8/31/14 Mystery photo of the day: Soccer Boys

1975 Plane without a Pilot

A small plane that regularly tows planes at Friendswood's Clover Field got away from its pilot, William Russon, Saturday, ran through a county road ditch, hit a Houston Lighting and Power Company guard light pole, crashed through a fence and came to rest beside a home on Dixie Farm Road. Perry Brown of Clover Field said the plane was being hand propped by the pilot was attempting to get into it, when the throttle slipped into the open position and gave power to the engine. Brown said the incident was reported to the FAA Air Safety Branch, the Brazoria County Sheriff's Department and Houston Lighting and Power Company.  

8/29/14 Tree Planting, Thompson Intermediate

Undated,  but an unusually cold day for tree planting with Principal Ritchie.

8/28/14 Mystery Photo

50's Day

Undated, nothing on the back

 Facebook contributions:

Looks like a lot of class of 83. 

Front Row:
Patty Pantaziz (sp?) seated, first on left?
Therese Johnson second from left, sitting
Beth Banquer in front
Kim Stringfellow Bosworth, front far right, Laura Dusl next to her


Middle Row:
Tanya Stanley, middle row, second from left
Dayna Albert with the cast on her arm
Susan LeCoq, (maybe)third from left standing
Jackie Perry, just right of center
Beth Banquer, Shari Sharp, Steve Carrington standing middle row, far right.  


Back Row:
Bryan Hood back row left
Doug Kauffold, top right
John Frazier, top right

Easter Bonnets Galore

Unmarked and undated, but unmistakably Easter Bonnets. 

This is one case where full color would have really made a difference!

Sagemont Presbyterian Eagle Scouts

Undated
Written on the back:
Sagemont Presbyterian Church Eagle Scouts, l to r
Stephen and Mary Jones
Paul and Selma Johnson
Mrs. Raymond Ball and Michael

70s Modeling

From the late 70s

on the back is written

"Modeling"

Lori Hindson

Kallie Wyatt

Janie Sims

Lois Clark

8/24/14 Mystery Photo

Stuchberry Concert: The Music of Walt Disney 4/23/80

The captions are swapped, the top photo is the Step in Time group.

Elementary School Square Dance Requirement

Square dancing to the record player, circa 1980

At Easthaven (not pictured), we had the requisite annual Square Dancing unit, in gym class, no less. 

Completely scarred by the memory of all the girls being lined up in our gym suits, along the wall, facing it, while the boys picked partners one by one. Of course, we never got to turn the tables.

And I could never get this out of my head the entire time we were promenading.

Fall 1975 First Days at Frazier Elementary

First Days at Frazier Smooth

Modified Open Concept School Only One of Its Kind in PISD

Jack Harvey, Principal of the new Frazier Elementary School in Sagemont, described the first three days of school as "great." Harvey said he was amazed that things had gone so smoothly since it is a new type of school. The modified open concept school is the only one of its kind in the Pasadena Independent School District.

1/12/89 Former Dobie Star John Evans Receives All-American

John Evans, Lamar's 6-foot-5. 195-pound quarterback, heads into his senior season with many accomplishments and records behind him and bright future ahead of him.

TCB Snow Day photo

Texas Commerce Bank Snow Day, probably 1983. 

South Belt, Houston Memory Reel

Since we're nearing the anniversary of the start of the blog, I added a small YouTube presence of a lot of the photographs featured throughout the past months. Hope you enjoy!

1986 Ellington Field Fate

June 1986

Ellington Field Fate Up in the Air

The City of Houston has temporarily delayed approving a master plan for Ellington Field while it negotiates with a prospective new tenant whose presence would dramatically later the airport's future. . . .

City aviation Director Paul Gaines said it was too early to identify the company, but that the move to Ellington could provide about 2000 jobs.

The city's 1985 master plan projected development over a 20-year period. This was in sharp contract to a 1980 study conducted by the city that called for most of the renovations to be completed by 1987.

August, 1986 

Grumman Makes it Formal

Following a "very rough" year of negotiations, Grumman Incorporated signed a long-term lease agreement with the city of Houston this week to lease a tract at Ellington Field where it plans to locates its Civil Space Systems Unit.

The 40-year lease for a 66-acre tract has options to extend the time period another 40 years and for Grumman to lease an addition 79 acres. . . .

Grumann's Houston Operations at Ellington Field will mark the first space-related manufacturing facility in the Houston area.

One current ambition, revealed last fall, 2013, for Ellington can be found here.

