A Visit to Leonard's Department Store
I was born in San Francisco, CA in 1945 and came to Fort Worth, TX about 1948. My first memory of Ft Worth was being dragged to the back of the bus. I was used to sitting right behind the motorman on the subway in Frisco.
My favorite memories of Fort Worth are about downtown, it was wonderful, there was the largest store in the world, as far as I was concerned Leonard Brothers Dept. Store my favorite place in the whole wide world. You could buy anything you needed to live in TX at Leonard's or it's sister store Everybody's. Leonard's probably had the first and largest Supermarket in the United States. There was clothing for everyone in the family both the most beautiful and the kind every one needed to work in. There were coats and dresses, and pants for the ladies and suites and coveralls for the men of the families.
Then there was the farm and ranch store where every farmer and his family could buy everything and anything that you needed for their ranch or farm including tractors, mowers, hay baylors, animial feed, a variety of seeds and all sorts of things.
Leonard's had a pet shop where they sold small pets and the food they needed.
The greatest department was the toy department at Christmas. The entrance was a long black hall with indentures in the wall painted with floresent paint of all bright colors with dancing puppets and clowns also painted with bright colored florecent paint and they moved and danced that was on left side of the wall. On the other side of the wall were food stands with candied apples, cotton candy, popcorn, soda, and hot dogs.
As you entered toyland, which opened the day after thanksgiving, and looked to the right there were dolls of every description and from every country taking up one whole wall of the very large room. There were dolls going around the celing and dolls on shelves filling the wall then there was a counter that took up the width of the wall full of dolls and more dolls, all sizes, and all descriptions. It was a dream world for my Mother and myself.
There was a train that traveled around the celing on the sides of the wall in a dark tunnel where there were floresent painted indentures in the wall and ballarena dancers danging and all kinds of moving toys at regular intervals in the indentures, and lots of angle hair of all colors all around the wall it was like a wonderful Christmas dream.
The rest of the room was filled with bikes, wagons, games and toys of every dexcription. There was a talking Rudalph the red noised rain deer and of course a large Santa in the middle with elves all around him.
Leonard Brothers toyland was supposed to be a replica of Macy's toyland in New York but to me it was a city set aside just for me and children just like me.
Of course there were other great stores downtown The Fair of Texas, the store for the millionaires, Striplings, Coxes and my favorite other store Meachums. These stores exlemplefied class, class and more class. Yes growing up in Fort Worth was a great adventure even though we had colored water fountians and colored toliets we had class.
I would like to mention Ms. Lucy Gist of the Methodist Womens Association who came to Fort Worth just to build a recreation center just for us called the Bethlehem Center on New York Street in Sunny South Fort Worth, TX. Ms Gist was a wonderful Missionary lady who took us under her wing and taught us to cook and live out doors before letting us cook in the kitchen. She took us to the 1st Methodist Church Rec Center to Skate and took us to camp all over Texas and some of Oklahoma before aquiring Camp El Torsoro for us. I was a Bluebird, a Campfire Girl, a Horizan and a Jiver , a club for boys and girls to socialize with adult supervision at all times at the Bethlehem Center, which my classmate is the director of now. I am so proud of Mrs Lucy Gist and will always be thankful for her.
My maternal family has lived in Fort Worth Tx sinse the later part of the 1800's. My Great-Grand-Mother Ms Minnie Lynch Carther and her mother walked to Fort Worth from Tennesee immeadiatly after slavery was abolished. My Grandmother, Mother, Bertice Hardin Bates, her sister Westell Hardin and Brother Wesley Harden and myself all attended and graduated I M Terrell High School.
I grew up at 914 E. Hattie St. and I attended James E. Guinn Elementary and Jr. Highschool and I was also in the first Black class of East Van Zandt Elementary School.
--- Berta Johnson, Mansfield, TX
Centennial Celebration, Dancing, Casa Mañana and Such
I was born and raised in Fort Worth and we were living on W. Berry when the 1936 Texas Centennial Celebration was in progress. It was in celebration of Texas winning its Independence from Mexico 100 years earlier. I was eight years old and Daddy and Mother decided my older sister and I needed to learn to dance so we could go to Casa Manana with them and go down on the stage and dance with Daddy between the dinner and the show. We would practice with Daddy in the dining room to either the radio or the Victrola. A Victrola was a record player that was in a cabinet about four feet tall and was square. I would say about 24 inches on all sides. We had to stand on a stool to be able to put the record on the turntable to play it. You had to turn a crank on the side to wind it up. It would play a 12" record at the proper speed. We had to wind it up again for every record you played. It was wonderful.
