dallashistory

I would like to learn more about the saloons/ tavens of Dallas ~ from the earliest days through the mid-twentieth century (and even beyond ). In particular, any information about women employed by or serving in these establishments would be appreciated.

This item was posted elsewhere, but I thought I'd move it here. The postcard was available for auction on eBay a while back.



Drawing from the 1910 city directory for Dallas, generously posted on Jim Wheat's website for Dallas-County History ~

http://tinyurl.com/9mrg5p

... Pat Hannon also (perhaps previously) may have run a saloon on North Central Street (Avenue?).

It would be interesting to learn more of this gentleman ~ his life and work. Though I did not find his name mentioned in a headline during a quick search of the Dallas Morning News archives, maybe something about him lies buried there. What might he have done when the weight of Prohibition came crashing in on the old '101'?

Holly, I checked the images for the 1910 Dallas census for Hannon.

There was one female in her 20s that was a servant. Only one family of Hannon surname in the city. Father, wife, 3 sons and a daughter. The father's given name was Rosenberg, age 50 and was a Salesman for a Roofing Company. ......Couldn't find a Pat Hannon.

My dad's maternal grandfather Schaper was a bartender at the Senate Saloon, across the street from Old Red (the courthouse). On the day before my grandmother was to marry, he was in a nearby ice house (presumably to get ice to take back to the saloon) when he slipped and hit his head on the floor. He died the next day, but the marriage still took place. That was in 1905, I believe (going from memory).

Another coincidence is that Teresa's grandparents lived only a few blocks from my grandparents there in South Dallas, and were also of German ancestry. I have Schaper and she has Scharber. The names are close enough that they could have once been the same, but changed due to pronunciation or a spelling error based on phonetics.

MC Toyer also had folks that lived in the same area of Dallas. I found out from the 1930 census that my mother lived in the neighborhood for some years and attended the same elementary school as my dad, although 9 years later, before moving to San Antonio. My parents met at the 1936 Texas Centennial when she was 18 and a beer maid at the Falstaff Tavern (pic on Jim Wheat's site).

Sorry for rattlin' on, but each memory led to another.

Fred

Fred, I enjoyed reading about your family, and thanks for searching for Mr. Hannon in the Census. And your ancestor:

"My dad's maternal grandfather Schaper was a bartender at the Senate Saloon, across the street from Old Red (the courthouse). On the day before my grandmother was to marry, he was in a nearby ice house (presumably to get ice to take back to the saloon) when he slipped and hit his head on the floor. He died the next day, but the marriage still took place. That was in 1905, I believe (going from memory)."

Very sad. Had he worked at the Senate Saloon long ... and might there be more to relate of this establishment? When did the family immigrate from Germany?

This is kind of what I was thinking about in terms of the ladies ~ any more lives to be uncovered; any more stories to be told (though not sure whether Lottie was ever in Dallas):



Not all of the ladies on the frontier of Texas met the census-taker's often monotonous designation of 'Keeping House.' Ever wondered about some of these women who 'lived beyond the edge?' I certainly have.

Take Kitty Le Roy, for example. She is said to have begun her career as a jig dancer at the tender age of ten years .... much like Lotta Crabbtree further to the west in California. Her home during these early years was in Dallas. Does anyone know more of Kitty's family, and perhaps, where she performed while still in Texas?

Later, of course, Miss Le Roy turned to dealing Faro, and left Texas during the 1870s to ply her hand in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Said to be a "starry beauty," Kitty sadly lost her life during a duel with her fifth husband. *

A teacher of mine once rightly related that, other than becoming a schoolmarm, one of the few ('respectable,' that is) occupations open to women on the Texas frontier was the position of postmistress. Should a lady fail in obtaining these while lacking a husband or family support, she usually had to turn to other means.

