11 replies to this topic

[Giraffe]

Remember when you had to wait a whole WEEK to get your photographs processed? As the technology advanced, the waiting time kept getting shorter and shorter... until you could pick them up the very next day. Then there was just one hour!

Back in the 1970s, we had drug stores, Fotomats, and Fox Photos to get your pictures processed. Our family didn't use 35mm cameras then, just standard roll-film cameras like Brownie Hawkeyes or other box cameras. As kids my sister and I did use more modern cameras that used film cartridges like 110 or 126. (Remember those rotating flash cubes?)

I can remember the location of one Fotomat: in the parking lot of the shopping center where the Wedgwood Theater used to be. It's since been totally removed and today you'd never know it had been there.

There was a Fox Photo at Seminary Drive and McCart. I think that's been totally removed, too.

Fotomats had an eye-catching color scheme: light blue with a roof that was a brilliant yellow. It was the type of architecture that prevented anyone else from trying to successfully disguising it later. You can repaint a Fotomat all you want, but anyone seeing it will still say, "That used to be a Fotomat." Ditto for Pizza Huts.

We didn't have many happy memories of Fotomat. They kept losing our family photos. I distinctly recall one evening when our family drove down and picked up our pictures; Dad opened the envelope and instead of seeing pictures of us, he saw a bunch of strange photographs of a cattle auction.

So, do YOU remember Fotomats? Where were yours located?

[TexasPacific52]

Our Fotomat was on Forest Park at Park Hill. We got many a set of slides done there. Unfortunately, the slides have not kept well over the years. Thirty years in good storage still have not prevented the slide color from turning. Oh well, you get what you pay for. The building is gone but I still remember sitting at the window watching the Fotomat worker like he was a fish in a bowl.

Wasn't there a Fotomat at Berry & Hemphill? The building was renovated several years ago I think into a burger shack and now is a bottle water dispenser.

[Buck]

I thought that Berry & Hemphill drive-through was built as a Dog House, or a Fletcher's Corny Dog stand.

[TexasPacific52]

I wasn't sure about this one. Thought it might have been one but I'm sure someone that lived in that area would be able to confirm.

I thought that Berry & Hemphill drive-through was built as a Dog House, or a Fletcher's Corny Dog stand.

[travelbear]

Oh, yeh! Fotomat at Park Hill and Forest Park Blvd. I remember it like it was yesterday. $3.24 to develope 36 exp. roll of ASA 100 Fotomat slide film. In the mid 70's that was the cheapest in town except for the mail order places. Back then $3.24 was a lot more money than it is now. There was also a Fotomat on the northeast corner of W. 7th St. and Throckmorton downtown.

[John Cirillo]

The main Fotomat I used was on the ground floor of One Tandy Center. I worked in the tower, and took my film there quite often. I even remember the name of the gal that was almost always there, Pam.
That was up through the late 1980s.
To go back further, in the early 1970s my sister and her friends all seemed to work at a couple of Fotomats in Oak Cliff in Dallas, one in Western Park and one in Westcliff Mall. Those were the stand-alone kiosks in the parking lots.

John

Remember when you had to wait a whole WEEK to get your photographs processed? As the technology advanced, the waiting time kept getting shorter and shorter... until you could pick them up the very next day. Then there was just one hour!

Back in the 1970s, we had drug stores, Fotomats, and Fox Photos to get your pictures processed. Our family didn't use 35mm cameras then, just standard roll-film cameras like Brownie Hawkeyes or other box cameras. As kids my sister and I did use more modern cameras that used film cartridges like 110 or 126. (Remember those rotating flash cubes?)

I can remember the location of one Fotomat: in the parking lot of the shopping center where the Wedgwood Theater used to be. It's since been totally removed and today you'd never know it had been there.

There was a Fox Photo at Seminary Drive and McCart. I think that's been totally removed, too.

Fotomats had an eye-catching color scheme: light blue with a roof that was a brilliant yellow. It was the type of architecture that prevented anyone else from trying to successfully disguising it later. You can repaint a Fotomat all you want, but anyone seeing it will still say, "That used to be a Fotomat." Ditto for Pizza Huts.

We didn't have many happy memories of Fotomat. They kept losing our family photos. I distinctly recall one evening when our family drove down and picked up our pictures; Dad opened the envelope and instead of seeing pictures of us, he saw a bunch of strange photographs of a cattle auction.

So, do YOU remember Fotomats? Where were yours located?

[M Andrade]

How about just southeast of the 6333 shopping center in the parking lot with ashburn's ice cream shop and the gym and trim.

[jefffwd]

Who knew Fotomat had changed with the times and is still in business!? Check out the pic though... http://www.fotomat.com/home/home.asp

[John Cirillo]

Who knew Fotomat had changed with the times and is still in business!? Check out the pic though... http://www.fotomat.com/home/home.asp

Well, that's a cute page. I wonder who that is that owns the Fotomat name? Viewpoint Corporation. Is that who owned them before? I never knew.
Good luck to them. Their 8X10 price is a dollar more than Walgreens.
Anybody tried getting reprints from 110 film lately? The new photo kiosks at Walgreens, Wal Mart, etc don't handle them.
I wonder who does them anymore?

John

[The Haltom City Kid]

When I was small, my brother would tell me that there were stairs in the back of the Fotomat that led to a huge basment where they developed the film. But he was famous for telling me all kinds of whoppers and I was always eager to believe him.

[Birdland in Handley]

When I was small, my brother would tell me that there were stairs in the back of the Fotomat that led to a huge basment where they developed the film. But he was famous for telling me all kinds of whoppers and I was always eager to believe him.

Big brothers are great, they'll tell you the knotty pine "eyes" in the den can see.

[cajunmike]

I remember when a FotoMat opened behind the McDonald's on Hwy 80 & Las Vegas trail in the late 70s. There were many that were converted to Hot Dog stands and that also fizzled out.