| Larry Powell: 1955: Cheap smokes, heirs with attitude 12/18/2000 By / The Dallas Morning News It was Sunday, Dec. 18, 1955 – a time of 15-minute programs on black-and-white TV and the passing of the trolley era in Dallas. Here's what you got in your 15-cent copy of The Dallas Morning News:
FRONT-PAGE NEWS – The Sheraton Corp. planned a 28-story, 600-room luxury hotel in downtown Dallas. (It's now the Adam's Mark.) ... Heart specialist Paul Dudley White said President Dwight Eisenhower, recuperating from a September heart attack, was "out of danger." ... Cotton Bowl queen Sally Marie Tull, a TCU biology major, flew to New York to promote the Jan. 2 TCU-Mississippi Cotton Bowl football game. (Aside: Ole Miss won, 14-13.)
INSIDE NEWS – United Press reported that East German Communists had "tightened the border control noose" around West Berlin. ... A Senate subcommittee planned hearings to determine whether there were Communists in America's newsrooms.
LOCAL NEWS – Lido Hotel Courts, a resort at Loop 12 and Highway 80, opened with a weeklong Christmas program featuring 1954 Miss Texas Yvonne Irwin as a "Santa girl." Santa "skippered" the 21-foot S.S. Christmas cabin cruiser in the Lido's giant swimming pool. ... Dallas Transit Co. prepared to convert to all-bus service on Jan. 15. That meant, we reported, "the end for 49 streetcars ... on the Sunset-Hampton-Second-Junius line, the only trolley line left."
COMMERCIAL BREAK – Skillern's drugstores sold Marlboro filter cigarettes for $2.37 a carton. ... At Sanger's Department Store, the 45-rpm version of "The Night Before Christmas" by Miss Frances of TV's Ding Dong School cost 49 cents. ... Huber Co. charged $129.95 for a 21-inch CBS Columbia brand black-and-white TV set. ... A 1956 Mercury hardtop with radio and heater cost $2,365; a 1956 Pontiac sedan cost $1,943.56. ... Jobs: A male secretary could make $325 a month; a female secretary "under 30" $250 a month. ... For sale in Garland, new three-bedroom brick homes with garages for $9,950; scores of older Oak Cliff homes, including a two-bedroom house near Sunset High School for $14,750. Also for sale: "A dignified ... colonial home in an important location" – a four-bedroom home with air conditioning and "servant quarters." That Highland Park price? $36,500.
THE WRESTLERS – The Negro heavyweight wrestling champion, Luther Lindsey, would challenge Dallas' Lou Thesz, the world heavyweight champ, at the Sportatorium on Tuesday night. A week earlier, Mr. Lindsey had won Dallas' "first mixed wrestling match." (Aside: Mr. Thesz, we reported, earned a draw against the "new Negro sensation.")
THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT – At the movies: Tarantula with John Agar was at the Majestic, Ulysses with Kirk Douglas was at the Lakewood. The Twin Drive-in offered stripper features Teaserama with Tempest Storm and Varietease with Lili St. Cyr. ... On TV: 15-minute programs Science Fiction Theater, Amos 'n' Andy and a marionette version of The Night Before Christmas and the half-hour G.E. Theater with Ronald Reagan. ... Dining out: Luby's Cafeteria special: a 25-cent cheeseburger. Coffee was a nickel, with seconds on the house.
DALLAS ATTITUDE – Dallas oilman Bailey Balken, 51, told that his grandfather's estate had awarded him $552,000, replied, "That's not much money around here, is it?"
Larry Powell can be reached at 214-977-8487; P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265; fax 214-977-8319; and at
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