Sometime late in 1910 the house at 5003 Crutcher (later Tremont) was completed. According to the booklet on Munger Place, the owner was Clarence Dissoway. In the 1920s Dissoway is listed at 4903 Junius. In the 100 years of the existence of the house, Rob and Sharon Smith have been there 32 years from 1978 to 2010, the longest of any tenant. The Schoellkopfs were there 25 years from 1914 to 1939 and the Densmores 13 years from 1941 to 1954. In 1910 when Dissoway moved in, my mother was in Irving in the seventh grade and my dad was living in a log cabin in Oklahoma. It would be my guess that Rob’s and Sharon’s parents were not yet born.
When Haley’s comet soared over Munger Place in 1910 the population of Dallas was 92,104, second only to San Antonio as the state’s largest city. Natural gas was turned on in April of that year. William Jennings Bryan appeared again and gave a prohibition speech but two elections were to come before the city voted dry. Dallas saw its first airplane not far from Munger Place as it soared 4,000 feet above Fair Park. On the other side of the new Munger development work was progressing on the dam on White Rock creek. A new Dallas high school went up on Bryan Street near downtown in 1908. Known as Main High in 1911 and Bryan High in 1916 it served students in Munger Place until the late 20’s. Davy Crockett School on Carroll served elementary students. In September 1911 on Elm Street (one of the few paved streets outside of Munger Place) thousands watched 110 electric lights flash on from Market to Harwood. Dallas’ theater street was now the “Great White Way.” By 1912 Dallas registered 2,944 automobiles. Banks at that time would make no loans for such things however.
In Munger Place the homes with their great porches were clustered together in their twenty or so block area and were well served by the commercial areas in the place. On Collett Avenue, between Victor and Reiger streets, lots on each side facing each other were designated for ‘stores of necessities’ promised in a 1910 booklet advertising the Place. At 313 Collett a Star Cash
Grocery was opened around 1912 and remained a grocery store well into the 1950s. About the same time Green’s Drug Store #2 opened at 111 Collett on the southwest side. This was the beginning of several buildings that eventually covered the whole side of the block. In 1917 the drug store moved to a new building at 4949 Columbia. This was the west comer of Columbia and Collett with the door on the corner facing diagonally and equal to both streets.
The Columbia-Collett intersection became the center of activity for Munger Place as the Columbia Theater was built adjacent to the drug store at 4945 about the same time.
Development followed up the south-west side of Collett past Centre St. Centre St. for years shared the name with an Oak Cliff street until 1933 when it was named Elm Alley to clarify the duplication. For decades it remained unpaved from Carroll Ave. to Collett. Servant quarters lined the alley and some near Collett faced the alley with small porches facing south to catch the breeze. The one short block of Elm Alley east of Collett was paved by 1923 and many nice shops lined the north side. In 1942 the shop owners convinced the city to change the street name to Collett Place. They felt Elm Alley would be associated with Deep Elm which at that time did not have a good image. I recall this “high brow” attitude causing a great deal of ridicule from the patrons in Joe and Roy’s barbershop toward the shopkeepers in Collett Place.
The streets were lined with trees, mostly elms, each with a matching one on the other side. These were numerous with two or three to each property, depending on width. Residents planted many of their own including many pecans and sycamores. Munger Boulevard and Swiss avenue were divided with esplanades which created a circle where they crossed in the north corner of the Place. When reminiscing about the early years when the trees were young, Ruth Cooper said “The area was wide open; you could see for miles.”
By 1914, as more homes were completed, more commercial enterprises were available and the residents were served l by an electric street car that ran on Collett from Columbia north to Live Oak.
The trolley stopped just short of a circle where the streets met. The car reversed and returned to the shopping areas toward the other end. Since Collett was the center or the spine of the Place the trolley was never more than a block away. This was a rare luxury in an era when grocery shopping was often a daily chore. On many of the homes adjacent to Collett, porches wrapped around to face the Collett side as well as the front. This presented a good view of the broad avenue and an opportunity to wave at neighbors passing in transit. The streetcars employed both a motorman and a conductor at that time. At Columbia and Collett one could transfer to the streetcar line to downtown. Where Munger Boulevard ended at Bryan Street was the Munger Place Interurban Station which served near by towns at that time.
