Cowtown nocturnal journal: There are more owls around town than you can Shake(a)speare at.
Petroleum Building (1927, Hedrick).
River Legacy Park in Arlington. (Each metal ornament above a light fixture in the Kroger pavilion is actually two owl silhouettes cross-fitted at a ninety-degree angle so that an owl is seen from any angle.)
Perched on the weathervane atop the cupola of Poly High School. (The parrot and owl are metal; the three crows were just photobombing.)
Sanger Building (1929, Hedrick).
On Southwest Boulevard, a restaurant with an ornithological theme.
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue at Henderson Street (1929, Hedrick).
On the Amtrak platform at the Intermodal Transportation Center.
In Trinity Park near Rotary Plaza these two concrete whatevers are painted to look like hollow tree trunks occupied by owls.
In the Boiled Owl Tavern on Magnolia Avenue in Fairmount.
Land Title Block Building (1889, Haggart and Sanguinet).
Etta’s Place on West 3rd Street.
See the owl on the left side of the wall? This is a ghost sign advertising Owl brand cigars on the Cantina Cadillac bar building (1908) on Exchange Avenue.
Bonus owl: the 7-Eleven co-spokesbird. In 1927 Johnny Green, an employee of Southland Ice Company in Dallas, began selling bread, eggs, and milk from improvised ice-house storefronts. About 1928 the stores began operating under the name “Tote’m Stores.” (Each store had a totem pole in front.) In 1946 the name of the franchise was changed to “7-Eleven” to reflect the stores’ longer hours of operation. In 1949 an animated rooster and owl starred in the first television advertising by a convenience store. 7-Eleven is now owned by a Japanese corporation. City directories of 1947 and 1949 show the change of name from “Tote’m” to “7-Eleven.”
(Going the 7-Eleven stores one hour better, Lois E. Carroll had a Seven to Twelve Grocery.)
Does your quaint spirit crave still more birds? Cowtown in Motion: Hum Along With Hovercraft
Owlleluia! Amtrak is bringing back Southern Pacific’s overnight Owl train, it appears.
Gotta admit I had to Google that one.