State Fair of Texas

Entrance to State Fair - circa 1910

Unnamed avenue in Fair Park - card postmarked 1908.

Bird's eye view of the Amusement Park - card postmarked 1906.

Larry's Dining

Located at 5315 E. Grand, right where R.L. Thornton crosses Grand nowadays. The name on the matchbook says "Larry Walker's Dining Room", but I could only find references to "Larry's Dining", owned by Larry Walker, and only from 1938 to 1940. In 1940 the No. 1 Dinner at Larry's included a Fancy T-bone steak, fried potatoes and salad for 45 cents. The restaurant was slated for a complete remodel in early 1940 and after that I found no more references to the place.

Larry Walker also ran Dallas' largest Christmas tree business at 4005 Oak Lawn Ave. from 1932 to at least 1946. In 1946 the site also hosted Weber's Root Beer Stand, which was listed as Larry's Root Beer in 1948. In 1954 the Christmas tree business was run by someone else, and Larry's Root Beer had morphed back to Weber's Root Beer.

Shamburger's Select Business College

Circa 1928. "The School of Efficiency" taught the following subjects: Shorthand, Touch Typewriting, English, Spelling, Court Reporting, Legal Forms, Business Correspondence, Punctuation, Secretarial Duties, Office Training, Tabulating, Care of Machines, Bookkeeping, Commercial Law, Business Writing, Finger Drills, Comptometer, Dictaphone, Multigraph, and Two weeks in Office. Day and Night School.

Yeah, I guess you'd have to attend day and night to get all that. Looks like you'd be a lawyer and a C.P.A. as well as a secretary. I'll have to find out what a comptometer is. I wonder what the difference was between business correspondence and business writing?

The building located at 5101 Columbia Avenue was built in 1925 and is still standing. The two-story 6400 square foot structure currently functions as a 20-unit motel, is valued at $275,000 on the tax rolls, and according to this image from Google Maps, it may be for sale.