As automobiles became common, garages were built, in most cases, for two cars, another indication of the affluence of the neighborhood. Servant quarters were constructed above or beside the garages. Black maids and gardeners lived in these buildings in a segregated society which offered them only alleys and back doors as the accepted thoroughfares of traffic. Stores were not segregated but parks and cafes were leaving only their houses at the rear of the property for social gathering. A bit of open space by the ice house on Junius across from the small park and the width of Elm Alley was about all of the public space available for black people to sit and talk until the laws began to change in the 50’s and 60’s.
Largent Parks remembers Junius Street as it once was when it extended eastward beyond La Vista through the Lakewood Country Club to join White Rock Road at today’s intersection with West Shore and Gaston. This was the most direct route to the White Rock dam until Junius Street was terminated at LaVista for improvements of the country club. Carriages were encouraged to drive across the top of the dam to pack it down. Prior to the building of the lake, Fisher Road crossed the creek on a large bridge. The wooded area (now the lake bottom) was a popular camping ground for people traveling in wagons. About three miles to the east of Munger Place, White Rock Lake slowly began to fill up during 1912 and 1913. Then, as it is still today, the lake was an important part of life in east Dallas.
Joe Luther, who lived at 4506 East Side at Carroll when he was a boy in the second decade of the century, remembers trips to the lake. Junius street was his favorite route because it was graveled and other routes were muddy. As Joe hiked to the lake he often stopped at Tom Frank’s bait stand at Garland Road at the dam. Frank also sold soda pop, cheese, crackers, and sardines. Frank would even give credit up to 25 cents for two weeks. If one took the muddy route down East Grand Avenue, a stop at Tom Cole’s dairy near where Beacon Street crossed Grand could be worthwhile. Mr. Cole would give kids a drink of cold milk if they would look after his cattle as they went to fish. The lake, without the present landscaping, resembled many new rural lakes today. In his 1911 plan for Dallas, George Kessler proposed a park to surround the entire lake.
That picture (above) was probably made years later after the trees had matured. The scene may be where Fisher Road ends at the edge of the lake on the west side.
By the time the United States entered the World War in 1917 the Munger Place intersection of Columbia and Collett was offering more services to its clientele.
Next to the Columbia Theater at 4943 Columbia was a new grocery store. On Collett the Munger Place Garage was opened at 115 Collett at Centre. Across Centre at 201 Collett was a Magnolia gas station. Among many other small shops were a cleaners and a barber shop. Between Reiger and Victor on Collett were a couple of grocery stores and the Eagle Pharmacy at 315 Collett. For over three decades the pharmacy was a favorite place to enjoy ice cream and conversation at tables that lined one side. Also, that same yea,r Shamburgers Business College opened at 5111 Columbia. On the 5300 Block of Junius on the south side across from the park a grocery store opened to be followed a few years later by a long row of businesses.
In 1911 George Kessler, who lived in Dallas as a youth, was hired by the city to draw a master plan as a guide for future growth. Kessler was instrumental in developing Kansas City into a place of many parks and streets lined with trees. Kansas City remains second place only to Rome in the number of statues and fountains in world cities. Kessler was part of a group civic leaders that convinced Kansas City that a municipality should foster and support community interest. This would include parks and boulevards with public places attracting people that would actually help drive commercial interest.
Kessler’s plan for Dallas included such things as the levee system to prevent floods, removal of downtown railroad tracks, parks and boulevards. Turtle Creek Boulevard and Mill Creek Boulevard would follow the creeks on both sides leaving the natural trees in the middle fed by the creeks themselves. Ross Avenue would be a tree-lined boulevard to the new lake (White Rock) that was in progress. Fitzhugh was to be another tree-lined boulevard as a part of a route that would circle the city and East Grand would be a parkway from Fair Park to the lake.
