Man Enjoying a Rare Snowfall in Texas on Valentine’s Day in 1895

An interesting vintage photo of a snowball man enjoying a rare snowfall in Texas on Valentine’s Day in 1895.

The winter of 1894-1895 was unusually cold in much of the northern hemisphere. The coast of the Gulf of Mexico got unusually heavy snowfalls in February 1895. Much of Texas got hit around the middle of February, especially along the coast.

The National Weather Service website says, “February 12-15, 1895 – Widespread snow over the state, even as far south as the lower Valley. North Texas received between 3-5 inches, but a band of 10-20 inches blanketed the upper Texas coast, including Houston and Beaumont/Port Arthur.”

Janis Joplin’s High School Yearbook Photos, 1960

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was born in Port Arthur, Texas to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family belonged to the Churches of Christ denomination.

Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, whom Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School.

Janis Joplin’s high school photo, 1960.

“I started singing when I was about 17. I could sing. It was a surprise — to say the least,” she later said. She hadn’t realized how powerful her voice was.

Janis Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion.

Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined “She Dares to Be Different.” The article began, “She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levis to class because they’re more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin.”

Joplin in 1960 as a graduating senior in high school.

While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton’s early comic books, on the campus.

Giant Santa Claus at Porter Chevrolet in Dallas, Texas in December 1953

When Porter Chevrolet opened at 5526 East Mockingbird, it asked and got permission from the Dr Pepper Company to use in its ads the statement, “Just across the street from the Dr Pepper Company.”

Then came that big Porter Santa Claus, the one sitting on the roof. It landed on front pages as far away as Atlanta and New York. People came from all over. And cars streamed past it down Mockingbird.

A papier-mache Santa Claus so large, in fact, that he’ll be holding a full-sized automobile in his lap.

Big Santa was the offspring of Big Tex: Porter’s Christmas ornament was designed by none other than Jack Bridges, the very same man who, at the request of then-State Fair president R.L. Thornton in 1951, transformed a 49-foot-tall Santa from Kerens, Texas, into Big Tex. Bridges and a squadron of 11 assistants would spend some two months on the project, which presented several engineering problems – all of which were exacerbated, Bridges said, “because Santa is sitting down.”

Wrote the legendary Frank X. Tolbert: “Biggest chore is coupling Santa’s bent-over torso to his fat steel legs. The head, with its six-foot sweep of a beard, and the legs and the great boots (each boot top will be level with the roof of the building) will be hauled from Bridges’ studio at 3226 East Illinois to the motor company on trucks. The torso will be put on wheels and towed.”

Much of the papier-mache work had to be done outdoors, in the studio’s yard. Santa was too big; so too the problems. Said Bridges, “One of the little ones is getting the expression just right around Santa’s mouth and eyes so the kids will love him.”

But mere hours after Santa took his place, tragedy.

In late November 1953, Jack Bridges’s biggest nightmare had come true: He could not move Santa Claus. A truck big enough to transport an 82-foot figure of Santa Claus can’t be found in Dallas. And so the pieces had to be hauled separately: The torso was put on wheels and trucked across town, while the other pieces were loaded into vehicles for the long haul to the dealership located across the street from the Dr Pepper plant. At which point he was finally assembled.

On December 9, a Wednesday, his head was put on – the final piece at last in place. Santa Claus had come to town, a Chevy perched in his lap.

(via Dallas Observer)

The Story Behind the Cooper Family Falling Body Photo

Sometime in the mid 1950s the Cooper family of Texas bought an old house and moved into it. On their first night in the house the father took a photograph of the family to commemorate the event. Posed at the dinning room table were Mr. Cooper’s wife, their two young sons and his mother. Everyone was happy, it was their first home, their first slice of the American Dream.

Days (maybe weeks) passed and finally the father took the exposed roll of film to the local pharmacy to have the pictures “developed”. He was told he could pick them up a week later; this was common in the chemical years of photography. One week later Mr. Cooper retrieved the small packet of snapshots from the pharmacy and returned home with them. When he came to the picture he had taken of his family on that first night in their “new” home, he saw what looked like a body, hanging from the ceiling. It hadn’t been there when the father took the photo. So where had it come from? Was it an apparition of a deceased former tenant of the house? No one knew.