5/1/86 George Thompson's 79th birthday Honored

Mr. and Mrs. George Thompson and Thompson Intermediate principal E.J. Ritchey admire the portrait contributed to the school in honor of the 79th birthday of the school's namesake. Invited guests, friends and teachers shared lunch and celebrated at the annual birthday party held at the school.

9/11/86 Jaycees' First Fundraiser

The South Belt area Jaycees prepared Saturday for a barbcue, their first fundraiser as a newly oranized group. Despite the rains that plagued the day, the Jaycees were able to raise funds for the Texas Jaycees Education Foundation and other charities. Left to right are: Nathan Merritt, Mike Work, Rob Work and Ed Allseitz.

7/10/86 Sageville House Bulldozed Two Years Later

For almost two years, this Sagemont house stood vacant after a 1984 Fourth of July fire destroyed the interior. Due to financial problems, the house remained empty and unrepaired, become an eyesore to those using Sageville Street. Efforts of neighbors and the civic clubs resulted in the house being destroyed by a bulldozer and the lot cleared this week.

Post #400 Thank you, Marie.

It's still another few weeks until her birthday on September 1, but today marks a milestone for the blog that I'd like to coincide with a few words about Marie Flickinger.

This is post #400 on a blog that wasn't started until late last October, only ten months ago.

And this blog wouldn't have happened without Marie. 

But, then, that's not surprising. 

Marie has been an integral part of the growth of the South Belt community for 40 years. 

When a complete stranger emailed her out of the blue asking about old photos of the neighborhood, she not only opened the floodgates for supplying them, but also the papers themselves, all the way back to 1975, to preserve some of the history of her home that she's built her life around helping. 

On my first visit, she asked, as I was surrounded by boxes of dusty pictures, "What are you going to do with all of this?" and, realizing the magnitude of the collection, said, "I think I have to start a blog."

And here we are, 10 months later, three trips and another in October, still sorting and cataloging hundreds of items that make up the little corner of the world we both cherish. 

Thank you, Marie, for always supporting this little endeavor, as well as the South Belt community at large.

A few photos from the piles across the years:

8/10/89 South Belt Salutes San Jac South's 10th Anniversary

This Week, 25 Years Ago

8/3/89 Resident Dies in Freak Accident

Ricardo Gonzalez, 31, died Sunday July 30 when a driver lost control of his car running into and through Gonzales' home, killing him as he sat in a chair. According to the Harris County Sheriff's Department spokesman, Larry Keith, 18, of the 12500 block of Ravera, lost control of his Ford LTD, hopped a curb and crashed through the house in the 10500 block of Sagewillow. Officials said the accident is still under investigation.

The End of Prince's Hamburgers

Prince's Hamburgers was a little further up the Gulf Freeway from the South Belt, but a Houston staple.

A few pieces from the morgue files regarding their slow demise from 1985 through 1990 when the original location finally closed on South Main

5/12/85

Rene Hugueley sits behind the red and green counter at the Prince's Drive and talks about the days when pretty young carhops made good money running around in snappy satin outfits.

She says once in the '50s some guy who's related to Houston television star Marvin Zindler drove up, bought a nickel cup of coffee and left her a $49.95 tip on the metal tray.

It wasn't that unusual to make a ten buck tip off one car back in the days when burgers sold for a quarter, Hugueley says.

But people aren't really keen any more about sitting in their cars when it's 02 begrees in the shade when they can go someplace fancy and spend five-bucks for a fancy hamburger with a fancy name.

There used to be a dozen or more Prince's eateries scattered around Houston at one time or another. Now there are only three and one doesn't have any carhops at all.

Some guy with a squeaky voice wants a beer and burger, hold the tomatoes. Hugueley jots it down, clips it to a metal line and slides the order down the counter to Tony, who's almost dancing, he's working so fast.

Hugueley owns part of the Prince's Drive-In at Cullen just off the Gulf Freeway. The other part owner is a woman who doesn't want her name or picture in the paper because, she says, she's not as young as she used to be. She wants to be a phantom of sorts.

Hugueley knows the good old days are pretty much over. She pops a fresh slug of pink bubblegum in her mouth and says, "The glamour's all gone. it really is. You can't get pretty girls to work out here in the sun, wind and rain when they can work in a club."

There for a while, years back, Prince's Drive-In has a watigin list of good-looking women with long legs who wanted to carhop. The money was better than a lot of office jobs. Now it's just the other way around, and the pretty young girls have their eyes set on better things.

