Houston In The 1950s

[Vertigo58]

That sounds like the H and H Guest Ranch. A private facility just like you describe. Open to the general public with picnic areas and party facilities available for private events.

It's still there on Greens Road just east of JFK Blvd near Bush Intercontinental Airport. It really WAS miles from town out in the boonies in the 50s and 60s. Houston's urban sprawl has caught up and surrounded it though.

Even as recent as the late 70's the area where H & H was located did seem like it was in the deep woods. We used to cater Lenox barbecue to company picnics there around 74-76. It was a very neat and fun venue. Surprised had not heard any mention of that place yet on Haif. Thanks for jogging the old memory banks.

[ding]

was the english restaurant with the red bus outside close to the shamrock?

ding

[FilioScotia]

You're thinking the Red Lion English restaurant on Main at Greenbriar. I have a photo of it from the 1960s that shows a London taxi in the yard, but not a bus.

Wasn't there also a place called "Ye Olde College Inn" out there somewhere on the south side? Or am I just suffering from intercranial flatulence?

[57Tbird]

Wasn't there also a place called "Ye Olde College Inn" out there somewhere on the south side? Or am I just suffering from intercranial flatulence?

Ernie Coker's Ye Olde College Inn was just north of Bill Williams' and across S. Main from the Rice campus.

[readam]

I remember during the 50s and into the 60s there was also TennWood Club near Hockley that was owned by Tennesee gas and Pipeline that had a beautiful clubhouse and pool, a golf course, small lake and great wooded picnic grounds. Our neighbors worked for Tennessee Gas and were our "in" to use the club and facilities. I think by the 90s the company sold out and it ibecame a golf club only and later it was sold again and is now a housing development.

[TikiOwl]

Ernie Coker's Ye Olde College Inn was just north of Bill Williams' and across S. Main from the Rice campus.

A little info on Ye Olde College Inn as well as some early Rice U memories from the great "Rice Football Webletter".

http://www.ricefootball.net/collegeinn.htm

[Retama]

Ye Olde College Inn stood where the parking garage is now.

The inn had a table called the "Coach's Table" that famous athletes and coaches visiting Houston to play Rice would "sign" by carving their names into it. After the inn closed the table was lost for many years but found in the early 1990s. It has an incredible collection of signatures including Jim Thorpe and Bear Bryant's. They restarted that tradition at Rice with a new coach's table.

My uncle was a football coach and he told me many stories about going to the inn for informal get-togethers back in the days when relationships between coaches were a bit more casual. One of them involved Cactus Jack Curtice who brought his University of Utah team here to play the Owls in the mid-1950s. Curtice went down to Galveston to gamble (maybe at the Balinese Room?) the night prior to the tilt and won so big that he kept his team in Houston for an extra night so he could go back to the island and win some more. Alas, he came a big loser the second time around.

[Jeri]

It was Kiddie Wonderland.

That family had a 99 year lease and that lease expired in the past 13 years. My parents took me there many times.. I took my kids and grandkids..

[ImTomTerrific]

I was born and raised in Houston. I fondly remember the Christmas display in the Foley's window every year. I remember the opening of the Harris County Domed Stadium and later Astroworld. I remember taking out of town guests to the top of the Humble Building because it was the tallest building in town and you could see everything from there. I remember the machines that would make 3-D plastic forms of the Humble Building AND the domed stadium while you waited and watched. How about the numbers on the shopping carts at Henke & Pillot.....you would take the number card from the slot on the cart after your groceries were bagged and a "sack-boy" would take your cart to the waiting area. You would drive around to the waiting area and hand them your card and they would load your groceries in the car.

[NenaE]

Early, mid sixties - remember the small green coke bottles, the coke/ 7-up vending machines where the big bottles were stacked vertically & you pulled the bottle out, crushed ice in cups, the "attic" fan in our house, real wooden floors, black & white tv.

[WillowBend56]

Is it just my imagination or perhaps a real memory that drive-in theaters (such as the one on South Main) would ask folks to roll up their car windows before a movie so they could spray an anti-mosquito fog around the premises?

[WillowBend56]

Some other random memories:

Foleys in downtown Houston sold Lionel trains. It was always a treat to visit that store and see the Lionel display, especially around Christmas.

The dinosaur craze among kids is not a recent phenomenon. One of the big cereal companies had a promotion of putting plastic dinosaurs in each cereal box. This was about 1959-60. It was a very popular thing to collect those in my peer group!

My mother was a sucker for buying those inexpensive children's encyclopedias from Weingartens or other grocery stores.

There was a nursery off Post Oak near Willow Bend that was fun to explore with my mother on one of her landscape shopping expeditions.