The first evidence of the image you see above being posted online from 2009, where it was named as “Family Gathering”. Some called it’s fake. The only other explanation would be double exposure. If the “body” in the picture is that of the photographer from an earlier accidental exposure, and is upside down because the camera flipped over as it fell from his grasp, then his body is positioned exceedingly oddly. If one were to invert his form in the picture, as if he were standing up, then he would have both hands raised above his head, which is a rather strange position for taking a picture. It could be anything really.

Maybe the uncle was a gymnast and that’s him.

20 Vintage Photos of James Dean on the Set of ‘Giant’ in 1955

Giant is an American epic Western drama film, directed by George Stevens and starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean as three main roles. It was the last of Dean’s three movies as a leading actor, as he was killed in a car crash before the film was released. Giant earned Dean his second, and also final, consecutive posthumous Academy Award nomination. 

Take a look at the actor spending his time during the filming in 1955: 

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1952 Ford With Brand New Air-Conditioner Being Advertised on a Street of Texas

“This Car Is Air-Conditioned...”
“See How Cool It is Inside”
“Look At the Thermometers”

In August 1952, on a street in Fort Worth, Texas stopped a car with air conditioning in the cabin. Inside the car was sitting in the cool photographer and recorded the reaction of people at it.

In 1939, Packard became the first automobile manufacturer to offer an air conditioning unit in its cars. These bulky units were manufactured by Bishop and Babcock (B&B), of Cleveland, Ohio and ordered on approximately 2,000 cars.

The 1953 Chrysler Imperial was one of the first production cars in twelve years to offer modern automobile air conditioning as an option, following tentative experiments by Packard in 1940 and Cadillac in 1941. Walter Chrysler had seen to the invention of Airtemp air conditioning in the 1930s for the Chrysler Building, and had offered it on cars in 1941-42, and again in 1951-52.

The Airtemp was more advanced than rival automobile air conditioners by 1953. It was operated by a single switch on the dashboard marked with low, medium, and high positions. As the highest capacity unit available at that time, the system was capable of quickly cooling the passenger compartment and also reducing humidity, dust, pollen, and tobacco smoke. The system drew in more outside air than contemporary systems; thus, reducing the staleness associated with automotive air conditioning at the time. Instead of plastic tubes mounted on the rear window package shelf as on GM cars, small ducts directed cool air toward the ceiling of the car where it filtered down around the passengers instead of blowing directly on them, a feature that modern cars have lost.

Cadillac, Buick, and Oldsmobile added air conditioning as an option on some of their models in the 1953 model year.[5] All of these Frigidaire systems used separate engine and trunk mounted components.

In a 1971 front-page story, the New York Times implicated air-conditioning in the death of the convertible, postulating that: “In the age of air-conditioning, real air has lost its value.” Today, more than 99 percent of all new cars are air-conditioned.

40 Fascinating Pics Capture Street Scenes of Dallas, Texas in the Early 1980s

Dallas is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the largest city and seat of Dallas County. It is the ninth most-populous city in the U.S. and third in Texas after Houston and San Antonio.

Located in North Texas, the city of Dallas is the main core of the largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States and the largest inland metropolitan area in the U.S. that lacks any navigable link to the sea. It is the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest.

Dominant sectors of its diverse economy include defense, financial services, information technology, telecommunications, and transportation. Dallas is home to 9 Fortune 500 companies within the city limits. Over 41 colleges and universities are located within its metropolitan area, which is the most of any metropolitan area in Texas.

The city has a population from a myriad of ethnic and religious backgrounds and one of the largest LGBT communities in the U.S. WalletHub named Dallas the fifth most-diverse city in the U.S.

These fascinating photos from Red Oak Kid were taken by Leta Patterson that show street scenes of Dallas from 1981 to 1984.

The Majestic Theatre before it was restored, circa early 1980s

Dallas High School (also known as Crozier Tech), circa early 1980s

Dallas skyline, circa early 1980s

West End, circa early 1980s

Building on the corner of Commerce and Polydras, 1981

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Life of Greenville, Texas in the Late 19th Century Through Amazing Photos

Greenville is a city in Hunt County, Texas, United States, approximately 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Dallas. It is the county seat and largest city of Hunt County.

Greenville was named for Thomas J. Green, a significant contributor to the founding of the Texas Republic.

These amazing photos were donated to the Greenville Library from Eddie Daniels that captured life of Greenville, Texas in the 1880s and 1890s.

