Dudleys Diary

I took my daughter to the Orthodontist today to get her braces worked on. She had a ten AM appointment. She was through by ten thirty, it was too early to go eat lunch so I bribed her to go with me to one of those boring gown up places (a museum.) I gave her six dollars so she could go to Star Bucks with her friends this afternoon. We then went to see the Leonard's Department Store Museum. The museum had a lot of great memorabilia chronicling the stores history in Fort Worth. Admission was free, can't beat the price and they gave us two free cups and we bought two t-shirts at the gift shop next door for five bucks each, a bargain. Leonard Bros Store was started around WWI by two North East Texas Farm Boys. Marvin and Obie Leonard. They started out small and through hard work, ingenuity and through forward thinking they built an empire that lasted for many decades. Leonard's was the Wal-Mart Super Center of it's day. If you needed something you could find it at Leonard's. They had a Farm & Ranch dept, clothing dept, house wares dept, hardware dept, auto parts dept, drug store, bakery, furniture dept, appliance dept, toy dept, grocery store , meat market, candy store, sporting goods store ( guns, fishing tackle, boats, outboard motors) you name it they had it. People came from near and far to shop there. they had the most merchandise at the best prices. They put in the first escalator south of the Mason/Dixon line in the 40's. About 1960, down town Fort Worth began to change. Businesses were moving to the suburbs. Parking down town was at a premium. the Leonard brothers put in a huge parking lot on the banks of the Trinity River. They offered a free shuttle bus service to their store but the buses got hung up in traffic and were un air- conditioned. So they put in a private subway to get their customers to the store in air- conditioned comfort. The M & O line ran along the banks of the river and then turned into a tunnel cut into the bluffs of the river bank and the subway ran a good distance underground to a station in the basement of Leonard's building. I have fond memories of riding the subway with my grandfather when I was a small child. I rode the subway for years even after Leonard's had been sold and it was not Leonard's any longer. My kids have both ridden the subway as well as my wife. Sadly the subway was shut down about five years ago. Damn progress! They can take our subway, but they can't take away the memories.