The Lakewood Rats were the scourge of the neighborhood, a feared and despised gang of young toughs (by that day’s standards) who were the bane of teachers, the nemesis of principals and the affliction of parents.
One notorious day, the group’s crime reached a pinnacle. The Rats were making noise in a booth at the popular Sammy’s Townhouse Restaurant. Patrons, familiar with the Rats’ reputation, sat on guard at their tables, eating slowly, hoping there would be no trouble.
A nervous waitress delivered the Rats’ ice cream sundaes, and after careful placement on the table, turned for the kitchen.
Then it happened.
Suddenly, the Rats used their spoons to flip a battery of ice cream at the woman’s backside. The outraged manager ousted the gang, which moved outside and pelted passing cars with ice cream they had hand-scooped from the dishes they left behind.
Once again, the Rats had enhanced their reputation.
Life in 1943
“Growing up in East Dallas was a joy,” says Willetta Stellmacher in the kitchen of her home on LaVista, “and even though my dancing career took me away many times, I’ve always returned.”
Fifty years ago, the community that held such a warm place in Stellmacher’s affection was a mostly residential, mostly Anglo neighborhood that still had farms in its outlying areas.
The area was known for elegant, expensive homes built in Victorian, Queen Anne and Greek Revival styles along Swiss, Ross and Gaston. But there were plenty of blue-collar bungalows, too.
The boundaries of East Dallas and Lakewood ended – and the farms began – just north of the Lakewood Country Club, near the Dallas city limits.
Stellmacher has lived in East Dallas since the mid-1920s. That’s when her mother bought a duplex, which provided a home and an income.
Stellmacher, who owns several rental properties, bought her first apartment complex in Lakewood in the 1940s. The building, which then offered the only apartments in the heart of Lakewood, is long gone. It sat at Gaston and LaVista, where the Jack-in-the-Box is now.
“During the War, there was a popular pancake house across the street at the shopping center,” Stellmacher says, talking about War-time rationing, even of items such as soft drinks.
“But I found out that if I wore my short shorts, the manager would sell me a case of Coca-Cola,” says the former entertainer, who still has the clipping in which noted newspaper columnist Walter Winchell wrote: “Stellmacher is Dallas’ first beauty.”
“I was the only one in the area who always had a soft drink,” she says with a laugh.
“Things, of course, were simpler then. The land was miles of green pastures dotted with cows and interspersed with elegant homes,” Stellmacher says.
“And this was a very safe community – there was no crime. My mother never even had a lock and key on our duplex, and for years thereafter, we never felt the need to lock our doors.”
White Rock Lake
White Rock Lake played a prominent role in the lives of almost every East Dallas and Lakewood resident. Until the early 1950s, the man-made lake was known for great fishing, festivals and public party barges.
The most popular party vessel was the double-decker paddle boat called the “Bonnie Barge”.
The beaches of White Rock were clean stretches of white sand where people pitched large umbrellas or swarm in the fresh water after a jump from one of the terrific tree swings.
Today’s Cultural Bathhouse was the real thing then, where picnickers of all ages exchanged their bloomers for bathing suits.
“I can remember great times there as a kids,” says John Anders, a Dallas Morning News columnist who has lived near the lake most of his life.
“There were always crowds of people, and none of the lake was off-limits like it is today. We even swam in the creek.”
The housing east of the lake, known as Little Forest Hills, was a neighborhood of homes-away-from-home that out-of-towners rented for their White Rock vacations.
Anders recalls being driven from his home near the lake towards Downtown.
“There was a sign that read: Dallas 8 Miles,” he says. “It really seemed like we lived in the country.”
Lower Greenville
Lower Greenville has always been known for restaurants. But it was also home to the nationally acclaimed Hockaday School For Girls, which has since moved to North Dallas.
Many popular taverns and eateries over the years have sustained Greenville’s legendary status – Kirby’s Pig Stand, Webber’s Root Beer Stand, Mitchell’s Barbecue (which once was Wootton’s Barbecue), and Greenville Avenue Bar and Grill, which opened in 1947.
And almost everyone would trek back to Lakewood to play miniature golf, simply hang out at Bob-O-Links, or grab a burger at Keller’s.
“And Forrester’s Drug Store cooked up some pretty good hamburgers,” says Dale Wootton, a lifelong East Dallasite and son of the former restaurant owner.
“I was a delivery boy for Forrester’s and remember riding my bike to Hockaday with a sack of the greasy burgers,” he says, recalling one visit that included large crowds and confusion.
“Eleanor Roosevelt was there speaking for a commencement.”
So where were the great nightspots in the neighborhood?
“There weren’t any,” Stellmacher says. “All the cabarets were Downtown, so for romance, you had to drive out to Lovers Lane (which was outside the Dallas city limits).
“It was nothing more than a dirt road, and at night, the area was pitch black, and gave us a beautiful view of Downtown Dallas.”
Bread, Milk and Ice Cream
Fifty years ago, much like today, the area boasted of a strong sense of community.
Little was private on the telephone party lines, which were shared with up to 10 households at a time. A particular series of short rings would signal for whom the bell tolled.
Deliveries three times weekly were made by the bread man, featuring baked goods from Wonder or Rainbow bakeries. The milkman brought fresh products from Cabell’s or Metzger’s dairies.
Before the wave of home refrigerators, blocks or crushed ice were delivered by the Stubbs or Southern ice houses. And even Doc Harrell delivered prescriptions.
That sense of community was personified at Harrell’s Drug Store, the first business at the Lakewood Shopping Center at Gaston and Abrams.
Generations of Harrell patrons remember him fondly, particularly his honor roll.
For years, every student who presented him with a straight-A report card received a silver dollar. After a time, the honor roll became so long – and so expensive – that Harrell decided instead of dollars, rewards should be ice cream cones from the nearby Colonial Ice Cream Shop.
Junius Heights Streetcar Line
Wootton, who practices law in the Munger Square Center on Junius only blocks from where he was born, renovated the building that was formerly an A&P and later a Piggly Wiggly. The building sits at a location that was once primary to transportation; the Junius Heights Streetcar Line.
“It was the only source of public transportation for many years, stretching through East Dallas from Downtown,” he says.
Streetcars evolved into trolley buses, which were electrically operated by metal arms atop the bus that extended upwards to the electric lines.
The buses were sometimes more than a public service – “they were great fun,” Wootton says.
Some of the boys would sneak to the back of the bus and disconnect the arm from the wires, and the thing would come to a screeching halt,” he says with a laugh.
“The drivers used to get so mad at those kids, whomever they were.”
Doing Their Part
But remember, a War was being fought. And everyone, even those who lived in the area’s spectacular Victorian, Queen Anne and Greek Revival mansions, pitched in.
The two-story estate of D.E. Waggoner and his wife, Linna, which sat on the northwest corner of Gaston and Munger, was no exception.
“My grandparent were very patriotic and donated their home and land during World War II to the government, which used it for military housing,” says Michaux Nash, the chief executive officer of EastPark National Bank.
“They then moved to the Melrose Hotel, where they lived the next 20 years until they died.”
The house, sadly, was a victim of the War. After the government finished using it, it fell into disrepair and was torn down.
The end of the War signaled the beginning of another chapter in our neighborhood’s history. But that’s a story for another day.
