Mike Hazel has made Dallas more than just his home — he’s also made a living out of its history.

“As a native of Dallas, I think it (Dallas history) has a special interest and attraction for me,” says Hazel, a Preston Hollow resident. “And of course, the older I get, the longer my memory of the city is.”

Reared in Highland Park, Hazel earned his bachelor’s degree in history at Southern Methodist University, then went north to earn his master’s and doctorate degrees, both in British and Irish history, at the University of Chicago.

Hazel returned to Dallas in the early 1980s to find that his extensive education didn’t have much of a market here. Dejected but not discouraged, he redirected his career path: He began working as a historian for Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park, a 14-acre park just south of downtown that serves as a living history museum with 40 restored historical structures dating from 1840 to 1910.

“Once I found Dallas history, I really enjoyed it, and it has just continued,” Hazel says.

He dedicated the better part of the next three decades to advancing public interest in our city’s past, and he points to other Texas cities as examples of what Dallas could be. 

“Cities like Galveston have really promoted their history, which is important because I think the historic nature of a city is what helps make it unique and different from other cities,” he says. “And a well-preserved history is one of the things that attracts tourists to a city. A lot of the cities that are popular to tourists promote their historic areas, and I think maybe Dallas could do a better job promoting itself.”

Hazel thinks most Dallasites don’t realize how much history we have here in our own back yard.

“I think the average person in Dallas is not very aware of the city’s history, because much of the city is still very new,” he says. “Dallas has always been a forward-looking city, proud of its past but not as interested in preserving the physical remnants of that past.”

Hazel notes that photographs, for example, “are a wonderful record of what the city used to be.” It’s because of this that he recently helped compile some of these photographs into a new book titled “Historic Photos of Dallas,” a collection of pictures dating back to the 1850s and ending with the 1960s. 

The Turner Publishing Co. was actually working on a series of books, profiling several cities, when it took an interest in Dallas history. The company contacted the Dallas Historical Society, which then contacted Hazel, considered one of the city’s go-to historians.

Hazel says most of the photographs selected for the book depict places that no longer exist — like our city’s first luxury hotel, the Oriental Hotel, which sat at the corner of Commerce and Akard streets downtown. The hotel was avant-garde for its day in 1893, boasting electricity and elevators. The book also includes photographs of the Carnegie Library, a public library built here in 1901 by Andrew Carnegie, the same man responsible for the famous Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. This library sat at the corner of Commerce and Hardwood streets and was known for its lavish interior. It was demolished in 1954. 

Hazel’s primary role in producing the book was to write captions for each photograph and introductions for each chapter. Before he could begin writing, however, he had to research every photo. Some of the pictures were well archived by the Dallas Public Library or the Dallas Historical Society, and many were even flagged with historical information. But other photos required hefty investigation.

“Many of them did not have much information, but maybe there was a clue in the photograph, like a street sign or shop sign to research. It was a bit of detective work,” Hazel says. 

But this type of research was nothing new to him. After serving as the Dallas Historical Society’s deputy director from 1988 to 1992, Hazel has stayed involved with local history as an editor for “Legacies,” a regional history journal published bi-annually by four local historical organizations, and a big part of that gig involves photo research.

This also wasn’t his first experience with publishing. Hazel has written and edited several books about our city, including “Dallas Reconsidered,” “Dallas: A History of the Big D,” “Dallas: A Dynamic Century,” “Stanley Marcus from A to Z,” “The Dallas Public Library: Celebrating a Century of Service,” and “Dynamic Dallas.”

He’s also dedicated a good chunk of his life to educating the next generation of Dallasites about our city’s history. For five years, Hazel taught Dallas history at his alma mater, SMU. The survey class involved guest lecturers, book reviews and walking tours of downtown.

But Hazel also has worked to raise historical awareness outside the classroom. He’s spent the past eight years spearheading a community movement to get residents involved in preserving our history. Hazel started the Dallas History Conference, which is co-sponsored by 12 local history groups, after he was inspired by an annual historical conference held in Beaumont, Texas. After speaking with colleagues and sparking interest within the historical community, Hazel organized our city’s first conference.

“I think it (the conference) has really introduced people to Dallas history that didn’t know as much about it before,” he says.

Darwin Payne is a longtime friend and colleague of Hazel’s, and the two have collaborated on several projects, including “Dynamic Dallas.”

“Interest in Dallas history has risen tremendously in the past 10 to 20 years, and Mike has been very important in generating that interest,” Payne says. 

Today, Hazel is a member of the Dallas Historical Society’s collections committee and is an honorary member of the board of trustees for the Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park. After his nearly 30 years in the business, he has been able to make somewhat of an entrepreneurial business out of Dallas history.

“Many other local historians still have to have some sort of full-time job, but I have been able to make a career out of just Dallas history, so I feel very lucky and fortunate. And many other historians have to travel to do research, but I was fortunate enough that the good material was all right here.”

Ultimately, Hazel says he hopes his advocacy for Dallas history will help illuminate our city’s future.

"Dallas leaders have made both good and bad decisions in the past, and I hope we as a community can learn from those," he says. “After all, a community can only make sensible decisions about the future if it understands its past.”

 

Hazel’s History List

Asked about Dallas’ most fascinating bits of history, it’s not surprising that Hazel, a Preston Hollow resident, would choose a number of things that happened in and around our neighborhood. His top five list includes:

 

1. Ira P. DeLoache, one of the early developers of Preston Hollow,

originally came to Texas in 1908 as a cigarette salesman.

 

2. Early Preston Hollow — which was its own independent, incorporated city from 1939-1945 — had one grocery store and a filling station, and Lobello’s drive-in was the only restaurant. There were no parks, post office or a public library.

 

3) In 1890, Dallas was the largest city in Texas, the only time it held that honor on the Federal Census.

 

4) In 1938, architect George Dahl designed the first drive-through bank

window in the world for the Hillcrest State Bank in University Park, across from SMU.

 

5) Begun by developers Edgar Flippen and Hugh Prather in 1931, Highland Park Village was the first planned shopping center in the nation with a unified architectural style and stores facing interior parking