Friday, April 18, 2025

Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments

We'll have to make do with Street View for this one; again (2011)

One thing that wasn't covered on that old Carbon-izer page which we've been getting our Texas Avenue information from recently was the old Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments, near the corner of East Duncan Street and Texas Avenue (1800 S. Texas Avenue). The first reference comes in 1942 in papers (not much older than that, they weren't built yet in 1935) and some references of expansion come post-war. I'm not sure when they offered apartments (they had 1&2 bedroom apartments) but there were expansions done to the property post-WWII.

There's not a lot of information to go on otherwise. It rebranded as "Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments" in the early 1970s around the time it changed hands from Preston Dishman to Sheeraz Ali Lakhani, and was initially competitive with other complexes, but eventually fell into disrepair. By 2003, the motel and two other aged motels near it (Casa Loma and Holiday Plaza) were considered to be nuisance businesses with a disproportionate amount of police calls to them (22 rooms and 52 calls for police calls for assistance over a six month period).

Here's the 2012 Street View which had a last-minute repaint as well as removing signage that advertised "color cable TV" (wildly outdated). In 2012 everyone who lived there got evicted and it was demolished within a year. Eastep Auto Sales, a used car dealer, replaced it in 2015, moving from across the street.