blue92

One was on the corner of North Braeswood and Kirby on the Northwest corner of the intersection.

1944 pic.

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg60/dlfswi/historic-houston/kirby-mansion44.png

1953 pic

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg60/dlfswi/historic-houston/kirby-mansion53.png

Forgive my ignorance and political correctness. I had based my reasoning on the beginnings of the Civil War on the Declaration of Causes of Secession voted by South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and other southern states. Strangely, the reasons given all pertain to slavery. Perhaps 70% of the Confederate soldiers did not know what they were fighting for?

I wouldn't know I wasn't alive at the time. It is a fact that there were no such things as cell phones in fact there was not even telephones. In those days it took several weeks to get one message across like 3 states. What I was taught in my 8th grade history class by my 92 year old teacher who's father fought in the Civil War were the facts that I listed. In 1860 people weren't informed like we are today. Not to mention how the political correct police is out to change our history, and our history books.

It's funny that there's people out there that believe it's only the blacks that came to America that were slaves. Ask the Christians in the Roman era about that or the Jews.

A Rebel was way better than my schools ours was a fish, the Marlins. Is Westbury still the Rebels? Or has PC made the school change it.

btw that flag that had the X of bars and stars was never the flag that flew over the Confederate States, that was a battle flag that was only flown going into battle. Another fact is 70% of the solders that fought on the south's side never owned a slave, They fought because they felt the North infringing on states rights, was steeling the south's natural resources, and was over taxing the south.

I hate political correctness.

So if your called a rebel today does that mean your a racist or the caller is a racist?

When I was a kid growing up off S.Main in Knollwood Village in the mid 50s my mom's favorite grocery store was Weingarten's at the intersection of Stella Link & S.Braseswood. I always liked going with her because there was a toy store behind the grocery store that while mom shopped for groceries I would play with the toys. I also bought a lot of model cars in the toy store.

The other grocery store we had in the area we used when we didn't want to drive all the way over the Weingarten's we'd shop a Ward's grocery store on Buffalo Speedway a block south pf Linkwood Dr.

Also does anyone on here remember Richmond Grocery store on Richmond and I think Loretto Dr.? I remember they were the 1st 24 hour grocery store back in the early 70s.

The name was Gateway Crystal Pool. Most people just called it Gateway.

I'm absolutely certain it opened before 1958 or 1959. The pool and rink were both already open when my folks moved to the area in 1950. I took my first swimming lessons from Les Oldfield in the early 1950s. The slide and bubble canopy weren't added until about 1955.

Yea my dad confirmed that to me the other day. I was 10 years old in 1959 so my memories might have be flawed.

I heard Les Oldfield tell my dad that he would shut the pool before he would ever integrate it. I remember him as a nice man, but he was a man of his time in what was a segregated city.

That may be true, but I heard that one of the reasons it closed was the pool had a huge crack threw the deep end of the pool and to repair it would have cost too much money that the owner didn't have.

There has been some discussions in the Chronicle Archives on where the name of the street Buffalo Speedway came from Chron

Well I think I may have found a clue. While on google earth 2 nights ago I found a 1944 map of Houston with this on it.

It's right where Pershing Middle school is today. If you turn off the road layers you will see this track was before the streets Buffalo Speedway and Stella Link existed.

Would be nice to find the history of this track. Was it a horse racing track or a auto racing track? It looks kind of large to be a horse racing track tho.

When they reconfigured Sam Houston Airport between 1944 and 1953 did they rename the airport?

1944

1953

Does any one know/remember the name of the private club that used to be on Buffalo Speedway north of S.Main on the east side on the street between Durhill St. and Elmridge St.? It's building were there from the early 50s to sometime around 1976. I think at one point it became someones private property. It had either a large swimming pool or a huge pond on the property. Here's a pic of the location off Google Earth 1953.

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg60/dlfswi/Picture12.png

In fact if you go to Google Earth you can still see where the property was.

Edit: The present-day 2023 address would be 3511 Linkwood Drive where the Bethany United Methodist Church is located.  When viewing the historical images on Google Earth or Historic Aerials, 69 years ago, the address could have been different.  Can confirm there is a swimming pool, pond, or a body of water next to the house. 

Stella Link was there in 1944, Buffalo Speedway wasn't.

I spent sometime today between Google Earth and Historic Aerials comparing the size of this track to the old Meyer's Speedway out on S.Main & Hillcroft, what I discovered is that the inside oval on this track and Meyer's Speedway are roughly the same size. I'm wondering if it was a track that pre-WW2 IndyCar type cars raced on or was it a test track for a tire company.

I did see that Sella Link was there but it doesn't look like a paved road, kind of like West Belt during the mid 70s was there but was a white shell gravel road. Between 76-78 I used to drive West Belt twice a week from Westheimer to Ailef. it was rough but cut off 45 minutes getting to Southwest Houston for me.

As far as it being a stock car track I don't really think there was any stock car racing with pre-WW2 automobiles. Nascar racing didn't get started until 1949.

There has been some discussions in the Chronicle Archives on where the name of the street Buffalo Speedway came from Chron

Well I think I may have found a clue. While on google earth 2 nights ago I found a 1944 map of Houston with this on it.

It's right where Pershing Middle school is today. If you turn off the road layers you will see this track was before the streets Buffalo Speedway and Stella Link existed.

Would be nice to find the history of this track. Was it a horse racing track or a auto racing track? It looks kind of large to be a horse racing track tho.

You are probably thinking of Gemco, which I believe was an acronym for Government Employees something something something.

How about United Jewelers, owned by Gordon's Jewelers that used to have their home office there in Houston, they started out as a card holder buying club like Service Merchandise/Wilson's was too.

I remember Sage being a card holding buying club as well.

Anyone remember Globe?

That's Colonial Park, a West University Place city park. The pool in hte photo was built between 1944 and 1953, as it appears on the 1953 Google Earth aerial, but not the 1944. There's a different pool there now.

Thanks, I came across it while searching for a Southland Corp. sub-office. In 1968 I worked for 7-11. The store I was working at was a 24 hour store and we sold a lot of sodas, but we only had one iced drink box that we had to reload like 8 times a day. My store manager noticed one day that that West University office had a bunch of the boxes just standing at he side of the building. So after weeks of no response for our request me and the manager just drove his pickup over there and loaded 6 boxes up. We kept 2 of the boxes and gave the rest to 2 other stores in our district. I found this pool but didn't find the office. It was a pretty big pool about 2 3rds the size of Gateway.

Does anyone know anything about this swimming pool that's North off Bellarie Blvd. It looks like it's now an indoor tennis courts.

OK here goes maybe long.

60's

Alfred's on Rice.

Prince's Drive in

Stuart's drive in

Lee's Den S. Main

Wynn's Grocery & Bar-B-que S.Main

Vailian's S. Main for the pizza

Don's Seafood

Giado's S.Main & Galveston

Jimmy Walkers Kemah we used to drive my dad's cabin cruiser from Seabrook Shipyard down and tie it off at the pier outside. We would get a table to look out at the bay and keep an eye on the boat at the same time.

Chuck Wagon on Post Oak close to Willowbend. I never ate onion rings but theirs looked & smelled so good I had to try them never have had any as good since. Building was shaped like a chuck wagon.

Christie's Seafood S.Main in a old Boat

The PolyAsian on S. Main all tho I never ate there. It was between Buffalo Speedway and Murworth Dr.. They had a very long driveway that was lined with tiki lamps. By the time I was old enough to take myself there it was gone.

Spainish Village on OST/S.Main. My best friend's dad owned the place and he and I would help make palines in the back of the restaurant. His dad was the 1st in Houston to have a puffed taco machine, it puffed them then cooked them. My friend told ne his dad invented and had it built, but then again that may have been a bunch of bull.

One's a meal on Main close to the old Sears store. Summer of 67 me and my best friend practically lived there, well after midnight anyways.

Howard Johnson's Ice Cream on Belliare Blvd. was across the street from the YMCA. There was a huge building on the back of the property where they made and packaged ice cream to ship all over the US. I believe it was their head quarters for a while.

The Cellar Door

Price's Hamburgers .19 cents (the secret sauce?) on Belliare Blvd. & Stella Link.

Someburger in The Village

70's

Los Troncos

Natural Child off Montrose a vegetarian restaurant lots of hippies ate there. Me and my roommate at the time both worked there he a chef me the dish washer/bus boy.

The Happy Budda on Westheimer

The Family Hand a huge bicker hangout in the late 60s. I almost got shot there one night when 2 bikers drew down on each other and started shootin.

Taco Bell on S.Shepherd when it 1st opened they were great I wouldn't eat there today their (so called) beef sucks compared to when they 1st started.

Submachine on S. Shepherd across the street from Battlestien's. Who ever started Subway ate there 1st because everything Subway did in the beginning was something Submachine did. Cook their own breads, the counter you walked up to pick out your sandwich ingredients, how they used to cut the tops out of the loafs of bread to put the ingredients into, the interior design. Only thing different in the 2 was Submachine was way better than any Subway I've been to. This place made Antone's look minor league.

Cheh Orleans on Westhiemer at Drexel a long time up shale steak place. Great date place.

Antone's S.Main and the one on Voss

Yamin's on Hillcroft south of Westiemer they made an awesome muffaletta sandwich, one sandwich could feed 8 people.

Alfred's on Stella Link on Tuesday nights they had a all you could eat smorgasbord, I remember one night my wife now my ex came out and once outside she had to unbuckle here pants she looked 5 months pregnant. She said to me "I'm so full but I still want to eat some more my stomach is full but my mouth is still hungry I didn't even get out of the salad section".

Steak & Ale on Memorial east of Westscott. My ex-wife stole an entire place setting from there one night everything on the table ended up in her purse. She was quite intoxicated.

also the Steak & Ale on the Shephard/Farnham curve.

The donut place that was in an old Der Wienerschnitzel on Gessner south of Long Point owned by an Asian lady that made the most awesome Vietnamese egg rolls, you couldn't eat just 6.

I believe it was Tommie's Chinese (probably not) on the south side of Memorial between Dairy Ashford & Winter Oak Dr.

The Bar-b-que joint in the strip center at the corner of Memorial and Kirkwood northwest corner. They made the best links I ever have eaten

The Pie house or factory on the north side of Westheimer I think not to far from Fonderen.

St. Michel

Ches Orleans on the north side Westhiemer & between Drexel Dr. & the railroad track. Great steaks and great date place.

La Hacienda de los Morales

The Mason Jar (may still be open).

80s

Bay Street - Seafood restaurant chain owned by the Steak & Ale corp.

Tony Romo's Ribs the chain has great ribs all kind of ribs.

90s

The Greek restaurant that used to be on the corner of Westiemer & Gessner where they sang/danced/&broke plates.

2000's

I lived in Houston from April 1999 to Oct. 2001 this list is of my favorite restaurants when I lived there, many of these I'm sure are still opened. We lived off 290 and 6.

The Japanese all you can eat Shusi restaurant on 1960 in front of Willow Brook Mall the name started with a K in 2000 it was 21 bucks a person and worth every penny.

Chinese buffet at the southwest corner of 6 and Clay Rd.

Burger King at 6 & Longenbaugh

All you can eat Itialian buffet that was on 6 across the street form Sears hardware/garden.

Capt. something that was a Seafood joint that the building was a boat they had one on 1960 and on I-10. They served cajun seafood as well as fried fish and raw oysters.

Tinsley's was owned by David Tinsley of Huntsville, Texas. The original one was in Hunstville and is now closed. He also owned Tinsley's chicken that was bought out by either Churches or Hartz. He also owned a restarant in Huntsville by the name of Steak adn Spirits. I worked there during my college days.

David got into trouble with the law back in the 70's. I believe all the restarants are now closed.

Yes David Tinsley was the owner but Huntsville wasn't his 1st location, the 1st location was in Lufkin on Hy 59. He owned a chicken farm there or near there. My ex-wife and I would take regular trips to Shreveport from Houston through out the 70s and we watched the 1st Tinsley's rise out of the ground on those frequent trips. We met David he would come sit with us and talk with us while we ate. What made Tinsley's chicken different was the size of chicken. His chickens had a huge breast and thigh. He told us that he was opening a new in in Huntsville one day. Then we saw them popping up all aver Texas.

You're right about the big crab, but I also remember the big shrimp being at Gaido's, not Kaphan's. I went looking and found this. It says the photo was taken in 2008, but that is the date of the upload, not when it was taken. This was taken long ago.

After reading all the way threw this thread I found out it was Christie's not Kaphan's that had the shrimp with the 6 shooters (my bad) but Christie's was just down a little south on S.Main from Gaido's so maybe your drunk friend started at Gaido's and wondered down to Christie's.

So from the many posts in this thread I am gathering that Kroger's have decided to remove the self serves, I say yea to that. Wish they would take them out in the DFW area. I've always hated them, seems that the store always has to have someone there to fix something that won't ring up. Albertson's have taken all of them out up here. Talked to one of the managers and she said she was happy they were gone too, they were always a pain in butt, something always going wrong. I hate the idea of checking myself out for 2 reasons. 1) it puts checkers out of a job, 2) if I'm going to check myself out I want a discount for doing the work myself. These checkers today have it easy when I was a teenager and worked for 7-11 the cash registers had a handle on the side like a slot machine you had to pull to open it and you had to actually ring up the idem, no bar codes.

