur High
Mulford “Muff” Davis
Mulford “Muff” Davis spent 15 years coaching at Frankton, where his teams won 139 games. Davis, an Elwood grad, went on to play at the University of Kentucky. He was selected for the Silver Anniversary Team in 1966 and elected to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989.
Decatur Gym 1922
This shot was taken from the Decatur sectional of 1922, and shows the interior of the Decatur gym. This building was later dismantled and taken six miles west of Decatur and used by Kirkland Township as a gym.
This old basketball goal is on the grounds of the former Booker T. Washington School in Rushville. Black students in Rushville went to this school until they began high school.
Practically every girl at Lancaster Central in Huntington County was a member of the “Lancer” cheer block.
Lancer Pride
Probably the most photographed water tower in the world, the Milan water tower honors the 1954 Milan Indians, who won the state championship that season with a 32-30 win over Muncie Central. The movie Hoosiers was based on the 1954 Milan win.
The Milan Tower