Daddy was a good dancer and we both learned very quickly. Because of those early dancing lessons we were able to shine when we finally started formal dance lessons later at James Leito’s Dance Studio. We both enjoyed dancing and to this day we get great pleasure out of the rhythm of dance music.
So far, the Texas Centennial was the most enjoyable thing to come along in our young lives. We would go to Dallas, TX and attend the "official" Centennial. It was to be the greatest show on earth as far as Texas was concerned. I remember the little town that was built just for midgets and dwarfs. Today we refer to them as "Little People." The streets and the little houses were all built to scale for them. The furniture and kitchens were all small to be used by them. It was fascinating to a child because it was actually to our scale too. I will never forget it. I think the “Little People” who were there were also the same ones used in "The Wizard of Oz." three years later.
The Centennial in Dallas was neat. They had so many exhibits and shows and the rides were fun. We were able to ride some of them. That was the year that Ritz Crackers were introduced. They may have already been in other parts of the country but I just remember that was the first time I had seen and tasted them. They were so good when you could get some for a sample.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the Centennial Fairgrounds in Dallas and also made trip to Fort Worth. We went down to a park on 21st Street on the Northside and watched him ride by in his Presidential Limousine.
Now, back to the Fort Worth part of the Centennial Celebration. We were excited to have our own show here in our hometown. The Casa Manana was built especially for a large stage show called Billy Rose’s Revue. There were singers and dancers and showgirls galore. Big bands were to play for the show and before and after dinner. One of the Dorsey brother’s bands was here and Paul Whiteman and his orchestra were here almost all of the time. For some reason or other it took me many years to like the sound of a saxophone. Someone in Paul Whiteman’s band played one and I just didn’t like the sound. The music was wonderful and very suited to dancing.
The stage at the Casa Manana was a revolving stage. It would turn around and there was a wooden dance floor. On the other side of the stage they would be changing the scenery for the show. When it was time for the show to begin, they would have people leave the dance floor and a wall of water would shoot up to form a curtain while the stage revolved back around. That is when the magic would begin. The music and all of the performers were pros and the showgirls were fabulous. They were all about 6 feet tall and gorgeous. They wore the most glamorous costumes and head pieces that anybody had ever seen. There was a staircase that was used in the finale that was covered with beautiful women. I can still see it to this day. We went to see the show a number of times while it was here.
There was a dancer by the name of Sally Rand who supposedly danced nude with only a pair of large feather fans. She would come out just before the water curtain would go down and the lights were very low with just a tint of blue in them. Sometimes she would use large see through bubbles. They were forerunners of plastic, I am sure. I imagine Sally wore a full flesh colored suit, but back then everybody thought she was nude. She had another show called Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch. Of course we were not allowed to go there. It was supposed to be a strip club. The girls working there were to be totally nude. Now that one may have been true, but Sally, on the Casa Manana stage, had to be covered, somehow. Some kind of ordinance, I’m sure. Anyway, it was fun to go.
There was another large building on the grounds. It was called The Pioneer Palace. It was more of a bar and dance hall rather than for a big stage show production. It followed the Western theme of "Cowtown." There was a large, long, very ornate bar with a stage built above it with mirrors. This is where the "Six Tiny Rosebuds" would dance and sing. They were dressed as barroom girls of the old west. More like can-can girls. The one unique thing about them was their size. There was not one of them that weighed less than 300 pounds. They could dance and sing like angels. I do not know when they tore down the Pioneer Palace, but I do know it was still there in 1943 or 1944. We were still going there for parties when I was in high school. In fact, they had some sort of show there where anyone who sang or danced could go and participate. I went and sang something. Have no idea what it was. I was very active in the music classes at Arlington Heights then. One time when we had a party while we lived on Locke, Clyde Kurtz got mad at me and told me that I would make the Six Tiny Rosebuds look sick. I was fat and I guess he couldn’t think of anything else to say to me. He made me mad and I slapped him. I saw him about ten years ago and I reminded him of that. We got a big laugh out of it.
As I said, this was the greatest event to come along in my young life and will remain in my memories until I die.
--- Charlotte Grizzle, Fort Worth, TX
"Famous Hamburgers" - Downtown
In the early 1980's when I was a young man, our favorite place to go for burgers was "Famous Hamburgers" downtown on the corner of Main of First. The place was ancient, if I remember right it had been there since the end of the 1920's.
