When i was a kid in the 80’s downtown was a depressing place, not many people. My dad would tell me about how he used to walk across the Houston bridge by himself from a neighborhood called peanut flats at the base of the levy in oak cliff. He would sell oranges downtown. He said that everybody used to go downtown to shop or go to tha theatre, and that it was a very busy place. He saw a lot of crazy things happen, for example, some black children would put bottle caps between their toes and tap dance for money until their feet were bleeding. He was from NL Mexico. He had to tell people he was Spanish to avoid harassment. My dad owned The Letterpress Shop on Exposition across from the fair park entrance. RIP dad

The 1957 tornado did not stop in Oak Cliff. After crossing the Trinity, it went up Denton Road next to Love Field and then crossed Northwest Highway. At the time, I was riding my bicycle past the Safeway store on Lover's Lane west of Inwood. It was not raining there, so I was flabbergasted to look to the west and see in the distance the funnel with rooftops and billboards swirling in the air around it. I rode my bicycle over to Bachman Lake and viewed some of the houses on Shorecrest which had lost their roofs. One of the houses had its kitchen area exposed to the street, and I noticed that a coconut was sitting apparently undisturbed on the kitchen table. The actual death toll from that tornado was 10 people. The Dallas tornado of 2019 also missed me by a couple of miles, but it pretty much destroyed Thomas Jefferson High School, which I attended along with classmate Michael Nesmith. My dad graduated Dallas High School in 1936. I learned to swim in the YMCA pool downtown, and also at Kidd Springs and Lake Cliff. Around 1948 I was one of the neighborhood kids who gathered to watch the assembly of the prefabricated Lustron home, made of porcelain painted steel panels, on Amherst Street. The selling point was that it was termite proof and would never need painting. I suppose that was correct, as the house is still there and still looks exactly the same as when new. My sister and I were passengers on the last streetcar to take a ceremonial trip across the Trinity from Oak Cliff to downtown. We also helped turn shovels of soil at the groundbreaking for construction of the new (second) chapel for Lover's Lane Methodist Church, when it actually was on Lover's Lane. Question: Why no mention of Nesmith, Meatloaf, Lisa Loeb and Noah Jones as successful musicians from Dallas?

Thank you, Mr. Collins. This was a wonderful treat. I was born in 1955 so quite a bit of this I am seeing for the first time. My parents and grandparents told my siblings and I about Lake Cliff Park when it was such a big attraction. But your video included the first photo I had ever seen of it. The tornado of 1957 came down our street but it missed us. I don't remember it because I was only 2 years old but when I was older I heard what a big scary deal it was. You know, in the section where you mention some famous people from Dallas? Well, you just barely scratched the surface. We forgive you, of course. Oh yeah, my high school, Adamson and Sunset High School were big rivals in Dallas!. My parents AND grandparents graduated from Oak Cliff High School, which, as you mentioned, was renamed Adamson and I and some of my sibs graduated from there also. Thanks again for this!

I had a elementary school teacher in East Dallas, a Great Teacher, that grew up living and picking cotton as a little girl before the land was flooded to make Lake Ray Hubbard. I also remember when central 75 was smaller, the end of little mexico before changed to victory plaza, the first chili's, Town East first built and Big Town mall - movie theater and bowling alley. Btw, Spanky of the OG little rascals lived in Lancaster and his grand mother lived behind Texas theater in oak cliff.

Bryan's cabin, when I was a boy in the 60's, was located on it's original spot in the S.W. corner of the Old Red Courthouse lawn. It was moved to current location when the county built the parking garage for the new courthouse and jail across on Commerce St. now called George Allen Court's Building. My dad's sister worked for an insurance company in the Cotton Exchange Building. My paternal grandpa owned a Gulf Station on East Grand Av. where the West bound service road is now of I-30. My Pops was a deputy sheriff in Dallas and he said that Sheriff W.E. (Bill) Decker told that when HE was a boy he would ride his pony out to the cemetery and look down on the city. That cemetery is at the Convention center right now. WOW! Out in the country. Now in the heart of Downtown. Hey great video and hope you have more to offer. 👍✌️😉🫡🤠

Thank you Mr.Collins , very good👍

First time visiting Dallas and this was great context! Thank you!

Great slideshow! Thanks!!

Great presentation thank you sir!

My grandfather on my dad's side was born and raised in Dallas. Some of my relatives are still there. Dallas as a city always has a great story to tell.

this is very useful. many thanks. greetings from Barbados

Great video..thanks 👍

Wow, impressive collection

Enjoyed the vid. Booker T. Washington, as we know it today is, Arts Magnet @ Booker T. Washington. Modern musician alumni include Nora Jones, Edie Brickell, Erykah Badu, to name a few.

Enjoyed this very mucho thanks

Great video.. thanks for doing this for all of us dallasites.

Dallas is a hot city, that's why the courthouses kept burning down lol

Great slideshow. A lot of info that I didn't know.

This was great.

Dallas, a one horse town. Pegasus. Oswald didnt shoot JFK. btw.

Can you do a video on Dallas farmland in and around Dallas past and present?

Chilis was demolished and is now a convenience store

My great grandfather would take his cotton crop to sell in Dallas down Central Track. My dad would walk down Central Track to go to the state fair.

The building at 10th and Tyler isn't a Gloria's. In fact, it looks just like the picture. Great slide deck btw. Very interesting!

Shout out to grandpa David R.I.P officer of the law.

I believe that is Dallas Fire Station 15… and the Gypsy Tea has just been torn down…

Bishop & Davis

Pix of standing Lee in downtown by convention center

And some of the trees that we still have amongst the city or some of the well-known trees that they hung people from and I don't even know what kind of people or who

in lakewood area of dallas, tx /apts on paulus n covington /lakewood apts in the 1970s/ pics ?

Wit malt40 stoe rite next doe..

I moved to Dallas/South Oak Cliff as a teenager in 1966. Married in 68 and moved to Duncanville. Live in Red Oak now. Dallas was a great place back in the day. Now it SUCKS.

What about pleasant grove you mentioned the cliff but not the grove

What was the actress?name and there was television in the late 40s published adds of tv in1947.

Are you sure you want to move to Fort Worth? Its already crowded.

Lightning Hopkins and t-bone walker are from Houston not dallas. That's Kool you have em' there though with dallas native blind lemon Jefferson.

Lightning Hopkins and t-bone walker are from Houston not dallas

You totally missed a huge chunk. Lucy Jane Monroe Browder and her 2 sons Edward and Isham...my 4 generation granparents moved to Dallas in 1845. They owned Browder Springs, the Browder store in old city park. Browder Springs was responsible for the water supply to Dallas. Lucy Jane is the niece of President Monroe. There's so much about the Browder family and their association with Dallas I could never type it all in this comment. My family was a hugely responsible for Dallas but when turn over in their graves if they saw it now. All the info can be researched online.

7:55 They shut the playground down after the Democrats sued the city after a kid named Tommy broke a leg from the 20' fall.😁😆