Similar to the path taken by Kitty Le Roy, Lottie Deno turned to the card tables but in her case .... as a professional gambler. Unlike Kitty (?), however, Lottie (birth surname: Thompkins) was born into gentle if unconventional circumstances, as a child making her way across Europe with her wealthy, casino-loving father. When the latter met death in the Civil War, Lottie was whisked off to boarding school while her mother remained at home to manage their Kentucky plantation. Unfortunately for this young woman, she came to love a Jewish gentleman and was summarily disowned by this mother of hers. So began Lottie's trek to such outposts as Fort Griffin and Fort Concho, serving as a beautiful mistress of the card tables in "the hovels of degredation" which catered to soldiers' needs. *

More may be read of Lottie here, in her HOTO article:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/onl ... fde59.html


Trivia: the above states that Lottie Deno served as the inspiration for Miss Kitty in the TV series, 'Gunsmoke,' and for Laura Denbo in the movie, 'Gunfight at the OK Corral.'

* Information on Kitty Le Roy taken from Dee Brown's, 'The Gentle Tamers;' and for Lottie Deno, from 'Pistol Packin' Preachers,' by Barbara Barton

Holly... I liked reading about the two ladies and the tie in to Miss Kitty.

Regarding my gr-grandfather Schaper... His parents immigrated through Galveston in the late 1840s. He was born in TX in 1858. In 1880 census, he was rooming with another German immigrant family in Houston, the Greenoughs, who owned and operated a thriving restaurant there, while he was a driver of a beer wagon.

Shortly after the census, he married the Greenough daughter and they moved to Dallas, where they raised four daughters (my grandmother being the oldest). I suppose he took work in Dallas that was consistent with his German heritage - anything to do with BEER - , so probably was driving a beer cart or working as a bartender the whole time in Dallas.

When my grandmother married in 1905, she and her husband Ragsdale moved into a new house only a block or so away from her widowed mother and the three single daughters. That house is where my dad was born in 1909 and where I spent many Summers weeks each year until I was about 14. My grandfather died in 1916 at age 35, when dad was only 6. Grandmother remarried about 1925 to a co-worker at Oriental Laundry that had also been a friend to my grandfather years before.

About 1951, my grandmother and step-grndfthr bought the store and house next door to their house and that corner grocery is where I spent so much of my Summer vacation time each year.

On a long ramble, AGAIN. At any rate, you can see that I've "inherited" my affinity for the brew from the hops from my German ancestry.

Fred

Don't blush, Fred I love reading these family stories and know that everyone else does, too

And you know what I vowed to stay away from wine for a while, but all of the beer talk on this site has caused me to crave one of those We have a very fine (well-stocked) country liquor store out this way. What would be an unusual label (?) to try ... maybe something that they would have had on tap back in these old saloon days?

I haven't sipped a foamy mug in many years, so ... I'm gonna

lol

Just where is that well-stocked country liquor store located out there near Aurora, Holly I have to drive about 30-40 miles round trip if I go to a liquor store. Fortunately beer and wine is available in the convenience stores and grocery stores here. I drink very little liquor, but stick to the beer and wine (my German heritage ).

Well, let's just say that it's part of the Rhoman Empire (that was bad ) ... and that it's stocked for the Emperor himself

One sweet dividend of Facebook ~ I'd connected with Kathy Weiser previously, but she has become a kind and generous friend there as well. Kathy has produced a fantastic website -- Legends of America -- covering Old-West travel and history:

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/

... and has authored a number of books, including this one:

http://tinyurl.com/q722n8

I ordered my copy last week and am hoping to receive it next!

Kathy's blog:

http://legendsofamerica.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Holly!

Soooo... In Rhome, huh! (named for the grandfather or gr-grandfather of Jerry Rhome, Sunset Bison grad, 1960)

I'll check out those links you provided later on tonight, probably.

btw... On the Genealogy topic here, adam posted just a day or two ago about one of his ancestors having the surname WEISER.