While Kessler’s group was successful in Kansas City very little was carried out in Dallas. The business leaders in Dallas considered the purpose of a city was for commercial interest and did not agree that refinements and landscapes would produce advantages for business, the public, or the city. They followed the old adage of ‘Keep the status quo and the tax rate low.’ Some of Kessler’s plans were carried out but somewhat later. One side of Turtle Creek was developed but the other side was not. Nothing was done on Mill Creek which became a blight before it became a sewer in the late forties. South Boulevard was completed but without the esplanade. Oak Cliff Boulevard was finished including an esplanade but not as part of the planned inner loop. With great effort those that backed Kessler were able to have the downtown tracks on Pacific Avenue removed in the twenties and the park around White Rock Lake was built in the thirties. The eastern part of East Grand became a parkway some fifty years later. Much more of his plan was never funded.
The streets of Fitzhugh, Ross and East Grand close to Munger Place were ignored and became blighted areas that were harmful to the future of Munger Place and East Dallas as well. If they had been developed into boulevards and parkways, they well may have grown into beautiful neighborhoods like those Kessler planned in Kansas City.
The loss of the Ross Avenue, Fitzhugh Avenue, and East Grand Avenue parkways caused Munger Place to have much lesser development around its perimeter that continued to decline in future decades.
The loss of a Mill Creek Parkway was harmful as well. It could have been a pleasant drive like Turtle Creek Boulevard as a route the south of downtown as well a way to Fair Park and South Dallas.
Into the first decade of the 21st century all of East Dallas still suffers the loss of the Kessler vision that could have produced these boulevards when there was little or no development around them.
It is interesting to contrast the future effects of the decisions of the city regarding Mill and Turtle creeks. Had the plans for both creeks been carried out Dallas would have two beautiful drives leading into the center of town.
The hesitancy of the Dallas leaders to implement the goals Kessler presented challenged him to compromise on some details. Kessler was told a boulevard with an esplanade that would require at least four lanes rather than three and four curbs instead of two would be too costly. He suggested they could delete the esplanade in the center but add the same space by enlarging the part between the sidewalk and the curb and use that part for trees. We can see that done on both South Boulevard and Lakewood Boulevard.
It is disappointing to see the lack of foresight and vision the city has shown throughout its history. It is interesting to contrast the philosophy of many Dallas leaders with other cities. One might compare their vision, or lack of, to that of Chicago some years earlier. Daniel H Burnham, eighteen years before Kessler offered his projections to Dallas, was designing the Columbian Exposition for the World Fair in Chicago. We should examine a couple of Burnham’s quotes:
“Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s souls”
“Beauty has always paid better than any other commodity, and always will”
In 1913 Hugo Schoellkopf married Jessie (I have not found her maiden name); he was 30 and she was 22. The following year they moved into the house at 5003 Tremont (then named Crutcher). They were the young couple in the neighborhood of people in their forties and fifties. Next door was J. W. Crotty who was soon replaced by William and Florence Young who were about ten years older that the Schoellkopfs. By the mid-twenties, Ernest and Olina Haeber occupied the 5007 house for over thirty years. They also were about ten years older than the Schoellkopfs. The Haebers were still in their house in the forties when my family was there. Mrs. Haeber often mentioned the Schoellkopfs and told us of the beautiful landscaping that Jessie created in the yard. Olina said Jessie had many large parties at night with lights that showcased the flowers and shrubs.
Rufus and Ella Wallace were original owners two doors down at 5011. Rufus was a printer-publisher and they were much older that the Schoellkopfs. Rufus died years before Ella who lived well into the nineteen-fifties. When I was about twelve or so Ella told me a creek once flowed where our houses were and I thought she was crazy. I missed a great opportunity to have learned much of the early history of Munger Place.
In 1918, the fifth year of the Schoellkopfs’ marriage a daughter, Agnes, was born to Hugo and Jessie. Three years later they had a son Hugo Jr. who I believe was called Buddy. I’m not sure but I think Agnes was often called Nancy.