They made the simplest. greasiest burgers you can imagine, and had your choice of with of without onions, jalapenos, or mustard. No mayo or ketchup was available, no pickles, lettuce or any of that. If you asked for a napkin they'd hand you a sheet of the thin wax paper they used to wrap the burgers.
On my first visit when this happened to me I said "No, I meant a napkin." The counterman Nick replied "I just gave you one." Nick was the grizzled owner and was near retirement age in the 80's. and he'd been there working since he was a teenager. Other members of his family worked there, and they were all a bit gruff at first but the nicest folks in the world once you became a "regular."
Most customers were served via the wrap around outside windows and they'd either take their burgers to go or eat outside at the window ledge. There was an L shaped counter inside with a few bar stools where you could sit if you were so inclined. My friend Les and I went down there pretty much daily and sat at the counter and shot the breeze, ordering up the specialty of the house, the "Black Jack". The Black Jack was a double burger with grilled onions, and a HUGE pile of fresh jalapeno slices that they would grill and put on the burger. When the fresh jalapenos would cook on the hot grill, they'd give off powerful smoke and fumes that would set the entire joint coughing. Even the people outside at the windows would cough. I think that watching the reactions to the cooking jalapenos was as much the reason we'd order the Black Jack as anything.
One thing about Famous Hamburgers is that they had no running water in the cooking area, and no place to wash your hands. They had a urinal in the tiny closet they called a restroom that had a constantly running stream of water from a small external copper pipe pouring into it. If you were careful you could put your fingers under the pipe and wash them without touching the urinal, but it was pretty gross. If a lady ever asked to use their restroom, the whole place including all the regulars at the counter would yell "No ladies room!" at the same time, and the lady in question would know she better not go back there. I did however see one lady go back there despite the warning, and she came back quickly, with her eyes the size of dinner plates and a look of shock on her face.
I got married in 1986 in a small ceremony at my in-laws house, and for our after-ceremony party we all jumped in our cars and went to Famous Hamburgers in our wedding clothes. Nick let us in despite them being closed already, and we sat round the counter drinking root bear and watching him chop pounds and pounds of onions for the next day's burgers. We couldn't have had a better night.
--- Craig Howell - San Carlos, CA
Rancher Bill's Chuckwagon
I just wanted to submit a correction. It wasn't called Rancher's Chuckwagon on Weatherford traffic circle. It was Rancher Bill's Chuckwagon, from at least about 1960 to late 1980s(?), and was owned by William G. Fields and managed by my mother, Josephine C. Walls, who also did all the rubbing, smoking, of the hickory-smoke briskets and ribs. She made the best bbq, sauce, potato salad, beans, and garlic Texas toast I have ever tasted to this day, and all served up and deliverted to your booth/table/bar with a cold bottle of pop or a big mug of beer. Only Risckys and Rudy's have come close to her bbq. Jo, as the regulars (mostly men getting off from General Dynamics at 3) called her smoked those briskets slow and steady, adding a log or two of hickory wood every few hours to that huge bricket pit containg a couple dozen dry-rubbed briskets and even more sides of pork ribs. I loved going there and "working" for her and getting to take a break with my Mother, so we could have a nice quiet meal together. And since my big brother was on the Western Hills varsity football team, they would all come in before a game and have a big T-Bone meal, with huge milkshakes. Those were the days!
--- Elizabeth Walls, Beaverton, OR
A Little Trip down Memory Lane
I was born in St. Joseph Hospital in 1950. I lived and grew up on the south side of Ft. Worth, gone only long enough to do my time for Uncle Sam. I saw foggy mornings disappear when Katy Lake was drained for the building of Seminary South Shopping Center, great progress with the widening of the south freeway , the Goodyear blimp (when it arrived for TCU games or Colonial golf) parked at Russell Field where Alcon and the brewery are now, rode my bike (we could do that and not worry about any dangers) to Tidwell’s (they had crossties for front steps) and/or Roark’s on Seminary and ate some of the best greasy French Fries at the original Southside Drive In at Felix and the freeway before K-Mart was even a thought. We could go to sleep with the windows open, an evaporator cooler for air conditioning and front screen door just hooked.