There was a house right off Willow Bend that had a catastrophic fire---a gasoline explosion in the garage. For what seemed a long time, we'd gape at the burnt-out structure every time we'd drive by that street. I met a co-worker at TI Stafford nearly 15 years later who grew up in that general area and recalled the same house and incident as a kid. A morbid memory, I grant you.

To some of you who responded: The pony place you described sounds right! And yes, the Red Lion Inn restaurant may very well have had an English taxi instead of a double-decker bus. The restaurant was still there in the early 1970s.

[devonhart]

My mother was a sucker for buying those inexpensive children's encyclopedias from Weingartens or other grocery stores.

Funk & Wagnalls, each volume was about the size of a big paperback. Seems like they came out every week or so for a couple bucks a volume. My mom completed the set, seems like she hung onto for over 20 years.

[WillowBend56]

The children's encyclopedia set my mother bought at Weingartens was not Funk & Wagnalls. I'm thinking Golden Press or something else. Very basic with color illustrations.

[devonhart]

The childrens encyclopedia set my mother bought at Weingartens was not Funk & Wagnalls. I'm thinking Golden Press or something else. Very basic with color illustrations.

Oops, I didn't see "children's" they also had the F&W.

[Fringe]

Remember how stores would give you the first book free, to try to entice you to buy the whole set? We had several different freebie encyclopedias. I knew everything about stuff that started with "A".

[gnu]

Remember how stores would give you the first book free, to try to entice you to buy the whole set? We had several different freebie encyclopedias. I knew everything about stuff that started with "A".

We had the New Book of Knowledge from Grolier (looked like the ones pictured below). Seems like one or two volumes would arrive every month in the mail and then you received a book each year with updates with stuff that happened or changed during the previous year. They were geared for about a junior high level. And some of my school papers were almost identical to the articles in the book...hmmmm. freak coincidence i guess

[houwest]

The earlier mention of the Humble Building jogged one of those deep memory cells. Does any one remember an early 60's song titled "Houston, That's my Hometown". The only part I remember is

"Where will the tallest building be, west of the Mississippi? Houston, Houston, that's my hometown".

[Subdude]

We had the New Book of Knowledge from Grolier (looked like the ones pictured below). Seems like one or two volumes would arrive every month in the mail and then you received a book each year with updates with stuff that happened or changed during the previous year. They were geared for about a junior high level. And some of my school papers were almost identical to the articles in the book...hmmmm. freak coincidence i guess

We had the World Book. Looked like this:

We loved them! My parents were big believers in encyclopedias, so we also had Funk & Wagnalls and some others I don't remember.

[Vertigo58]

We got our first set of Britannica Encyclopedias around 1968 then they would send the year book every year after that. We still have 1970,71,72 and 73 inn th attic but time has taken its toll on them. Have begun turning brownish and pages almost crumble but every time I turn a page its a trip back in time when we were little kiddie troopers running around the house.

There was even a children's nursery ryhmes book set they would send. Very traditional classic Brothers Grimm fairytales, etc. Wonderful old fashioned illustrations as well. I'm getting all ver klept just thinking about it.

[WillowBend56]

My memory is a bit fuzzy on this: I certainly saw an organ grinder in the old movies. I think I may have actually seen one (with a monkey) as a kid in Houston. But where? I'm thinking downtown, at a fair, or perhaps at Hermann Park.

Anyone else recall seeing one, live and in person?

[Fringe]

My memory is a bit fuzzy on this: I certainly saw an organ grinder in the old movies. I think I may have actually seen one (with a monkey) as a kid in Houston. But where? I'm thinking downtown, at a fair, or perhaps at Hermann Park.

Anyone else recall seeing one, live and in person?

When I was a little lad there was a cafeteria at Bellaire and Stella Link in the 50's that frequently had an organ grinder and monkey outside. Also remember seeing one (the same?) around the downtown Foleys.

[silverartfox]

Yes, I remember the organ grinder and his monkey, too! I can't remember where in Houston they were located. The monkey was attached by a leash to the organ and wore a little costume. It would hold out a tin cup for coins and would tip its cap when it received them. In my childish mind, I always thought the monkey was like a miniature human being and far more intelligent than our household dog.

In today's society, the organ grinder would probably be arrested for cruelty to animals and his monkey would be taken to an animal sanctuary. I wonder if organ grinders still exist in other countries?

[jwphillips2]

Thanks for the memory jog...

There was, for a while, a doubler-decker bus parked at Sonny Look's Sir Loin House on Westheimer until Sonny decided to have a guy dressed in armor and carrying a lance ride around in the parking lot on a horse.

In the 50's and 60's it was called The Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo. I remember Roy, Dale, and Trigger put on a great sharpshooting show inside the Coliseum. Bullet, Pat Brady, and Nellie Belle were no-shows.

