Busch-Kirby Building (Boundary Increase)

The 1980 National Register of Historic Places nomination of the Busch Building in Dallas articulately described the architecture and history of the original Skyscraper Gothic structure designed by the St. Louis firm Barnett, Haynes, and Barnett for beer baron Adolphus Busch (1839-1913), but it did not include three smaller additions constructed for the A. Harris Company department store in 1925, 1930, and about 1955. Those portions of the building may have been ignored because of their difference in scale, style, or age, but all have been an integral part of the Busch Building for as long as 70 years. The original building was one of the first Skyscraper Gothic buildings in the country. The exterior of the 1925 addition was in substantially the same architectural vocabulary as the 1913 building, albeit on a smaller scale. The 1930 annex is a forward-looking example of the Art Deco style. The 1950s addition is not compatible architecturally with the original or later buildings and is included only as an addition. The Busch-Kirby Building and additions meet National Register Criterion A for associations with A. Harris & Co. department store and the Busch and Kirby interests, and Criterion C for superior Skyscraper Gothic and Art Deco design.

While many think of the Busch Building (or Kirby Building, as it is known today) as an office building, likely more Dallasites entered its portals as customers of A. Harris & Co. department store. Founded in 1887 by Prussian-born dry goods merchant Adolphus Harris (1842-1912), the store was two decades later one of the premier department stores of North Texas. Throughout most of its history, Dallas has been known as a retail as well as wholesale center, and the department stores of Dallas have been popular with both Dallas shoppers and numerous customers from much of Texas, Oklahoma and beyond.

A. Harris & Co. was the anchor tenant of the Busch Building from the time the structure was completed in 1913 until the store moved in 1965. Occupying the first five floors of the building, A. Harris was one of the most modern department stores in the state, and the facility suited the store well for a decade and a half. But the success of the store in the booming 1920s evidently resulted in cramped conditions, and further space was required. While the Busch (by then Kirby) Building had an additional 12 stories above their space, conventional department store planning suggested that five stories' height was sufficient and growth should preferably be out rather than up.

The initial expansion of the building was at a mid-block location on the north side of the Busch Building. A two-story commercial building (a cinema in 1921) occupying the lot at 1504 Elm Street was razed, and a five-story addition built in 1925 to provide an Elm Street entrance to the building. Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps indicate this first annex was constructed primarily to house a separate system of elevators for the department store, thus lessening the competition for elevators with office occupants of the upper 14 floors of the Busch Building. The architects have not been identified, but the regionally prominent firm of Lang & Witchell were associate architects of the original building and may well have designed the 1925 annex. Architecturally, the exterior repeated the Gothic character of the 1913 building, but with its smaller scale has the appearance somewhat of a Venetian palazzo.

Despite the construction of the 1925 wing, the Harris Company was still cramped, and four years later sought to expand to the east to the three-story, Italianate Leftwich Building, built in 1889 by Snowden M. Leftwich and adjacent property owner Isabella Schumard. A 1912 agreement between the Leftwich family and Adolphus Busch stated that present and future owners of the Leftwich property would limit building heights to five stories.

In 1929 the A. Harris & Co. purchased the former Leftwich property and demolished (or possibly radically remodeled) the 40-year-old building in favor of a very stylish structure designed in a compatible style by esteemed architects Lang and Witchell of Dallas. That firm, perhaps the most successful in the first quarter of the 20th century in Dallas, designed a number of properties now listed on the National Register, including the Sanger Brothers Dry Goods Store (Dallas), the Joseph & Hattie Higginbotham House (Swiss Avenue Historic District, Dallas) and the Harris County (Houston), Johnson County (Cleburne) and Cooke County (Gainesville) Courthouses. While Lang & Witchell are perhaps best known for their Prairie School influenced work, the firm was responsible for some of the finest Art Deco design work in North Texas, including the Lone Star Gas Building (1931) and the Dallas Power & Light Building (1930), both in Dallas.

Completed in 1930, the A. Harris Annex of the Busch Building was originally constructed as a three-story building, although expansion to five stories was addressed in the original building permit and was carried out within the decade. The facade was designed in a notable Art Deco vocabulary, compatible with materials and intricacy of detailing with the original building. The annex may have been designed in a way that it could be remodeled and separated from the 1913 building if needed. However, the top four floors of this addition have functioned as an integral part of the Busch-Kirby Building for the past 65 years.

Significantly, while ownership differed from the Busch Building, access to the four upper floors of the annex was and is possible only through the original Busch Building, the elevators of which bordered the annex. It should be noted that the annex has an architectural interest in its own right, as one of the best small-scale and largely intact examples of an Art Deco commercial building in the city. Few such buildings remain in the city, although the James K. Wilson Building (1947) immediately to the west and the third building beyond complement the 1930 addition.

The ground floor of the 1930 annex was initially rented to Phillipson's, a fashionable women's clothing store. City directories indicate that by 1936 that space was occupied by the men's clothing department of A. Harris. At that time the ground floor like those above became virtually indistinguishable as a separate structure. Only a slight difference in floor level belied any difference.
In the 1930 city directory, there were two national department store chains in Dallas, Sears and J.C. Penny's.

Certainly, the best-known local department store was Neiman Marcus. Other locally owned department stores were A. Harris & Company, Titche-Goettingen, and Sanger Brothers, all with their flagship stores downtown. A. Harris & Co. was considered one of the strongest department stores, with middle and upper-class clientele and good-quality merchandise. The regional importance of Dallas as a retail center insured that A. Harris' goods were enjoyed in many parts of the Southwest.

