How did I miss this?
CSB: Back in the early 70's my family lived out by what is now the Burnet Rd.and Parmer area. Parmer was barley able to fit two way traffic and was surround by nothing but fields and Metric was a dirt road. My folks would deer hunt out of our backyard and the closest grocery store was the Kroger by Burnet and Anderson. But I digress...
I attended St Louis Catholic School from 1971-1979 and my parents would drive me past this intersection every weekday during school and on Sunday year round.
The photo: The Elliptical sign in the background was for Levitz furniture, which I watched being built in the mid 70's.
The Silver Dollar was a lumber yard in its previous life. I think it was a Stripling Blake. Since my dad was a home builder and didn't like paying for a baby sitter or having my brother and I sit at home and watch cartoons, we often ended up pushing the back end of a broom on job sites (for no wages) and accompanying him to the lumber yard. As soon as he was looking the other way we would be gone off to climb up on the multi story piles of lumber and various forklifts they had sitting around. Lucky we are not dead. I am sad to say I never set foot in that place when it was a beer joint.
PS:If I remember correctly the Original Silver Dollar was farther south on Burnet and had taken over the Underwood's Bar B que building, which was also newly built back in the 70's and had shitty food.
More on that intersection/area: On the Southwest corner-ish, where the roller skate/antique place is now used to be all Playland Skating, where alas, I was not permitted to hang out. However, before it was Playland, it was a bad ass fill dump place that was overgrown with weeds except where we would carve bike trails and jumps into the dump loads and hang out with the neighborhood delinquents who had minibikes and smoked cigarettes, which was apparently ok with my parents.
My dad got in a wreck turning left into the side street of the future Playland, he was broadsided on the passenger side where my brother and I were sitting with no seat belts of course. Not a scratch.
Another time heading up that street my brother fell out of our Country Squire station wagon when he forgot to close his door all the way. He simply tumbled out over the curb and landed on the grass as my dad drove on for another 30' or so. Again, no seat belts. Good times.