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Dave W

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Everything posted by Dave W

  1. Dave W
    I couldn't remember when that Ramada Inn was built, so I searched for it under 2121 Buffalo Drive and found a link. That dates it to pre-1961, since that's when Buffalo Drive's name was changed to Allen Parkway.
  2. Dave W
    Gary Smith's Plantation Club At 215 Milam St. in Market Square was in business from the late 60s to the early 70s. No relation at all to the Plantation on South Main near Playland Park. The Plantation on South Main did serve hard liquor but it was primarily a dining and dancing club. Some major orchestras played there.
  3. Dave W
    It was originally built as a Ramada Inn. Allen Park Inn was the same building(s).
  4. Dave W
    That's the one. The Westheimer location was the original. Our next door neighbors bought a new Volvo PV544 there in 1958. My dad later bought a new Volvo 122 there. I have no idea why we didn't notice that in the listings.
  5. Dave W
    Could have been AutoSports, but I'm skeptical. They were originally on one of the east/west streets -- Westheimer or W. Alabama -- and were primarily a Volvo dealer. Maybe also MG. Later they moved to much larger quarters on the SW Freeway and had more lines. The dealership on Kirby handled Jaguar, Rolls-Royce and Triumph, maybe others.
  6. Dave W
    That appears to be a 1960 Chrysler in front of the showroom, and that's a Valiant (first model year was 1960) backing up to the Imperial. I definitely remember Sam Montgomery Olds and his Sam the Rocket Man commercial jingle. Later moved to I-45 at Rankin Rd. Another dealership in that general area was Jimmie Green Chevy at Shepherd & Westheimer. Tom Gray, the Nissan dealer, later bought it but kept the Jimmie Green name.
  7. Dave W
    You're right, Eagle and Gemco were part of the same company. It wasn't Grocer's Supply, it was the other big wholesaler. Grocer's Supply also had a similar program but without a group name. I'm not surprised that Sacco was using them by the late 70s, they had de-emphasized their Lucky 7 roots before then. I do remember Food Giant stores. They were owned by Belden's. Curly and Ruby left Houston about 1958. Since you're 61, you wouldn't remember.
  8. Dave W
    I remember driving by it. Like Bruce, I remember it as an import dealer, and that was by the early 1960s, b/c that dealership carried the Jaguar XK-E when it first came out in 1962. By about 1970, River Oaks Chrysler-Plymouth had the dealership on Kirby, just south of the SW Freeway.
  9. Dave W
    Now that's a real mystery. 1101 Bell would be Bell @ Fannin, not near Macgregor. I can remember us eating at the Green Parrot in the mansion on Macgregor in the mid 50s, possibly as early as 1955. Can't remember exactly. It must have been originally on Bell for a short time, b/c there weren't two operating in Houston at the same time. There were three Green Parrots, all owned and operated by members of the Toothman family: in Kansas City, St. Louis (Kirkwood), and Houston. This article describes the history and mentions that the Houston Green Parrot was opened in 1952. But it doesn't mention the location. http://www.vintagekansascity.com/food-and-drink/greenparrotinn/mrsjbdowd.html
  10. Dave W
    The Lucky 7 brand name was owned by one of the big local wholesalers (whose name escapes me at the moment). The retail stores were all independently owned and were supplied by the wholesaler on a revolving credit basis. If you remember when Eagle Supermarkets came to Houston in the early 70s, they were actually part of a California based chain called Lucky Stores, Inc. But they had to choose a different name in the Houston area to avoid confusion with Lucky 7. We watched the Curly Fox and Texas Ruby show regularly. They were both very talented but never quite made it big. They moved on to Nashville and were living in a trailer home. One night when Curly was performing at the Opry, Ruby fell asleep while smoking. The trailer caught fire and Ruby died.
  11. Dave W
    You're correct about the location of Bill Williams. It was north of Dryden, and Youngblood's Fried Chicken was in the block north of Bill Williams.
  12. Dave W
    The map in your first post is sideways, but it's more or less correct. I think that the busy street is Chimney Rock.
  13. Dave W
    I don't remember the one on Beechnut but I do remember the one on Willowbend Blvd. It was on the north side of the street shortly before the railroad tracks going into the Willowbend subdivision. There was a brief trampoline center craze in the early 60s. Most were franchises. They were installed at ground level and were inexpensive to build and get going. You'd drive by and see a bunch of people just jumping up and down. I never understood the appeal. The fad didn't last long,maybe 2 or 3 years. Then these centers all disappeared.
  14. Dave W
    It wasn't quite a dead ringer, but yes, it really looked like that.
  15. Dave W
    One of my sons stayed there in 2005 when he came in for a relative's 90th birthday party. That was originally the Las Vegas Motor Hotel. It opened about 1960. There was a little strip shopping center under the same ownership; it faced Buffalo Speedway. It had a convenience store called The Pantry at one end, an Uncle Van's Pancake House at the other, and a few small shops in between including a barber shop and beauty salon. https://www.ebay.com/itm/256093315574
  16. Dave W
    I believe it was already there by 1960, but not much earlier. It was a franchise.
  17. Dave W
    Or Mr. Drane could have operated it as a sole proprietorship before then. It was rundown and old looking even back in the 50s, hard to believe it was new in 1946.
  18. Dave W
    Bruce, I don't know when the "State" was dropped from their name, but back then all FDIC-insured banks had to have either National or State in their names. Obviously the change must have taken place by 1970.
  19. Dave W
    That was the original building. I believe that's the same building that additional stories were added on top of in the early 60s.
  20. Dave W
    I don't remember that restaurant. But when I was still a child in the 50s, the only owner of Pier 21 was George Dentler, son of the man who founded Dentler Maid potato chips. If Roland Busch ever owned it, it would have been earlier.
  21. Dave W
    It's always possible that she went to Germany, but she couldn't have gone back there because she was never from there. She was born in New York of parents who emigrated from Bulgaria. Her Find A Grave page shows her best friend Adelaide Friedman as one of her survivors. Perhaps that's the other lady.
  22. Dave W
    There was no miniature train at Playland Park. But the Slusky brothers, who owned Playland Park, also operated the miniature train at Hermann Park.
  23. Dave W
    I don't know which school, but the present Missouri City neighborhood is the same South Main Gardens. The school could have been within HISD borders. Missouri City was not yet incorporated at the time of the letter, it was incorporated later in 1956.
  24. Dave W
    That would be directly across from Prince's Hamburgers at 8101. It wasn't there when we moved to the area in 1950. From the surroundings, I'd say 1930s is correct, b/c the area was much more developed by 1950.
  25. Dave W
    There was definitely a Steak & Ale on the feeder road near Sharpstown Mall. It was on the opposite side of the freeway from the Royal Coach.
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