DALLAS’S LAST BUFFALO HUNT

YESTERDAY The last buffalo shot in Dallas began its final day in what is now Old Town Shopping Center. During the Depression, however. Old Town was prairie land on the old Caruth plantation and the site of a Thirties Western movie whose fate was ultimately as bleak as that of the buffalo.

Buffalo and Indians were imported from Oklahoma for the shoot-em-up’s opening scene and things began according to plan: Indians whooped, buffalo thundered. And then came trouble. A reinforced barbed wire fence failed to stop the charging buffalo, who scattered throughout the countryside.

Enter land baron WILL CARUTH JR., an avid hunter and gun lover, who set out to track one beast reported to be roaming through his Highland Park neighborhood. As Caruth closed in, the buffalo made its way to Snider Plaza, where he encountered a Gulf station attendant fixing a tire. When the man heard a strange snort, he looked up-and screamed.

The buffalo then headed for the Varsity Theatre (now the Plaza Theatre), which was just letting out. Several theater patrons, seeing the bison, decided that a second show wouldn’t be a bad idea and fled back into the theater. That’s when Caruth caught up with the big woolly guy, took aim, and dropped him on the spot.

And that’s the story. The buffalo meat found its way to the Salvation Army. The head hangs on Caruth’s wall. That’s just the way it was back then, junior. Kids walked barefoot through the snow to school and buffalo roamed the Highland Park shopping centers.