This advertisement appeared in the Dallas Morning News in May 1925.
The year was 1925. The word “cooler” still needed to be used with quotation marks. And what we now call historic neighborhoods were part of “The New East Dallas.”
This advertisement appeared in The Dallas Morning News on May 24, 1925, and is a treasure trove of history. The full page spread celebrates how East Dallas drivers heading west into downtown will avoid looking at the sun on their drive to work and on the way home. It also celebrates the wonderful paved streets that have finally reached the area, which many East Dallas drivers would like to see today.
The beautifully drawn map, though confusingly not oriented toward the north, has areas that still exist today, and others that have been changed or renamed. You can see White Rock Lake, Lakewood Country Club, Country Cub Estates, Hollywood Santa Monica, Park Estates, Forest Hills, Tenison Park and Gastonwood (now Lakewood Hills).
Woodrow Wilson High School didn’t yet exist, and its future home is shown as forest and farms. Other areas, such as the estate of S.A. Temple, who developed Beckley Club Estates in Oak Cliff, and all the forest along the north side of Gaston Ave., are now residential areas.
Monticello and Munger Place Heights on the map have different names today, Lakewood and Lakewood Heights respectively.
It seems that even in 1925, people knew that this would be a beautiful area of Dallas. See if you can find your street!