Our phone number was MOhawk4-0798 when we lived at 4738 Stillbrooke. Switched to PArkview a few years later. CApitol was downtown. Who picked those names? A fellow NASA engineer here remembers the same thing. We were on the Redd Elementary football team together.

Went to Shearn Elementary on Stella Link before Redd was built. Tonawanda? Then, went to Johnston JHS the first year it was built.

Used to walk to the Chuck Wagon (S.Post Oak and Willowbend) to buy a Spoke Burger (hot dog) for 50 cents.

Westmoreland Farms milk, butter, eggs and ice cream home delivery!

There aren't enough superlatives for The San Jacinto Inn.

If you jumped really high you could bottom out the trampolines and splash the water in the pits that were dug for the ground level trampolines. After that, it was a go-cart track.

I remember watching TV on a Saturday night until they read the English poem "High Flight" and then went off the air around 10:00. Fred Nehouse?

Pin Oak Charity Hose Show.

Camp Hudson.

2Ks Ice Cream Shoppe on Westheimer near Sakowitz.

I went to Goodwill and bought a double breasted ('29) sport coat to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It cost me all of 50 cents but it looked brand new. On a whim, I found a Battlestein's box and stuffed the coat into it and took it to the store in River Oaks to have it altered to fit me. They inspected it closely and then saw the 30 year old Battlestein's label inside. They did it for free and the store manager explained that was their policy.

We've got over 5 million people now, but in the 50s Dallas was bigger than Houston and Glen McCarthy's Shamrock Hotel was out in the boonies from downtown as was Memorial Drive and Lakeside Country Club.

[nm5k]

Attending the Houston Rodeo and seeing TV star James Arness of "Gunsmoke" fame in person.

That's wild.. I guess Gunsmoke was popular with the rodeo crowd.. lol

In the middle 60's I lived in the Kansas City area. I remember going to

the rodeo at the Kansas City Fat stock show and met "Festus" from Gunsmoke.

lol.

I think his real name was Ken Curtis if I remember right.

I've also been in Dodge City KS, and have been to the Long Branch

saloon, etc.. I've also been to the old Fort Leavenworth which had a

lot of old stuff to look at.

When I was in the Long Branch in the middle 60's, they had a picture

of James Arness, "Matt Dillon" on the wall. Maybe Miss Kitty too, but I

fergot.. I remember watching Gunsmoke going back to the late 50's.

"Chester" was the sidekick deputy in those older versions..

They have some of the old Gunsmoke radio shows at the internet archive.

[Heights2Bastrop]

I saw an organ grinder numerous times at Merchants Park, usually in front of Walgreen's.

I miss all the push carts selling tamales around town, although I'm not sure I would buy from those vendors today.

[WillowBend56]

Remember when Weingartens and other stores issued redeemable stamps? There were Green stamps and Plaid stamps. The stamps I recall most vividly from Houston were Black Gold stamps. [Weren't there also Buccaneer stamps?]

I couldn't tell you where the stores were located in Houston to redeem the books of stamps for goods. I'm sure my mother knew!

[silverartfox]

Remember when Weingartens and other stores issued redeemable stamps? There were Green stamps and Plaid stamps. The stamps I recall most vividly from Houston were Black Gold stamps. [Weren't there also Buccaneer stamps?]

I couldn't tell you where the stores were located in Houston to redeem the books of stamps for goods. I'm sure my mother knew!

Can't recall where the redemption centers were either, but I do remember my mother turning in books of Green Stamps and Black Gold Stamps for a blanket and a bathroom scale. She was really glad to get them, as my father's salary was supporting inlaws as well as our family and stretching dollars was imperative.

It wasn't uncommon for a bride's family members or friends to give her filled books of stamps at her wedding shower so she could get things she needed for her new home. Life was much simpler in those days. There weren't any fancy Bridal Gift Registries where a couple could sign up for such nonessentials as smoothie makers, Baccarat goblets @ $145. each, or monogrammed satin sheets. However, in the late 1950's, a few department stores began to have Bridal Registries for "good" china, silver, crystal, and perhaps linens.

[Don Julio]

The earlier mention of the Humble Building jogged one of those deep memory cells. Does any one remember an early 60's song titled "Houston, That's my Hometown". The only part I remember is

"Where will the tallest building be, west of the Mississippi? Houston, Houston, that's my hometown".

Yes, that was a 45 put out by KNUZ around 1962. "Houston, My Home Town." I have a copy. It was one of many "my home town" discs released by radio stations in the early '60s.

[tomv]

I remember the fish pond at Battelsteins. Mom always had to drag me away from it. I can still see it sitting there on the left hand side of the door. Ahhh.. good memories.

Aah, the fish pond. What a classic!. I remember it had lots of low seating around the tank, perfect for us kids. That really brings back memories.