Gun toting Texans, Greenville, Texas

“Stay OUT” building, Greenville, Texas

A photographer possible taking a picture of the first Rail Road tracks being laid in Greenville, Texas

Another shot of this guy taking a picture of the tracks being laid, Greenville, Texas

Boys and their cotton, Greenville, Texas

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1980s Gas Station Fashions: Beautiful Uniforms for Texaco Dealers in 1983

Move over Gucci and Versace, Texaco has the latest in gas station must-have fashions.

The discovery of oil in southeast Texas and the birth of the Texas Fuel Company in Beaumont in 1901, laid the foundation of one of the world’s major petroleum companies. The Texas Fuel Co. grew quickly and soon became one of the major international suppliers, where significant discoveries were followed by development of new products from kerosene to automotive gasoline and lubricants.

Its first international shipment were made in 1902 after agreement with British Petroleum Co. for the sale of 1 mil. barrels of crude oil to UK. In 1905 the first European office was opened in Belgium. In an era of surging automobile sales and increased mobility, The Texas Co. quickly expands into new global markets, creates a growing network of filling and service stations, introduces innovative products.

Future restructuring would merge Producers Oil Company and The Texas Fuel Company as Texaco when the company needed additional funding which J.W. Gates provided in the amount of around $590,000.00 in return for company stock.

For many years, Texaco was the only company selling gasoline under the same brand name in all 50 US states, as well as Canada, making it the most truly national brand among its competitors. It was also one of the Seven Sisters which dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. Its current logo features a white star in a red circle (a reference to the lone star of Texas), leading to the long-running advertising jingles “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star” and “Star of the American Road.” The company was headquartered in Harrison, New York, near White Plains, prior to the merger with Chevron.

(via Retro Hound)

Candid Photographs of Teenage Girls at Texas Beaches During the 1980s

By the 1980s, Texas hot spots for spring break, from Matamoros to Galveston were in full swing. These candid photos take a look back to how teenage girls indulged in this annual blowout more than 30 years ago.

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Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s

Every year students across the country spend the week leading up to spring break by pulling all-nighters, cramming for midterms and fidgeting over their upcoming plans.

Then many ditch parkas for bikinis and energy drinks for beer bongs as they cut and run to warm, sunny beaches all along the U.S. coast.

Florida is credited for initiating this indulgent blowout in the 1920s, but Texas had its own hot spots along the coast in full swing by the late 1980s. About the time, MTV blew the phenomenon up with its classic annual feature “Spring Break.”

Students from colleges across the state and beyond are captured bikini-clad and sandy, cruising the beaches and chugging from beer bongs — the classic, unbridled carousing of spring break.

The gallery here is a look back, nearly 30 years ago, to parties from Matamoros to Port Aransas.

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50 Years Ago: Amazing Photographs of Apollo Families’ Tears and Ecstasy During Moon Landing Mission in 1969

Fifty years ago, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin made history when they became the first humans to set foot on the moon.

Their mission, Apollo 11, was considered an American victory in the Cold War and subsequent space race, meeting President John F. Kennedy’s goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely” before the end of the decade.

More than half a billion people watched on television as Armstrong climbed down the ladder of the Eagle lunar lander and proclaimed: “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this landmark moment, we gathered some remarkably moving pictures that show the wives of Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins as, on TV, they watch them propelled 239,800 miles to the Moon on a four-day journey. The photographs capture the brittle emotions of these women whose job was to create the image of domestic bliss, an essential part of the American space dream.

From the deck of a boat, Janet Armstrong and her sons Mark and Rick, watch the launch of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission to the moon, commanded by her husband, astronaut Neil Armstrong, Cape Canaveral (then known as Cape Kennedy), Florida, July 16, 1969.

Joan Aldrin, Pat Collins, and Janet Armstrong (left to right) sit on barstools and pose for a picture at the Aldrin home in Houston, Texas, during their husbands’ Apollo 11 moon mission. They have their hands over their eyes, mouth, and ears in an imitation of the proverbial Three Wise Monkeys..

Jan Armstrong’s clenched fist expresses her inner turmoil as she watches the mission on TV.

Janet Armstrong sits with a model of Apollo 11’s lunar module, the Eagle, during her husband’s historic mission.

Joan Aldrin (in white) expresses relief as she watches the television broadcast of her husband’s successful mission to the moon, Houston, Texas, July 1969.

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