In 1977 the Dallas County Sheriff was Carl Thomas. One thing
that I remember about him was that he redesigned his uniform to add stars to
his shirt collar and braids on his cap that looked suspiciously like General
Douglas MacArthur’s.
But what is really interesting is that in April, 1977,
Thomas sent letters to smaller police departments in Dallas County to offer
contractual, county wide law enforcement services. According to the DMN, about
a third of the departments had expressed opposition to the idea. The chief of
police in Balch Springs stated that it was the communities job to provide
police service. He also said that working alongside the county is fine, but
local control must be maintained.
A city administrator in Addison, much smaller in population than
now, said that he could not imagine the city council in his town going along
with the scheme. Thomas had sent 20 letters to municipalities in Dallas County,
including the City of Dallas. The mayor of Rowlett said that in his opinion,
the 3 man police force in his city is just fine.
Interestingly, the politically correct top administrators in
the cities of Wilmer and Highland Park said that they were ‘open” to the
proposal but not “optimistic” about it.
Grand Prairie Mayor Parkhill was less politically correct
when he offered that “It’s just another way to get the county out of the hole,”
by having local governments pay for countywide law enforcement.
There were two cities that approved of the idea however.
These two were already patrolled by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department.
These two towns were Seagoville and Sachse. Neither of these cities had their
own police departments.
Duncanville mayor Davidson probably spoke of the real fears
of most of the cities in Dallas County. He said that “This has all the connotations
of being the beginnings of a “Metro Government.” He went on to say that “I’m
opposed to that because this would just be an inroad to …other things.”
I remember several years ago when Dallas County offered to
work accidents on Dallas freeways. It was a really big deal since the City of
Dallas, well maybe they thought that they were losing that “local control.” It
was finally approved and apparently it’s turned out okay. I for one hated working
accidents on the freeway. Most, but not all, officers did.
Back in April, 1977 the City of Dallas had seemingly endless
amounts of money, except when the idea of a pay raise came up. Lots of new buildings
were going up downtown, Reunion Arena and the tower were being built, even Deep
Ellum was becoming popular. Everything was looking up.
With all that money in 1977 the City wanted to expand and
they looked north. The City chose to annex the farming town of Renner. The
roads were mostly two lane blacktops, or even dirt. Everyone in the city was
excited and unlike Ft. Worth, which has annexed almost to Oklahoma, Dallas was
surrounded by cities that didn’t want to be taken in to the City of Dallas’
orbit…and problems.
So this was the only opening so to speak and it turned out
to be a good fit. Developers immediately started planting stakes in the ground
for mostly high-end homes, and apartments of course.
In April, 1977 an interesting story was written by DMN
columnist John Anders. Back in the day, LBJ was about as far north as you went.
Dallas single types and those who pretended to be single on selected days hung
out in joints on LBJ when saying you lived in North Dallas was an address that
spoke volumes about one’s attitude and (supposed) financial capabilities. This
was when “Up-Town” was a place you just drove through, you wouldn’t live there.
This was even before the 80’s “Yuppies,” but North Dallas was the place to be. Heck, most DPD officers at the time have stories
of living in those “singles” apartments, back when they could be advertised as “singles
only.” Yep, the single, or newly single officer would usually be extremely
popular especially if the officer had an “apartment deal” and showed up with a
key at 2.00am when (someone) had lost her key… to her apartment.
One hangout where
older guys met younger women was appropriately named “Daddy’s Money.” It was really
popular with both sexes. It also was well…sooo Dallas at the time. This was
about the time the TV show “Dallas” came out. Everybody at least thought they
had money if you lived here. Except us.
Another was an
up-scale place was called “Vicki Britton’s” on Northwest Highway. This was a disco
era establishment with lots of guys in gold chains, wide lapels and Datsun 280-Z”s.
Anyway, Vicki Britton decided to head to L.A. for a shot at the big time and
closed her namesake club.
What I thought is kind of strange is that according to
Anders, Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison had expressed an idea to open a
big nightclub on Spring Valley Road that would showcase talent such as Tony
Bennett. He had been a substantial backer of Ms. Britton’s club on Northwest
Highway. One has to remember how conservative, stable and winning the Dallas
cowboys were at this time. For Mr. Murchison to want to open a nightclub, even
if it wasn’t a rock and roll venue, well, on second thought seems pretty cool.
As far as I know however, the new place on Spring Valley
never opened.