Fred

I didn't know that (about Mr. Rhome having Bison kin, I mean)

Think of it this way: a town can have a name but virtually nothing in it ~ save country bumpkins, their four-leggeds, a tribe of wily coyotes, one giant Baptist church, one giant cemetery, a sometimes-open gift shop, and a place for the bumpkins to sit down and take their victuals in style Sounds like a recipe for ... Well, it ain't big bossy Rhome! lol (just kiddin' ~ Rhome is great ... and it even has a library )

I've been discovering some wonderful saloon lore ... but not of Dallas (alas).

Holly...

This link goes to a 1998 posting on Rootsweb by Jerry Rhome's sister. I exchanged several emails with her years ago. She lives in Alaska.

Rhome TX was named for her and Jerry's ancestor, Byron Crandall Rhome. Their father, Byron Cogdell Rhome was a teacher and coach at Sunset and I believe he later moved to Kimball HS in the 1960s.

I know this is off the topic of Saloons, but thought it would be of interest since we've been discussing Rhome TX, etc.

http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.n ... 67/mb.ashx

Fred

I have always heard the Blue Front was a famous Dallas saloon and eatery. [Discussed on the old DHS list, I'm sure.]
It was run by a German family: a brother and several sisters, I believe. They would gather around a piano and sing to their customers occasionally.

I was told you bought beer by the "bucket" and a sandwich came with it free!
This is just family lore I heard from my elders.

Thanks so much for sharing about the Blue Front, Dennis. Do you know on what street it was located? And I wonder which songs the family might have sung. Lovely piano numbers of yore ...

It would be neat to recreate a saloon in a very old fashion ... even to make a ghost town come alive. Texas as we know it was founded on saloons, it seems.

By the way, a copy which I had ordered of Kathy Weiser's 'The Great American Bars and Saloons' arrived. It is a wonderful photographic representation of this part of our past. No Dallas drinking holes are featured in its pages, but several from across the state -- including bars in Sonora and Tascosa (now within the bounds of Cal Farley's Boys Ranch) -- are chronicled.

Fred, Rhome began with a tavern/'hotel' It is believed to have experienced more name changes than any other town in the state ~ commencing its existence with 'Yellow Dog,' then passing through Prairie Point, Rosanne, Calif and Scuffletown before finally settling down in honor of B. C. ... who brought the first Hereford cattle to Wise County Like many other spots along the road across Texas, Rhome had more to speak of in the way of a downtown, once upon a time. Something which it has always lacked, however, is a city cemetery. Thankfully for her, she had a neighbor who gave up near everything to provide her with one

Cedar wrote

And I wonder which songs the family might have sung. Lovely piano numbers of yore ...

Just a guess, probably songs like:
Ein Prosit
In München Steht Ein Hofbräuhaus
A Blüah übern Himml
A so a so a so a diandle
But that's just a guess since I'm not an expert on the subject.

Dennis

I was told you bought beer by the bucket and a sandwich came with it free!

I heard the same was true of many saloons in Dallas back in the day. Normally the "bucket" was a beer growler with a lid to keep the dust and bird poop out.
Not that I know much about Germans, saloons or stuff like it.

Those are nice songs, Ronnie

You need to come over to MySpace so Linda Sue and I can buy you on Hotties lol

PS. You have to be a little cautious on MySpace in comparison with Facebook ... because the requests for more than a face or friendship flow freely there. It's kind of like a saloon that way Of course, back in the day, a lady usually was not encountered in a saloon unless ...

Or, I should have said ~ unless they worked there or had some business there. The saloon generally was the domain of men. And not all of the women who worked or were present in bars and taverns were prostitutes, but also danced, served, sang, dealt, gambled, etc. Wives, though, did not often accompany their husbands to drink in public.

We are beset by blurred boundaries in the Mod twenty-first century. Very uncool.

True, an application like Hotties on MySpace blurs those boundaries. But unsought attention has not proceeded from there, in my experience ...

Anyway, back to frolic and fandango in long-ago Cowtown for me ...

But one last thing to assist the slow-to-understand to understand Victorian, non-saloon-going women ~ they were viewed as gifts, in a way ... both by themselves and by their husbands. Their wrappings came off at home rather than on the street or onstage and their sensuality ... mysterious and sublime.