Produce seller, Pearl Street Market. Last week I wrote about the produce market area in the neighborhood where the Farmers Market was eventually built, mainly because I had come across the above undated and unidentified photograph.
I love this photo, but, sadly, I never found out who cafe-namesake Bob Taylor was, and I never discovered the identity of the man sitting on the sidewalk with his produce. BUT, I did realize that this produce seller was right across the street from one of the biggest wholesale produce sellers in Dallas, the Hines Produce Company. Both photos show the intersection of the block of Canton and the block of South Pearl, the heart of the Pearl Street Market.
In fact, this was a part of town your mother would probably strongly suggest you not visit. Here are a few of the illicit activities that went on here on a fairly regular basis:. A typical police blotter story went something like this:. The affray occurred in a cafe in the block of South Pearl. Dallas Morning News, Dec. Crime was a big problem, but what seems to have been even more upsetting to the people of Dallas was the general squalor of the place. Sanitary conditions were appalling.
LOTS of rats. A staggering number of rats. Rats absolutely everywhere. Not just a rumor. City sanitation crews would come by daily to hose the place down, but there was so much solid matter going down the drains that sewers were frequently clogged. It was, in a word, disgusting. For years this part of Dallas, just south of the central business district, had been a place where farmers and produce brokers had been selling their fruits, vegetables, poultry, eggs, pecans, and whatever else they could haul into town.
It was all very informal, and for much of that time it was completely unregulated. Before that, the market was at Pearl and Main, and in the earliest days it was at Ervay and Elm.
