Texas Centennial Collection Should Be Housed at SMU

[MrMustang1965]

By FRANK TREJO / The Dallas Morning News

Talk about lasting impressions.

Seventy years after the 1936 Texas Centennial put Dallas in the national spotlight, Charles Kavanaugh's Oak Cliff home is packed to the rafters with more than 3,500 pieces of Centennial memorabilia that he and his wife, Betty, have collected.

Mr. Kavanaugh, 79, has been an unabashed fan of the Fair Park exposition since his family brought him to it from their rural Hamilton County home when he was 9 years old.

With the recent death of his wife, however, Mr. Kavanaugh says he's ready to sell his collection en masse, perhaps to a museum, university or nonprofit group.

But while everyone seems to agree it's fascinating and valuable, buyers aren't exactly lining up at his door to buy the collection.

"I don't want it stored away. It's part of me, who I am, and it's part of Dallas and Texas history," Mr. Kavanaugh said. "I want somebody to use it, to display it so everybody can see it."

Right now, that history hangs on the walls of Mr. Kavanaugh's house. It also sits on tables scattered around the rooms, fills cabinets and jams boxes. The items include tiny pins, ladies' compacts, caps, hats, postcards, envelopes, watches, picture frames, worker identification badges, dance tickets, glasses, plates, fountain pens, walking canes and more.

His favorite? He said it's probably a set of large metal longhorns.

The official and unofficial mementos were created for the Texas Centennial Exposition of 1936, a 180-day celebration of Texas' 100th anniversary of independence from Mexico.

Coming in the midst of the Great Depression, the Centennial showed the rest of the nation that Texas was an economic force. And it resulted in many additions to Fair Park that are permanent fixtures now, including the Cotton Bowl and art deco buildings.

Mr. Kavanaugh said he and his wife began collecting the items in the 1970s, in part because of their interest in the Centennial, but also as an investment in their future. Most people who have collections of any kind, Mr. Kavanaugh said, hold onto them in the hopes they will one day be worth some money.

Those who have seen Mr. Kavanaugh's collection, or at least a fraction of it, agree that it is impressive.

"I can't imagine how long it would take someone to collect so much Centennial material. I doubt whether anyone could collect that much today," said Daniel Huerta, executive general manager of Fair Park.

Thomas H. Smith, executive director of the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History & Culture, said he learned about Mr. Kavanaugh's collection a few years ago and was impressed by its size and scope.

Mr. Smith said that Mr. Kavanaugh's collection includes not just official items from the Centennial but also goods sold on the streets outside the fairgrounds in 1936 by people who wanted to earn some money during tough economic times.

"That is really amazing, and they are some neat little pieces of folk art," he said.

Strangers aren't the only ones impressed by Mr. Kavanaugh's compilation.

"I'm ecstatic that my mom and dad started this," said his daughter, Jody Cook. "Every time my dad would find a piece, he would tell us something about it. Every child likes to hear about what it was like when their parents were kids."

Ms. Cook said she supports her father's efforts to sell the items.

"My thoughts are that everybody should be able to see it," she said.

Mr. Kavanaugh hopes to sell the collection by the end of the year so he can then put his house on the market. He has even reluctantly sought potential buyers outside Dallas.

Mr. Huerta and Mr. Smith expressed reservations about whether their groups in Dallas would buy or could afford to buy and house the collection. Mr. Kavanaugh wouldn't say how much he's asking for it now, but he did say he was told in 1986 that its value was $200,000.

"As far as the museum right now, we would not be interested in buying," Mr. Smith said. "For one thing, we wouldn't have a place to show it and no place to warehouse it. But I would endorse wholeheartedly that the collection not leave this county."

Mr. Huerta said he would like to explore the possibility of acquiring the memorabilia but doesn't know whether the city ever buys private collections.

"Most of the times, collections are donated," he said.

Mr. Kavanaugh, a retired printer, said that if his financial situation were different, giving his collection away might be a possibility.

"If I was a millionaire, I'd gladly donate it," he said. "Heck, I'd build my own museum and put it in there, so everybody could see it."