Images of America: Oak Cliff
Welcome to the Official OAK CLIFF PICTORIAL HISTORY BOOK website.
Images of America: Oak Cliff, from Arcadia Press, was released on April 27, 2009.
The authors of this walk down “Oak Cliff’s memory lane,” Alan C. Elliott, Patricia Summey, and Gayla Brooks Kokel, spent much of their lives in Oak Cliff. To secure information and pictures for this book, the authors sent out a call for historic photographs of Oak Cliff. The results were overwhelming. Cliffites from all over the United States rummaged through their closets and attics and sent their cherished memories and photographs, family stories and anecdotes. Many of these images have never been published.
The authors sifted through an overwhelming 600 donated photographs to select the 200 that tell the story of Oak Cliff from the 1830s to the present.
Book cover
Purchase autographed copies for you and your friends now -- price includes taxes and shipping. (Click on the "Add to Cart" button below.)
The book is also available at:
Barnes & Noble bookstore in the Uptown Village at Cedar Hill, 305 WestFM 1382, 972-291-1169
Ben Franklin Pharmacy 302 N. Main Stree, Duncanville, 972-298-4936.
Bluebonnet Art Gallery and Framing, 1509 Falcon Suite 101, DeSoto, TX 75115, 972.228.2888, bluebonnetart.com, Bbonnet@swbell.net
Bishop Street Market, 419 N. Bishop Ave. at W.7th. 214-941-0907 (offers complimentary gift wrapping!).
Flowers by Sandra, Cedar Ridge, Duncanville
Hula Hotties Cafe, 244 W. Davis, Dallas 75208
International Museum of Cultures, 7500 West Camp Wisdom Road, 972-708-7406
Methodist Dallas Medial Center Hospital Gift Shop, 1441 N. Beckley Avenue
Tejano Mexican Restaurant, 200 W. Davis Ave.
Get your copies soon -- they are selling out fast.
Oak Cliff's Beginning
Excerpt from the book's introduction: “Oak Cliff derives its name from the massive oaks that crown the soft green cliffs.” So states an early advertisement describing the community just south of the Trinity River from Dallas, Texas.
As early as 1837, pioneers William S. Beaty and the Leonard and Coombes families settled in this area. Moving from Tennessee, William Henry Hord and his wife Mary also settled here in 1845 and opened a boarding house. The farming community in the area became known as Hord’s Ridge. Nearby, Aaron Overton’s gristmill on Five Mile Creek provided a place for farmers to process their grain. In 1879, the new Cleburne and Rio Grande Railway passed through Hord’s Ridge and a station was built there in 1882, opening the community to national transportation.
This cozy farming settlement on the beautiful side of the Trinity caught the attention of two enterprising developers: Thomas L. Marsalis and John S. Armstrong. In 1887, with a plan to market the community as a prestigious residential area, they purchased several hundred acres in and around Hord’s Ridge and gave the area a more appealing name derived from the massive oak trees that "crowned the soft green cliffs" . . . Oak Cliff.
Through their efforts, Oak Cliff incorporated as a city in 1890, electing Hugh Ewing to be the first mayor. Advertised as the “Cambridge of the South,” the Oak Cliff community leapt to life. Large houses and schools rose along new wide boulevards. A beautiful 150-acre Oak Cliff Park, (in the location that is now Marsalis Park and Dallas Zoo) featured a two-mile-long lake, a 2,000-seat dance and opera pavilion, and the magnificent Park Hotel, modeled after the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego.
Three sample images from the book:
Built in 1845 by William H. Hord, this cabin served as the first permanent
residence on the west side of the Trinity River, across from Dallas. In 1926, Mr.
and Mrs. Martin Weiss rescued the cabin from demolition and, in 1942, donated it to Post 275 of the American Legion and Auxiliary. It received an historic landmark designation in 1962 and is now located on Cockrell Hill Road at the
American Legion Post. (Photo by Patsy Summey.)
At the turn of the century, interurban trolleys connected Oak Cliff to the people of Dallas. This photograph shows Lancaster Avenue at Tenth Street, circa 1900. The building in the center back is Britton and Collin Drugs, and the center front building is Caldwell and Carlton. The interurban trolley can be seen coming down the track on the right. (Photo courtesy of Bill Melton.)
KLIF (oaK cLIFf) Radio blasted onto the airways in November 1947, from a
studio in the Cliff Towers Hotel. The station became one of the most influential in
the country, helping propel the Top 40 format into a national model. In the 1960s,
KLIF’s most cherished personality, Ron Chapman, under the pseudonym “Irving
Harrigan,” spun tunes from the station’s downtown Dallas home. Chapman, a
Texas Radio Hall of Fame inductee, is an icon in North Texas radio broadcasting.
(Image courtesy of Cindy Billman.)
Contact the authors at:
- Alan Elliott: alan@oakcliff.com
- Patsy Summey: patsy@oakcliff.com
- Gayla Brooks Kokel: gayla@oakcliff.com
Media News about the book:
