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FilioScotia

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Posts posted by FilioScotia

  1. I'm 99.9 percent sure the ice rink in this old film was Ice Land, located on a point of land where Calhoun, Wheeler and MLK converge on the eastern edge of the U of H. The building is still there, but it's been owned by UH and used for administrative offices, equipment maintenance and storage for many years.  Go to Google Maps and search for 5000 Calhoun Rd. It's there clear as day.

     

    Interestingly, UH has named the building the South Park Annex. South Park was what MLK Blvd was called before it was renamed for MLK many years back. So the name "South Park" lives on.

     

    The wrestling in this film was in the old City Auditorium, which was on the block now occupied by Jones Hall. Wrestling moved to the Coliseum in the early sixties when the 50 year old City Auditorium closed for safety reasons in 1962. Jones Hall opened its doors on that hallowed ground four years later.

  2. Red Bluff Hospital was its original name when it opened in the early 60s. At some point after the Pendleton murder in 1966 Burkhalter sold it, and the new owners decided to change the name because of the murder and the seemingly never ending tide of negative media stories about Burkhalter and his connection to it.

     

    I grew up in Pasadena, and I can tell you that the murder of Dr. Pendleton was the biggest story you can imagine in that part of the county. For years if you wanted to start a conversation about this murder all you had to do was say the words "Red Bluff Hospital" and "Archie Burkhalter". That's why it needed a new name.

     

    Even so, Pasadena locals continued calling it Red Bluff Hospital for a long time. Old habits die hard. But, time takes its toll and memories fade. At some point memories of the old name and the scandal went away. I would bet that nobody in Pasadena under the age of 50 knows anything about this.

    • Like 2
  3. That was the old Red Bluff Hospital. Dr. Archie Burkhalter and Dr. Robert Pendleton owned it, until Pendleton was murdered there in December of 1966.  Burkhalter was charged with hiring the guy who killed Pendleton, but he never went to prison. His first conviction in 1970 was overturned on appeal. The second trial ended in a mistrial, and when he was brought to trial for the third time he was acquitted in 1975.

     

    Burkhalter was a real piece of work.  In 1979 he was accused of hiring two men to kill his ex-wife's new husband, John Hensley. The murder attempt failed, but it left Hensley blind. Burkhalter was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison. While free on appeal bond, Burkhalter suffered superficial wounds when he was shot by an unknown gunman while visiting his brother in Pasadena in 1980. I have no idea where Burkhalter is today, or even if he's still alive.

     

    A few years after Pendleton's murder, the hospital's name was changed to Pasadena Memorial Hospital. I think the hospital building is still there, but I don't think it's a hospital anymore.

     

     

    • Like 4
  4. My one and only encounter with the WIBC happened in an "indirect" way ten years ago. In 2004 my brother and I were driving back to Texas from Nebraska, and we decided Wichita Kansas would be a good place to stop and spend the night. To our surprise and dismay, the WIBC had taken over Wichita for its annual national bowling tournament.

     

    Thousands of lady bowlers were in town, and every hotel and motel was stuffed full with them. No vacancies anywhere. We finally gave up on Wichita and kept going south till we finally found a motel with ONE VACANCY in the small town of Wellington, about 25 miles south of Wichita. The clerk told us we were lucky to get it because the previous tenants -- two lady bowlers -- had just checked out and it was the only vacancy in that entire town.

     

    Yessiree. Bowling is big in Kansas.

  5. I was a reporter covering that story when it was happening in the early 70s, and this is the first time I've ever seen any mention of White Oak Bayou or the city park. That park, by the way, is Stude Park. This has to be a rumor somebody started somewhere along the line.

     

    In the first place, Dean Corll and friends buried all those bodies in out-of-the-way places where they thought they would never be found. It's why they were able to do what they did and get away with it for so long. It's ridiculous to think they would have risked being caught by doing something as brazen as burying bodies in a place as "public" as a city park next to a freeway. They were crazy, but they weren't stupid.

     

    And while we're on the subject, there are those in Houston law enforcement who don't believe all of Corll's victims have been found. They think it's possible that more bodies are still buried somewhere "out there" and probably won't ever be found. 

  6. Houston had three big one-screen first run movie houses, all built in the 1920s.

     

    The Metropolitan at 1018 Main Street, was just two doors down from the Loew's State at 1014 Main.

     

    You can't tell from the front, but the Loew's was very luxurious on the inside. You felt like you were walking into the palace at Versailles.

     

    Their websites include photos of their interior.

     

    Metropolitan:   http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1702

     

    Loew's Statehttp://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1703

     

    The Majestic Theater was several blocks away at 908 Rusk, and it was the grandest movie palace of all. 

     

    Majestic:         http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1672

     

    It's been years since I've been in downtown Houston so I have no idea what is in those locations now.

     

     

     

  7. I'll be damned. I remember Lee Cook coming and going from my radio station down the hall from Phonoscope. He was friends with the station owner John "Shorty" Powers. I never knew till today that he was the owner of Phonoscope. That explains the gimmicky cross promotion deal I described in my first response here.

     

    I also have to say that if the Nassau Bay Phonoscope operation was an example of Cook's "expertise" in building a cable TV system, I have to wonder how he has survived in that business. I will say only that I was never impressed with it. 

  8. I don't know if it was the first of its kind around here, but in the early 60s when NASA was moving in and Nassau Bay was coming into existence, somebody came up with the idea of a "Community Antenna TV System" (CATV) and every home there would be connected to it by cable. I believe the thinking was that since everybody who lived there worked for NASA or a NASA contractor, residents could have access to important NASA information and notices by just turning on the TV.

     

    The system was named Phonoscope, and it was a flop because NASA never put much of its info on the cable. The studio was in the old Nassau Bay Professional building on Upper Bay Road, and it operated only sporadically because Phonoscope didn't have people there running it all the time. Most of the time it just showed old movies, and when the movie ended the screen went blank.

     

    They did a gimmicky cross promotion with the easy listening FM radio station I worked at down the hall, KMSC 102.1. (now KMJQ Majiq 102) In addition to carrying our radio signal, they put two small wall mounted cameras in the control room, one pointed at the DJ, the other at an easle where we put the album cover of the record we were playing. The DJ camera came on when we opened the mike to talk, and when we weren't talking, viewers - if there were any -- could see the name of what we were playing. Very exciting stuff. No wonder it died after only a couple of years.

     

    I see trucks with the name Phonoscope on the side around Houston from time to time, but I doubt it's the same company.

    • Like 2
  9. I'm not trying to hijack this thread but I'm reminded of a posting I made on the subject of telephone exchange names nearly ten years ago here on HAIF.

     

    In the days of word-prefixes on phone numbers, you could tell at a glance what part of town a person lived in. For example, MOhawk numbers were in Bellaire. Actually, they still are, because the letters "MO" are "66" on the dial. Even today many numerical prefixes in the 713 area code tell me where a phone number lives, because at one time, ALL Houston phone numbers were 713.

    This is hardly a complete list, but here some others, with the current numeric prefixes listed first,

    22 - CApital, and it was the downtown Houston area.
    52 - JAckson, in the Montrose area
    62 - NAtional, on the west side. It replaced the MAdison exchange in the 1960s.
    64 - MIssion, on the southeast side.

    65 - OLive, also on the southeast side
    92 - WAlnut, on the east end.between the Gulf Fwy and the Ship Channel.

    46 - HOmestead, on the west side north of Buffalo Bayou and in Spring Branch
    69 - OXford, on the north side.
    63 - MElrose - also on the far north side.

    45 - GLendale, in east Harris County in the Jacinto City Channelview area
    47 - GReenwood, in Pasadena, Deer Park and La Porte.
           Originally, this was GRand, but it was changed to GReenwood in the mid 50s. I have no idea why it was changed.
    48 - HUdson, in South Houston, and later the Clear Lake Area as NASA moved in.
           This was changed to HUnter in the 1970s. Again, I don't know why.

    86 - UNderwood, in the Heights.

    78 - SUnset - West Houston west of Post Oak
    68 - OVerland - Much of Spring Branch and parts of Memorial

     

    Using words as prefixes went the way of the Dodo bird when the population grew and they needed more phone numbers, and they decided they could no longer use numbers that conformed to the first two letters of a known word. So that's why we now have "numbers only" phone numbers. Ah yes. Progress.         

     

     

    • Like 1
  10. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the park in the photo was Colonial Park in West U. The clothes the men are wearing look very 1920s, and West U came into existence in the early 20s.

     

    It is also true that West U has always been a very upscale white collar neighborhood, so it's very possible that it could have built a nice public park like the one in the photo.

     

    • Like 1
  11. Thanks for that late 1950s photo of Tommie Vaughn Ford on N. Shepherd.  It was probably taken a year or two after Vaughn moved his dealership from a location on North Main to North Shepherd. 

     

    I love the story of Tommie Vaughn. He was a college football hero at A&M, flew bombers in WWII, got into the car business after the war and opened a Houston dealership that's still family owned and doing business nearly 60 years later. He was also active in all kinds of civic stuff, and when he died he was one of Houston's best-loved citizens. Sadly, they don't make men like Tommie Vaughn anymore. Check out his story on their website.

     

    http://tommievaughnford.com/Heritage-History/

     

    I could be wrong, but I think Tommie Vaughn is the oldest car dealer in Houston, and maybe the last one that's been family owned since the beginning.

  12. For Vertigo58

     

    At the time it was just the Rice Hotel. The name Rittenhouse was added in the 70s. That name went away when the hotel closed in 1977.