Reading all the letters and blog entries has stirred a lot of fond, childhood memories for me. From eating ice-cold watermelon for 25 cents a quarter slice at the watermelon stand on W. Berry across from Capps Park, walking to the Ft. Worth Zoo and using my green “Zoo Key” (loved their greasy hamburgers), to riding the monorail at Christmas at Leonard Bros. downtown. Leonard’s was one-stop shopping at its best, long before K-Mart’s, Wal Mart’s and Target came along. A couple of others tried in between if you can remember the Clark’s stores and Atlantic Mills. Still, there is no comparison even today to Leonard Bros. and what Marvin Leonard did for Ft. Worth. His daughter has a small museum set up on Whitmore St. just west of Carroll and south of White Settlement. As a crane operator, I actually lifted the original safe, you’ll see at the museum, at a previous location for the prized history items.
Anybody who’s anybody that lived during the Leonard’s era remembers the bus ride from the parking lot to the store. You would try to park close to the pick-up stations or under the Henderson Street bridge for the shade and hop a bus. I’ll NEVER forget how the buses smelled, due to all the people on it, being hot and sweaty (No air-conditioner on the bus), standing room only, until . . . the bus pulled up to the drop-off point on Throckmorton. How could anyone not remember the bakery just inside the door with its pursuing aroma beckoning you to visit? Can you smell it? I still can. And, if it was early enough, I always got a donut. (Grin)
My mother, my grandmother and I would take that bus ride and start at Leonard’s. I was in the 5-8 yr-old range and hated having to walk with them up and down the various streets. We would hit all the shops and stores. I remember Woolworth’s, H. L. Green’s, Lerner’s and countless other shops along the beaten path. And, should my dad go with us, T. H. Conn’s Music store was a regular stopping place, as well. I have always been a lover of music, but love old buildings and old autos more. The classic stores downtown would have large, covered indentions from the sidewalks with glass windows on either side displaying their wares. They may be v or u-shaped and some even had an independent windowed-display in the center of the outward entrance. Character! Architectural character. Add to that, the revolving doors such as at Montgomery Ward’s!
Everything happened downtown. The Palace, the Hollywood and the Worth theaters were always a big draw. Remember the ‘Sneak Preview” shows should you attend at a certain time and get to see two movies for the price of one? My parents loved to attend those on Sunday afternoons or early evenings The Majestic on Commerce had movies and stage shows. I remember going with my parents to a country review thing. Lower downtown had a lot of hotels, bars and worse before the Convention Center and Water Gardens were built.
How many of you remember the ‘ice cubes’ in the sidewalks? The glass squares every so often maybe 4-5 wide and 12-20 in a row?. Or, all the electric lines and rails of the bus lines through town? I remember that downtown Ft. Worth was THE place to go for almost any and everything. Go shopping, go to the various utilities and pay your bills, entertainment and eat!
Two of my favorite places were H. L. Green's fountain and a barbeque place I can't recollect the name of, located on Houston just south of Tenth. The triangular building still exists there and the barbeque place was on the south end. If only my grandmother and I had gone to town, we made that our last stop before catching the bus right outside at the bus stop. The barbeque smell literally drug you inside to one of the best chopped sandwiches around.
Should my mother be with us, many times we would eat at the fountain in H. L. Green’s. I really looked forward to that. Twenty-five cents would get you the best chili dog money could buy. And, when’s the last time you paid a nickel for a coke, . . . .fountain, no less? Oh, and NO sales tax! I can still see the curved water fountains with the pull-handle on top, resembling a peacock’s head and remember the syrup being shot into the glass and topped off with carbonated water. NOW, THAT WAS A COKE! And, that chili dog would be with the bun opened flat on a real plate (hand-washed, I’m sure), nice –sized dog in the middle, heaped up and completely covered with chili and cheese, the onions, relish and mustard hidden underneath.
I stayed as often as I could with my grandmother during my early years. Before she bought a new 1964 Ford and got her license to drive, we either walked or went by bus, heavy on the walking. She lived on Ryan Avenue, just north of W. Berry Street. I saw on the blog about the old church with Joe Schumake lit up on the front. I remember it well. (No kin), Gulf station at the corner of Ryan and W. Berry. Since I have you mentally in that area, how many of you remember the little store just one block south of that intersection on the NW corner of Ryan and W. Devitt? And, . . .the double dip for water runoff in that intersection that would send any automobile airborne if driving over 15 mph? Just testing you! And, I actually bought 10-cent a gallon gas at the little corner station on Hemphill across from Our Lady of Victory!
I hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane. I know I did and should this be displayed, I have to confess that I had a very difficult time not writing more and keeping it as simple as I did!
--- Billy Shewmaker, Burleson, TX