But carhopping back then did have it drawbacks. Guys were always trying to hustle the ladies, especially the ones that showed a little belly. Hugueley says she was always having to say no to the boys.

3/23/86 Nostalgia about Prince's Natural
South Main hamburger drive-in celebrating 50 years

McDonald's, Popeye's, Wendy's, Jack-in-the-Box, and Taco Bell are all in the neighborhood.

But Martha Serres wasn't interested. She pulled her blue gas guzzler into Prince's Drive-In on South Main to order her hamburger, just like she did more than 30 years ago.

"I used to come here when I was a teenager growing up and I still love the hamburgers," she said.

"I have a lot of good memories about this place, I sure do."

Like the time she and seven of her girlfriends piled into a car during a slumber party and drove to Prince's about midnight.

It was a pretty risque move, at least for the 1950s, because the girls were still in their jammies.

"That was the best slumber party I ever want to," Serres said. "And the hamburgers still taste just like they did then."

It's natural for people who grew up in Houston to get nostalgic about Prince's. "Come as you are, eat in the car!" was the advertising jingle.

But brace yourself for another nostalgia rush because the original Prince's Drive-In at 4509 South Main turns 50 this year.

They've spruced up the old place and plan to display old photos from the '30s, '40s, and '50s beginning today through April.

The photos could make a lot of Prince's customer fell, well, awfully old. On the other hand, they might suddenly feel like they're 16 again by dining in, placing an order and having a carhop deliver a burger, malt, and fries on a car tray. The food fare has remained pretty much the same all these years, but the carhops of the past have gone through some changes.

In the old days, when they dressed up in  short skirts, white boots and majorette hats, the bright-eyes car hops were pretty enough to attract the attention of Life magazine and compete in carhop beauty contests.

Today you might see a carhop with a tattoo on her forearm, and their bating beauty figures have filled out some. Their uniforms of today -- black slacks and a red blouse -- aren't too flashy, either. But they're still sweet as honey.

Of the 20 Prince's Drive-Ins that were once in the Houston area, only three are left.

But the original Prince's Drive-In on South Main is still in business at the same building that once housed a Weber Root Beer stand in 1936 when the Prince family started the business.

The neighborhood, of course,has changed in 50 years, and the original Prince's find itself on the fringe of the Third Ward ghetto. The majority of its customers during the night hours are black.

There also is plenty of new competition in the area from the big fast food chains, but Prince's managers to hold on to a lot of loyal customers.

"They're diehards because they've been raised with Prince's. They say "i Can remember coming up here with my grandparents'" says Roberta Jeffrey, who first hired on at Prince's for 35 cents an hour about 20 years ago.

The car clubs, such a Convertibles of Houst, congregate in the Prince's parking lot of South Main regularly. They're so attached to the place that they volunteered to paint it to prapare for Prince's half-century celebration and the convertible club's five-year anniversary.

"It's nostalgia," Gary Burns, president of the ragtop club, says of the attraction of Prince's. "It's one of the few drive-ins we've got left to go to."

The older crowd commonly places its order at Prince's then drives across the street to McDonald's to satisfy the kids' addiction to the Big Mac.

The carhops have plenty of stories. They've hustled out to cars with an order only to discover a buck-naked customer behind the wheel.

A "topless wedding" was held a few years ago, with the bride and groom in a convertible and the preacher standing in the back of a wrecker.

Not long ago, a pregnant woman about to deliver her baby stopped in.

"I asked her when she was going to deliver and she said, :Any minute, but I had to have a hamburger,' laughed Elizabeth Flores, an employee since 1948 who competed in some of the carhop beauty contests.

Prince's passed out cards recently to find out why some of the customers have remained so loyal over the years. Some of the replies showed that burger eating wasn't the only activity going on in the parked cars.

"There were many people who wrote, 'My children were conceived at Prince's' It shocked the hell out of me," chuckled Karl Stefan, the managing partner of the restaurant.

The Prince's employee with the most seniority is 63-year old Laura West, who still works in the kitchen part time.

12/12/90

Drive-In closing after 56 years

Fast times, slow business spell end for piece of Houston's past

Elizabeth Flores, part owner of Prince's Hamburgers, remembers in the 1950s when Main Street in Houston reminded her of Reno on a Friday or Saturday night.

"The cars were going up and down Main Street stopping in for a Coke or something to eat," said Flores, who has owner the drive-in business at 4509 S. Main since 1950.

But that, like drive-in restaurants, is a thing of the past. 