     

    My father and I were at that historic meeting of Houston ministers to see JFK defend his beliefs and, if elected, promise they would never affect his decisions as President. It didn't seem "historic" at the time, but it was. That didn't become apparent until much later.

     

    The event was held for the benefit of ministers, and the room was filled with them, but the general public was also allowed in, so Dad and I got there early and got good seats up close.

     

    I have an American Political History book that has a photo of JFK taken that night. The photog was standing off on the side of the rostrum looking over JFK's shoulder out at the audience, and my dad and I are clearly visible several rows out. I was 17 and had just started my senior year at Pasadena HS.  

  13. Houston had discos, but nothing like Studio 54. Houston was, and still is, somewhat "tame" compared to NYC.

     

    And yes there were and still are "singles" bars.  It will come as a shock to our friends back east but Houston has had paved streets since the 19th century.

    • Like 3
  14. I think the place you mention did become Teen Hall in the late 50s, because I distinctly remember the DJ's would always give the address on Grand Blvd when they were promoting their upcoming appearances there.

     

    Yes Paul Berlin from KNUZ was one of the DJ's who frequently spun his stacks of wax there. I also remember Arch Yancey from KNUZ,  and Russ "Weird Beard" Knight from KILT. 

  15. The Teen Hall I remember was on Grand Blvd, several blocks north of Holcombe behind the old Sacred Heart Academy on Holcombe.  My buddies and I went there in the late 50s to see and enjoy my favorite KILT and KNUZ deejays spinning records for the Friday and Saturday night "hops". 

  16. Morgan's Point is named for James Morgan, who owned a large plantation there before and after the Texas Revolution. Morgan also owned a beautiful mulatto slave named Emily West, also known as Emily Morgan, the famous "Yellow Rose of Texas".

     

    Texas legends say Emily was "entertaining" General Santa Anna in his tent while Sam Houston's army of Texicans were attacking his camp at San Jacinto. It's a great story, but it's probably a myth. True or not, she has a hotel named for her in San Antonio.

     

    Transportation magnate Charles Morgan was a busy guy. In the 1870s he financed dredging of the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana to make it navigable for sea going ships. In 1874, Morgan bought the dormant Bayou Ship Channel Company in Houston and found financing to dredge Buffalo Bayou far enough inland to connect with his railroad line near Clinton Drive. He bailed out of it in the 1880s, leaving it to local people to complete the channel farther inland after the turn of the century.

     

    Here's what the Texas State Historical Historical Association website says about that:

     

    "The United States government purchased his [Charles Morgan's] improvements in 1890 and thereafter accepted primary responsibility for the channel. Houston Congressman Thomas H. Ball, after becoming a member of the Rivers and Harbors Committee in 1897, won increased appropriations for the project. Congress also approved a depth of twenty-five feet and the location of the terminus at Long Reach, now the Turning Basin. Yet, by 1909 the channel had been dredged to only 18½ feet.

     

    Impatient at the slow progress, Mayor Horace Baldwin Rice led a delegation to Washington to present the "Houston Plan," which offered to pay one-half of the cost of dredging the channel to twenty-five feet. After receiving assurances that the facilities would be publicly owned, Congress accepted the offer. Prior to Houston's offer, no substantial contributions had ever been made by local interests, but since then no project has been adopted by the national government without local contributions. The Texas legislature passed a bill enabling Harris County to establish a navigation district. The citizens then approved a bond issue of $1,250,000. Jesse H. Jones arranged for the sale of the bonds and the dredging began. It was completed on September 7, 1914."

     

    And, BTW, Texas Commerce Bancshares didn't fold in the 1980s. It merged with Chemical Bank, and four or five mergers later it became Chase Bank, then JPMorgan Chase, which it is today.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  17. To this day, the 1965 murders of Fred and Edwina Rogers remains Houston's bloodiest and most sensational unsolved mystery. Their bodies had been cut up into small pieces and stuffed into the refrigerator.  Their grown son Charles Rogers -- who lived with them -- became the prime suspect but nobody had any idea where he was. In fact he was so reclusive that the neighbors didn't know the Rogerses even had a son.

     

    The murders happened in the Rogers' home at 1815 Driscoll St., in the Hyde Park section of the Montrose area, five blocks east of South Shepherd and three blocks south of West Gray -- behind the River Oaks Shopping Center. Check page 492-R of your handy Key Map. The Rogers house isn't there anymore. There's a townhouse there now, but the house next door has been there for a very long time. I wonder if the current residents know what happened next door to them almost 50 years ago.

     

    Countless newspaper and magazine stories and several books have been written about this case over the years. It has even spilled over into the dark netherworld of Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Lunacy.

     

    With no shred of evidence, some of those moonbats believe Charles Rogers was one of Kennedy's assassins, from somewhere in Dealy Plaza or on the Grassy Knoll. In any event, he has never been found or heard of since the murders, and he was declared "officially" dead in 1975.

     

     

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