Antique & Vintage Postcards

Clean, modernist lines define the United Bankers Life Building in this chrome-era promotional postcard — a sleek mid-century office block at 3200 Maple Avenue in Dallas, Texas, rendered in cool whites and pale blues against a watercolor sky, parking lots spreading before it in quintessential postwar American fashion. What lifts this card beyond mere corporate promotion is the handwritten note on the reverse, a snapshot of Texas educational and civic life: the writer records attending the T.S.T.A. Convention (Texas State Teachers Association) in Fort Worth in November 1958, and notes that "Gay Hardeman, Ola and Ruth went with me on again — to see and hear Red Foley — I got them free tickets." Red Foley was one of the most beloved country music stars of the era, a Grand Ole Opry mainstay whose smooth baritone defined postwar American country — free tickets to see Red Foley in 1958 Fort Worth would have been a memorable event indeed. The United Bankers Life Insurance Company's home office, described on the reverse as featuring a "Williamsburg Room" penthouse available for civic gatherings, exemplifies the aspirational corporate architecture of Eisenhower-era Dallas.