Now most of the traffic flows above Prince's on the elevated portion of the Southwest Freeway. Most of the old businesses are closed, and the apartment buildings and homes are gone. To make matters worse, a McDonald's has located across the street. 

The result of those demographic changes has caused the end of a Houston business institution. The hamburger restaurant, the last of 20 Prince's locations around town, is schedules to close Sunday night after 56 years.

"The business isn't good anymore," Flores said Tuesday night. "We have pretty good business on the day shift, but the night shift is almost dead. After 8 o'clock when you go down Main Street, every not and then you see a car."

And no longer do you see the once-traditional Prince's carhops in the shiny red and white uniforms racing -- at one time on roller skates -- through the crowded parking lot. In fact, no more than six cars at a time are waiting for those traditional burgers. 

Prince's is he original restaurant  in that chain. Flores said it started in 1934 in the same building. The building once housed a Weber Root Beer stand shortly before the Prince family started the business. 

12/17/90 Sentimental Customers' Lettuce Keeps Prince's open -- for now

In the midst of auctioning off Prince's very last hamburger, co-owner John Broussard got an emergency call from the Prince family, which still own the land under the hamburger stand at 4509 S. Main.

"They said, 'Don't let them close!' said Broussard, referring to Buck and Charles Prince. Co-owner Elizabeth Flores broke into tears of joy.

"It was like a movie," said Broussard. "So we couldn't auction off the last hamburger, since it wouldn't be the last one."

Buck and Charles Prince -- sons of Prince's Hamburgers Doug "King" Prince -- decided the recent resurgence of business in the wake of publicity surrounding Princes Hamburgers demise would justify staying open at least another week.


(Prince's closed up and move to the west side and is still in business.)

1/12/89 Gadd Returning as Youth Minister

For Emory Gadd, the explanation for his return to this area is simple. "South Belt is in my blood, it's where my heart is," he said. 

Gadd served as the youth minister at Sagemont Baptist Church from 1971 to 1981 and has returned in the same capacity after a seven-year hiatus during which he traveled as a speaker.

It was the ties formed during those early years that brought him back. "This is the only church I've ever served at," he said. "I began here with Pastor John D. Morgan 18 years ago and I would like to retire with him."

Gadd was asked to return and he attributes his decisions to several reasons. "I believe it is will of God, the church and my family," he said. 

"I wanted to finish what I started," he continued. "I have a vision for this curch and this neighborhood."

He had also had enough of the traveling life. "There just weren't any relationships on the road," he said. "I didn't get to spend time with people.

"The real story for me is to see the students grow up, get married, and have kids. I become freidns with them socially and it's nice to have those relationships.

The you of the area are his prime interest. "There are a lot of kids hurting and struggling," he said, "and this is why my real priority is the student ministry."

The church, he said, is contributing the "money, the space, and the staff" for his needs. The church purchased the old Safeway and Eckerds buildings in the strip center on the corner of Hughes and Sam Houston Parkway.

The Eckerds portion has already been renovated and the rest should be done in about four months, Gadd said.

He has chosen a staff of assistants to aid him in his work. They are Freeman Tomlin, Steve Chastain, and Milt Eichler. 

The church's interest in youth seems to please him greatly. "It's one thing to say you care, another to do something about it, "he said. "We're putting our money where out mouths are."

The challenge of helping the youth today seems to be the driving force behind Gadd. He also truly believes the church has "had an impact on a lot of kids."

This impact is what keeps him going. "When I begin to see students making wise decisions, that gives me self satisfaction and makes me feel that I am doing a good job," he said. "My ego wants me to do the best at whatever I am doing.

I've only been back four weeks," he said, "but I feel a real change in attitude. Students here are really excited."

He cites a steady increase in attendance of the church's youth attendance as evidence of this. Attendance, he is feels, is the bottom line. "it shows that we are meeting the students' needs, " he said.

His main point, he elaborated, was this: "We want to help students who need help but also students who appear not to need help. There are a lot of good kids out here."

(1979, from the Leader files)

2/2/89 Students Bring Drug Dogs Back

Students bring drug dogs back

Tired of class disruptions

Students' requests for the return of drug sniffing dogs to Pasadena ISD school received a resounding, unanimous yes Jan. 26 as board trustees voted to change district policy allowing the use of the dogs.

District officials stopped using the dogs during the 1985-86 school year as a non-instructional budget cut move. Last semester students approached the administration with the idea of bringing the dogs back to help rid the campuses of drugs.