One of my favorite areas of Dallas is Swiss Avenue. I didn’t take many pictures there; my theory is that anything of historical or scenic interest probably has much better photos already on the internet. I’d rather be gawking out the window and seeing the big picture myself, than trying to focus the camera and missing half of the interesting stuff.
Luckily I was right, you can see all the houses in this wonderful 2.5 mile, tree-lined historical district on this site: .
Swiss Avenue.
This picture, which came from that site, is just to get you started:
To this Californian, it appears that Texans take great pride in their history. Swiss Avenue has not just a few old houses that are well maintained and preserved, but 200 of them. And yet it’s still a neighborhood street. People live in those houses. In California it would be behind a fence, with a gate and the public would never get to see without paying. There would be souvenir stands and other tourist traps.
In Texas, there are historical markers everywhere. On some roads, it seemed like a marker a mile. We stopped to read a couple of them, I thought they were strong on dates and names and short on obvious historical significance. In California, the few markers we still have (many have been defaced or stolen and never replaced) depict places where historical events happened.
I even wondered if locals in Texas might sponsor a historical marker about their own ancestors. Imagine living in a community where you are one of the few whose ancestors aren’t on a marker.
I think this would be a wonderful, snobby thing to do in California, where almost everyone just moved in yesterday. I could greet a new neighbor: “Hi, I’m Jan. I’m a direct descendant of the people listed on Marker #542. Do YOUR ancestors have a marker somewhere? No? Tsk tsk.”
2 comments:
This house belongs to Barbara and Lloyd Daniels--both from Commerce, Texas. I lived in the former laundry room behind it for three years and had my massage therapy practice there. It was tiny but beautifully done, and my customers loved it. They had a hedge shaped like a harp in the back. I traded massages for rent. I got the gossip about other homeowners on the street. One of them was living in a house that had been moved in--it was not originally built on Swiss Ave, even though it was lovely and fit beautifully with the others. The owners thought the other Swiss Ave. owners looked down their noses at them. They sold the house--even though Tschaikovsky had once performed there, as the Klan would not let him perform in the symphony hall.
Glad to know you had a good time in Texas. Merlene and I have wandered around the Presidio area together when she was living down there. We also were roommates for about 9 months.
Rheta M.
Thank you, Rheta. I'm sorry I missed meeting you, I would have loved to hear all the Swiss Ave. gossip.
Post a Comment