The Artist of Perry Heights

Rosealie Speed was an early Texas artist, painting professionally since 1929, who has one painting in the permanent collection of the Dallas Museum of Art. She has had exhibitions in the museums of San Francisco, Kansas City, Panhandle Plains, and Tyler, Texas. Her favorite subjects were landscapes and flowers and favoring oil and watercolors. She …

The Perry Heights Power Couple

Arch and Patsy Swank moved into this large craftsman, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home at 4316 Rawlins with over 6,000 square feet built in 1944 with a huge front porch to accommodate their family of four children in the Spring of 1958.  They were a Perry Heights super couple. Both were known to be smart, cultured, …

The Most Fabulous Party Planner in Dallas

The most fabulous event planner in Dallas! Perry Heights was home to one of the most sought-after men for decades. He lived at 4322 Rawlins with his life partner, Earl E. Jones in the ’50s and ’60s.  In the 1960s, no one who was anyone gave a party in Dallas without calling Harry Bullard.  It …

Perry Height’s Last Known Debutante

In 1936, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Irwin Payne hired architect, Ralph Bryan, to design their home at 4524 Rawlins Street in the style of a Louisiana plantation home.  They toured several Louisiana plantation homes to collect what Mr. Payne wanted in his own home. The site was at the corner of Rawlins and Hawthorne, right …

A Dairyman and Minnie

In the 1930’s and 1940’s. the owners of the home at 4403 Vandelia were William and Minnie Dieterich. William Herman Dieterich was originally from Bremen, Germany, and came to Texas when he was 18. Wilhelmina  (Minnie) Augustina Gunther was born in Chicago shortly after her parents emigrated from Germany. She married W.H. Dieterich in Nebraska …

Edward Gordon Perry, Sr

E Gordon Perry grew up in a little town called Woodville, Tennessee, about two hours east of Memphis.  As a young man in 1908, he moved to El Paso and was the first businessman in El Paso to begin selling Fords in 1912 (the model T type) along with his brother-in-law.  Three years later he …