nm5k

I writ.... I remember in the latel 60's, 70's, you could hear the cars at the speedway every friday night, even here at the house, which is near westbury square. Actually, thinking about it, I think it was every saturday night... Been so long, I pert near fergot... But I think the noise on fri was usually the bands marching at butler at football games. Sat was race car night... I myself was in the westbury marching band, and played drums. So I added to the racket on some of those fri nights in the 70's... MK

I'm not sure about Meyer speedway. I guess it was about the middle to late 70's when they shut it down. Yep, was at the corner of Hillcroft/blue ridge and main. Butler stadium is just to the east on the same side of the street. The old Sam Houston airport entrance was across the street from Butler stadium. The old main street airport was farther uptown just south of OST if I remember right. Both of those airports are now covered by houses... I remember in the latel 60's, 70's, you could hear the cars at the speedway every friday night, even here at the house, which is near westbury square. They even ran a nascar championship race at meyer I think about 1974 or somewhere along there... I think Bobby Allison >sp?> won if I remember right. MK

Not sure...I drive past there all the time, but never really pay much attention. I know at least one of the older motels is still there, but can't remember which one it was. It's on the west side of the street south of OST I think. I remember when I moved here there was another motel right about at main and the loop. But danged if I can remember the name of it offhand... It may well be torn down now, but I never really paid that much attention. It was on the west side of the street, a bit south of sonny looks. Like I say, I think it was almost at the loop 610 corner, on the west side... I'll think of the name one of these days... I stayed there a full week in 1969. What is wild is to look at the surroundings in some of those pix. Like open prairie.... The 10,000 block of main was nearly out in the sticks in the old days. Once upon a time, there was an airport on main between what is now hillcroft, and chimney rock. "Sam Houston". That was really out in the sticks... There was also another main street airport a bit closer to town, fairly close to where the loop is. I don't remember that holiday inn...Must have been gone when we moved here. That car in the pix looks like a 50's chevy.. maybe a 56... I was going through pictures at one of the archive sites, and was looking at all the pictures of the fancy houses that were once on main near the downtown area. Lots, and lots of them... That street has changed a lot since 1900. MK

I think it's had various work done through the years. In the mid 80's I think they replaced a lot of the limestone blocks. The holding pins rusted to a larger size, and pushed or cracked the blocks. The new stones came from the same quarry as the originals. I think it's been having some work done recently, and should be about done. MK

I tried searching for more info or pix on that place, but pretty slim pickings so far. I did find that he was the one that started up the Sands hotel in Vegas. This was after he left Houston I assume in the early -mid 50's. I don't know if the buildings were every occupied after he left or not. I have a 1960 photo where you see it from the north looking south. At that time, it looked fairly well intact, as compared to the other photo. But when I was there in the 70's, it had looked to be abandoned for quite some time, and weeds had overgown the place. There were still the bushes in front , that blocked the view, and also had bushes leading up the driveway a ways I think. We used to drive our cars in and park in the back. When we left, we just continued the circle on out. At that time, I was pretty fascinated with the old pool, which seemed to have looked to be from the 30's maybe. It was pretty old, even in the 70's. Anyway, it was a pretty popular "party" spot for many , but all the traffic eventually drew complaints I guess, and the cops started running people off. I remember it was there a good while longer, but a few years back I drove by, and it seemed to be all gone. I'm real close to there. Maybe I'll run by later, and see if anything has been built there yet. BTW, I was looking at that 1960 map, and it kinda dawned on me that the road that the place was built on was likely part of "old Main". I always thought that road looked pretty old even back then. Not like all the others around that area that were part of the planned neighborhood. ie: willowbend, etc. MK

Howdy. I dunno if this is old news or not, but I stumbled across some good pictures of Houston in past years. Many topics. Check out both the "calenders", and "topics". Both have a load of old pictures. I stumbled across this while looking for something totally unrelated...Go figure... Like I say, may be old news..Wouldn't be surprised if the site owner hung around here at times... :/ There are a lot of pictures, and will take a while to see them all. I must have been on there for 3-4 hours last night looking at them all. Something interesting...On the 2nd calender, I think "1994", one of the pictures is of a gambling house that was in the S.Main, Stella link area. I remember that place before it was razed... When I was in my teens, we used to drive out there and prowl around. You drove through a gate like place, and then a driveway led all around the old place. It had an old swimming pool, and I heard rumors that it was once a gambling house, but that calender pix confirmed what I had heard. We used to go out there and drink beer, etc...:/ We quit going there as the police starting running everyone off being it was abandoned, but still private property. I do remember once going inside the old place for a look. It was pretty ramshackle at that time, which was in the mid 70's. It's totally gone now. They tore it down a few years ago. The pix site is at: http://users.ev1.net/%7Eplhailey/hpat/ MK

I remember the old, old KLOL stickers, before "Runaway Radio"...with the silver surfer lookin dude... Actually, they had the runaway radio before the silver dude...The silver dude was like in the late 70's-80's... I think anyway... The runaway radio was the original sticker when they came on the air, pretty sure.. When I moved here in 1969, KRBE 104 was the hot rock station if I remember right. KILT was popular on the AM side.. But I remember about 1970-71 or so, KRBE 104 switched formats, and KLOL became the big rock station. Or to me anyway... In those days, the little green runaway radio was the usual sticker. The programming in that day was much more "hippyish" for a lack of a better description. It was kinda like KPFT on commercial steroids. But they played all the popular album rock, where KPFT played whatever was weird enough. I still remember when the news came on KLOL, they would play all these background sounds like crickets, little varmits, spacy noises, etc, etc.. Really weird compared to the bottled crap they have now. Radio was much better back in those days. It's so pathetic now, I can hardly stand to listen to it, and in fact, am more prone to be on AM listening to talk radio, than I am FM rock. Part of that may be old fartism setting in.. I recently also bought a metal detector, and like to prowl for old relics. Another sign of old fartism setting in... There was a rock station in the early 70's that tried out the 95-96-97 slot, but danged if I can remember who it was offhand. It was before the 97 rock most think of , which to me was quite a bit later in the overall scheme of things. Most of my music these days is on video tape, or recording digital on this puter.. BTW, I remember the "old" 104 back in 69 was a pretty cool station. But I liked 101 better when it came on. It was like groovy man... MK

The two like pictures on Pauls airfields site is part of that 1960 picture. "I'm Mark Keith"... But the whole picture covers quite a bit more area from east of Post Oak, all the way north past Brae Bayou. The cropped picture on his site is your old neighborhood when it was first being built. You can see Meyer Speedway across main, and W.Airport went almost to where Hillcroft would be, but was about a block short of making it that far. The street on the far left is the new Chimney Rock. The street running north and south about in the middle is Mullins. That cleared area at the bottom, to the west of Mullins will become Hagar Park and Anderson elementary. BTW, you are looking south in that picture. You can see part of the Willow bayou running just across the bottom of the picture. In the 2nd one, I colored in where I thought the old runways were. Hillcroft would eventutually be built and meet with Blue Ridge road which you can see alongside of the speedway. I'll dig up that 1960 picture, and see if I can squeeze it on my server. It was also at the westbury civic club site, but don't know if it's still there. But the part you want is in the picture on Pauls airfields site. Thats your exact old neighborhood. MK