At some time the Schoellkopfs made many changes on the property.
A large two car garage was constructed with a short driveway to the Collett side. Attached to the garage was a garden shed with a small passage way to the alley. To the side of the pathway was one-story servant building with a porch, living room, bedroom, a bath and a kitchen. Almost all of Munger Place had servant quarters, usually above the garage.
The backyard was secluded with a privet hedge that grew high and arched over the side entry to Collett. A small fish pond lined with dark stones and a waterfall was on the right side of the yard. Cedars and small trees along with purple sage and a trumpet vine were among the many improvements included in the landscape.
The house was built with three giant pots that were typical of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs. Two of these were by the front steps and another was by corner of the wraparound porch. At some time the Schoellkopfs added three more along the west side of the porch.
An upstairs addition was connected to the east bedroom with windows covering the three outside walls. In the second and third decades of the century there was a fresh air trend that promoted many sleeping porches all through the country. Munger Place had many of these additions. The new room on the Schoellkopf house was one of the most tasteful of these projects. In the late seventies I was fortunate to have had a conversation with the Schoellkopf’s daughter, Agnes. I remember her as Nancy Schoellkopf Phelen. She enjoyed talking of her old home where she lived for her first twenty-one years. She remembered the Haebers next door as delightful friends and the neighborhood as warm and friendly. She told me the upstairs room with the addition was her room.
It is most likely that the Schoellkopfs who painted the house a chocolate brown with white trim. Originally the house was a light color with a dark trim. As a curious boy of ten or eleven I climbed out of one of the north windows of the addition to the east bedroom onto the roof.
I looked under a tight corner of the broad overhang where a gable met the main roof. There was a part of a hard-to-reach board that the workman had not painted; this portion of the board was a light mint green. It is my guess this was the original color. Years later I learned these natural colors were popular in painting Prairie Style homes when the neighborhood was developed.
The original colors followed the natural colors associated with Prairie Style homes. They were many colors but several were dark. At one time, three of the four houses on the Tremont Collett corner were painted dark shades. The 4938 Tremont house was the only one white. It was a Greek Revival style with tall fluted columns and would naturally have to be white.
Over a period of time many of the Munger Place houses slowly became white. This was a popular trend having to do with cleanliness that included pipes to show under sinks rather than encase them with cabinets to show there was no hidden dirt. The 5003 Tremont kitchen sink and both bathroom lavatories were open to show such cleanliness. By the late forties the 5003 house was the only one that was not white.
The landscaping on the front elevation consisted of three layers of hedges. The first layer nearest to the porch was a common privet hedge, in the middle was a thick abelia hedge with junipers at the front. The yard was St. Augustine grass, a little unusual at that time. Along the front parkway were the three original trees planted around 1910. At sometime before 1940 the center one died or was removed.
In Munger Place during the ten years following the development, water flooded the streets often during rains. Most of the homes were built and the trees were growing to maturity, garages and fences were still going up and the area was still rather open. It was said you could see the water rushing down from the high ground around St Mary’s Episcopal School near Bryan and Greenville still trying to follow the old network of creeks that once were there. The homes were safe but the streets and sidewalks were impassable. For some time boardwalks were laid across Fitzhugh at Columbia, Reiger, Victor, and Crutcher (now Tremont). Fitzhugh was not paved at that time. At some time during the second decade a giant culvert, large enough that one could walk in, was put down Crutcher (Tremont). This paralleled another that ran down the alley between Crutcher and Worth. After the second culvert was built rainwater ran off the streets more quickly.
In 1918 The World War was won and as the second decade ended. Munger Place was as fine a place to live as anywhere in Dallas and probably with its prime years just ahead. Dallas, like all American cities, was growing outward leaving rings of transition behind. The twenties would bring the Park Cities, Greenway Park, and Lakewood. The prestigious Swiss Avenue homes were still a long way from reaching to La Vista. It is interesting, though,s in the first decade of the 21st century to see Munger Place redeveloping and in doing so destroying that old pattern of decaying transition rings that plague so many cities.