The space requirements for A. Harris remained stable during the Great Depression and World War II, but by the 1950s more room was needed. Accordingly, the property immediately north of the 1913 building and east of the 1925 property was acquired, the building demolished and a new, narrow 9-story tower erected. The architect of the ca. 1954 building is not known, and its character is very different architecturally from the earlier portions of the building. Reflecting the 1950s preference for minimal architectural ornamentation and unlike the ornate historic building, this last addition has an essentially blank, windowless facade above the ground floor, broken only by a large circle near the top which likely once contained the A. Harris logo. The blank wall differed from all other sections of the building in its fenestration: windows are their detailing are important, character-defining features in other parts of the property, but the solid wall here appears to accentuate the difference between it and earlier construction. The Prairie's Yield, the 1962 A.I.A. guide to Dallas, noted "The deep reveals of [the Busch-Kirby Building's] Gothic manner give a vigorous contrast to its neighboring metal curtain walls and happen to provide a sun-control device unique in Dallas towers," a juxtaposition that applies equally to the flat 1950s addition. The addition also entailed radical remodeling of the interior of the 1925 wing, in which the two 25' wide properties were combined for five floors as a 50' wing. The party wall and historic interior elevators were removed, and the space was reconfigured for dressing rooms and other department store functions. The continuation of the windowless tower was evidently used as a warehouse.

Because of its radically different architectural style and its age, the 1950s addition of the Busch-Kirby Building does not contribute to the property as a whole, and some might make that argument for the 1925 addition, which retains four of five floors of its historic facade but no significant interior fabric. However, all three additions are integral parts of the Busch-Kirby Building complex - they were an integral part of the A. Harris & Co. department store when constructed, and all depend on the original building for circulation between floors and plumbing.

The 1913 building is the strongest element of the grouping. Sited on one of the more historically important intersections in the Central Business District, its primary Main (south) and secondary Akard (west) Street facades have had few if alterations over the past eighty years and the interior retains a remarkable amount of historic fabric. The 1930 addition, also facing Main Street, has an architectural interest and integrity of its own inside and out, and, while smaller than the original building, it is entirely compatible and reflects the history of the building as an evolutionary building. The 1925 and 1950s addition facing Elm Street have somewhat different characters. The 1500 block of Elm consists of many smaller properties, the majority with a standard 25' width. The 1913 building is not readily visible from Elm Street, a street of lesser importance than Main Street historically. The facade of the 1925 annex is certainly evocative of the original building architecturally, but the 1950s addition reads as an unrelated building, one of many on a block of buildings of varied style, scale, period, and integrity. Because of its position on the least significant street frontage, its somewhat smaller scale than the 1913 building and its lack of any evident relationship with the historic complex other than geographic to most passersby, it does not affect the integrity of the complex as a whole.

A. Harris & Co. continued to be owned and operated by Adolphus Harris' descendants for almost 75 years, and generally, it changed and adapted as necessary very well. However, like elsewhere in the country, local department stores gradually went into other ownership or out of business. Sanger Brothers, mentioned above, was acquired in 1951 by Federated Department Stores, a conglomerate formed in 1929 by the owners of Feline's, Abraham & Strauss, and Bloomingdale's. Sanger's retained its separate identity until 1961 when Federated also acquired A. Harris & Co. from the Harris and Kramer heirs, and operations between the two former Dallas rivals merged.

The "married" department stores became known as Sanger-Harris, and the decision was made to build a new facility. Parts of the historic Sanger Brothers complex were demolished, but the 1910 building designed by Lang & Witchell was adapted as El Centro College (N.R.1975). The A. Harris & Co. store in the Busch Building was abandoned after fifty years use. Sanger Harris was acquired by Foley's department store about 1990, and after more than a century the Sanger and Harris names disappeared from Dallas retailing.
The A. Harris facility in the Busch Building reverted to other uses. A major portion of the ground floor became a bank, while other parts were used as offices. The ground floor of the 1930 annex again became independent retail space, and at present, as the Christian Science Reading Room, it is the only part of the 17story building currently in use.

Like many other early 20th centuries, inner-city commercial buildings, the Busch-Kirby Building has had varied popularity, but renovations were generally remarkably respectful of the building's integrity and tenants of note occupied its offices throughout most of its history. In a 1985 article on the building, Texas Monthly editor Gregory Curtis noted, "It's beautiful, the most beautiful office building of its era remaining in Dallas, perhaps in all Texas."

The 1980 National Register Nomination for the property listed its historic name as the Busch Building, while the Kirby Building is the common name. Adolphus Busch, for whom it was constructed, died in 1913, the same year as the building was completed. His heirs sold the property five years later to the Kirby Investment Company of Houston, headed by lumber magnate John Henry Kirby (1860-1940), a major figure in Texas finance for half a century. The Kirby interests sold the property in 1941, but the Kirby name has continued to be used. Thus for over 75 years, the property has been known popularly in Dallas as the Kirby Building, the Busch connection known to very few. Acknowledging the great prominence of both Adolphus Busch and John Henry Kirby, it is proposed the property be designated the Busch-Kirby Building. The Period of Significance extends from 1913, when the original building was completed, until 1945, reflecting the continued importance of A. Harris & Co. fifty years ago.