We just received a copy of a new “Images of America” book from Arcadia Publishing, Lost Dallas. Written by Dallas Historic Preservation Officer Mark Doty, the book is heavy with pictures of Dallas buildings lost to redevelopment or forces of nature.
Doty is donating all of his earnings from the book to the City of Dallas Municipal Archives, which conserves official city documents. The book costs $21.99 and is available beginning April 23 at arcadiapublishing.com.
The Baker Hotel, the downtown theater district, the Kress building and even Reunion Arena appear in the chapter about downtown.
East Dallas gets its own chapter. The book contains some pictures I’ve seen before, but many are new to me.
Doty states: “One of the greatest tragedies of Dallas’s built environment is the loss of the residential structures along Ross Avenue … Encroaching commercial development as early as the 1920s led to demolition after demolition of the fine residences until only three mansions remain.”
This photo shows Lower Greenville, looking north from Ross, in the 1930s:
Here is a view of Lower Greenville, looking south from Belmont Avenue, in the 1970s.
The book also contains several historical pictures of White Rock Lake that I’ve never seen before, plus photos of the Dr. Pepper National Headquarters, Kip’s Big Boy at Mockingbird and Greenville, Wyatt’s on Mockingbird at Alderson, the Wilshire Theater and the Casa Linda Mobil station, which was demolished in 2003. Older pictures include the high Victorian Gothic Ursuline Convent at Haskell and Live Oak and St. Mary’s College, where St. Matthew’s Cathedral is now at Ross and North Henderson.