They actually did that at the Shamrock.

link

I don't live in Houston anymore if I did I would go down to the Chronicle and try to find more on Gateway Swim. I would bet money they have articles on Gateway's grand opening that would give more details on the pool. The more I think about it I do seem to remember them water skying at Gateway.

So which one was called the Crystal Pool?

Maybe the pool that was out on Long Point was Crystal Pool.

This description of the Shamrock pool from Wikipedia:

"To the south was the hotel's lavishly landscaped garden designed by Ralph Ellis Gunn, a terrace and an immense swimming pool measuring 165 by 142 feet (50 by 43 m) described as the world's biggest outdoor pool, which accommodated exhibition waterskiing and featured a 3 story-high diving platform with an open spiral staircase."

The Shamrock opened in 1949 Gateway opened in 1958. There would have been no problem with putting a boat in Gateway and watersking in it. At some point they may have.

The Shamrock pool was definitely deeper. I even took SCUBA lessons there as a kid. And those diving towers were huge. At least they seemed that way.

Gateway was 15ft. deep don't know how deep Shamrock was. I went over the 1964 aerials Gateway was longer than Shamrock but Shamrock was wider in the shallow end.

Here's a pic I capped off the net that shows Gateway and the go-cart track that the owners of Gateway also owned. You can also see Stadium Bowl where the Target is now.

Y

ps: The Houston "hippies" were the ones into "cool" places back then. Everyone else was into air conditioned malls. 

and pissin everywhere but the restrooms there. The hippies are what killed Westbury Square. I knew some shop owners there that moved out because they were tired of the hippies running off their customers. The entire concept of the center was shop owners could have apartments over their stores. Plus in the late 70s the center was purchased by a landlord that refused to keep the upkeep on the place.

^Yeah, Stadium Bowl was there, inset quite a bit.

btw that google map you posted has the South Main Drive-in in the wrong location. The drive-in was in the location where Trans World Services is now. The drive-in was boarded by Stella Link on one side and the railroad tracks on the other side.

Gateway was right about where the Target on S Main is now (the pool is pretty easy to spot in the old aerials) - Grace Courts was at 8900 Main which is the empty lot next to the car wash.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=205937566729555760537.00049d63df2f256a71c77&ll=29.681803,-95.442164&spn=0.107379,0.222988&t=h&z=13

The vacant lot to the left of Target and behind the storage place was where Gateway Swim was. The bunch of rectangle slabs to the left of the storage place was the old Alamo Motel. The house that's behind where Grace Courts was with the white roof and swimming pool wasn't built till 1976/77. It was a vacant lot when I lived in the house to the left of it when I were I grew up. Where Parkview Inn & suites is now used to be the Chief Motel, I and all my playmates used to clime threw our back fence and sneak into their swimming pool all the time.

Where Target is now used to be a 78 lane bowling alley. I think it was called Astro Lanes. They had like a 36 table pool hall in it, I played lot's of pool in that joint.

Gateway pool opened in 1959 I was 10 at the time they had this huge grand opening and my parents bought me a season pass. Our house backed up close to it. I would ride my bike threw the vacant lot next to our house and it was just on the other side of Alamo Motel. I was brown as a beet for the next 2 summers. Our house backed up to Grace Courts which had been torn down years before our neighborhood was built and it was just a big vacant lot with big trees like an orchard, I went by there in 2000 and the sign for Grace Courts was still there. Fact it's still a vacant lot now you can see it on Google Earth.

The "bubble" was fed air from a big red hose that they dropped down in the deep end that was hooked up to a big air compressor that was housed in the store room that was behind the diving boards in the deep end. When they had swim meets there they would lay down a walkway that went half way across the pool that separated the shallow end and the deep end making it an Olympic size pool. I went to several diving competitions there too. I remember going down the big slide head 1st with my arms stretched out in front and gliding over half way across the pool.

The Shamrock pool was only an Olympic sized pool Gateway was a bigger pool. When they 1st opened they advertised Gateway to be the largest pool in Houston.

I went to grade school and 7th grade with the guys son that owned/built it and he was in our car pool. They also owned a Go-Cart track that was just the other side of Main St. @ OST. behind a Spanish Village restaurant. By the time they opened the go-cart track I was 12 and was more interested in go-carting than swimming. I used to work after school and Saturdays at the track helping get the other kids into the carts and pushing them off, that's how the carts were set up you pushed them to start running. They didn't pay me money they paid me in cart time. I also helped in the cart shop fetching tools. I guess that's where I got the bug to drive fast which I still do.

I wish the pics of the pool that were posted early in this thread were viewable. Could someone repost it?