Vickery Place is one of the oldest suburbs in Dallas, almost 100 years old! Before Vickery Place was platted, the area consisted of farmland as can be seen in this interesting overlay of an 1891 Dallas Map on a modern aerial photograph. The northernmost street of Vickery Place is Goodwin Avenue, which is shown on the map highlighted in purple. The original farm boundaries of John W Smith, Jacob Hart, Walter Caruth and J.M.Patterson's lands may be seen on this map.

 

 

Below is the original survey of the farms of J.M.Patterson, Jacob Hart and John W Smith, recorded on August 12th, 1911. The annotations on the survey are fascinating! On the left is the H&TC Rail Road, which would oneday become US-75 (Central). On the right, modern day Greenville Avenue is labeled as "Richardson Pike  Ross Ave Extension". Henderson and Knox are still separated, and the area currently occupied by Vickery Towers has the annotation "Caruth Place". The street names are also quite different south of Bonita. There is no Belmont Ave, which is instead labeled as "Laurel  Ave". Likewise the current Richmond Ave is labeled "Marbrau Ave", but Melrose Avenue has retained its name. The current Vickery Place is bounded on the South by Belmont, so it is certainly interesting to see this first old survey that tells a different story. Some more research on the web tells us that "Marbrau Ave" was changed to "Richmond Ave" in 1933-1934. Another surprise is that Glencoe used to be called "Grand View". That name change also happened in 1933-1934. The 500 lots shown here commanded the lofty sum of $85,000. In 2007 dollars, that is  $1.87 million, or about  or just over $3,700 per lot! A great deal!

 

 

 

A snippet from the Dallas Morning News (July 8th, 1911), indicates that Vickery Place was in demand (as it is now!), with 200 lots being purchased by about 150 people, who "intend  building at once"

  

 

 

Here is a newspaper advertisement from 1913. The princely sum of $800 is roughly equivalent to $17,000 in 2007 dollars. This price was for the lots, only.  

  

 

  

By 1921, construction within Vickery Place was proceeding at a blistering pace. In this November 20, 1921 article from the Dallas Morning News, there is a lot of information! The Vickery Place Boosters Club (the precursor to the VPNA) was instrumental in developing the neighborhood. By this time, most of community was not paved. There were also plans to extend Vickery Place by some 25 acres on the West Side (the part of present day Vickery Place West of Laneri), all the way to Carmen Street. Where is Carmen Street, you may ask? On old maps, it is the frontage road running by the H & TC railroad tracks, where Central Expressway is now. The old school building, at McMillan and Miller, was bursting at the seams, and it would be a priority of the community to build a new school building a few years later. This new school would be called the Vickery Place School, which would much later become the present day James B. Bonham Elementary School.

 

 

On June 14th, 1931, the drawing below appeared in the Dallas Morning News, announcing plans for a new modern store building at the corner of Greenville Ave and Goodwin Ave at the cost of $25,000. That is approximately $300,000 in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation! We sure seemed to get more for our money in the old days! This was to house six large store-rooms "designed in the latest style". Today, this building is a little smaller than the depiction in the drawing, and houses four bars and restaurants. The Greenville Bar and Grill was one of the first tenants, opening in 1933 as one of the first places in Dallas operating with a beer license after Prohibition. Other stores in the building included a dry cleaner, a five-and-dime, and a drugstore with a soda fountain.  During the 30's and 40's, before the construction of the Central Expressway, much of the traffic between Dallas and Oklahoma passed through Greenville, and the Greenville Bar and Grill was a popular spot for those attending the annual Texas-Oklahoma football game.

 

 

Talking of shopping, and Lower Greenville... Back in 1931, Lower Greenville was one of the best places in Dallas for all kinds of shopping and restaurants, and even a movie theater! Alas, the Arcadia burned down in recent years, but Lower Greenville is still one of the hottest entertainment districts in Dallas. Here is an aerial view of Lowest Greenville (South of Belmont), part of a wonderful series called "Seeing Dallas From the air" run in the Dallas Morning News, in December 1931.

 

 

In the same series of aerial photographs published in the Dallas Morning News was this nice view of the Miss Hockaday School for Girls, which is now the North East building in the Vickery Towers complex.

 

 

The North Central Expressway was constructed in 1950 (or 1953, depending on what "completion" means), and replaced the railway tracks that defined the western boundary of Vickery Place. In the photo below, there is an aerial view of the new highway looking south at Walnut Hill. Greenville avenue can be seen coming in at an angle from the left, and then turning at present day "Lovers Lane". In the distance you can see the lush vegetation of Vickery Place to the West of Greenville Avenue. Unfortunately, this new marvelous highway (and Dallas' first) was unable to cope with the phenomenonal expansion that Dallas saw through the next 50 years, and so the highway was reconstructed between 1992 and 1999. The reconstructed highway is one of the most attractive urban freeways, and sits almost 30 feet below the adjacent frontage roads that form the Western boundary of Vickery Place, further enhancing the urban serenity of our neighborhood.