National Register Listing

Old West Texas Utilities Company

a.k.a. Gail's Hallmark Shop

127 E. McHarg, Stamford, TX

<p>The Old West Texas Utilities Company Building is a structure that is both architecturally and historically significant. It is an excellent example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style rare style in Stamford well as being the old office building for the West Texas Utilities Company, a major firm in town since the 1920s.</p><p>This structure was built in 1928 by the West Texas Utilities Company. The Spanish Colonial Revival style was common across the Southwest during the 1920s, although not in Stamford. The building is an excellent example of the style as used on a smaller building; it survives today as one of the city's more handsome commercial buildings.</p><p>Not only is the building architecturally significant, it is historically important. When West Texas Utilities began to expand in the 1920s, it entered many new markets, in particular the small towns of West Texas. The company built numerous expensive and stylish buildings across the state using the Spanish Colonial Revival or the Art Deco style. Gail's Hallmark Shop is one of the best surviving, unaltered examples of this early expansion. Since its construction in 1928, this building has served as a local landmark for Stamford's citizens. Until it was sold by West Texas Utilities in the mid-1970s, it also served as an informal meeting place, of sorts, for local businessmen and workers.</p><p>After a decade of neglect, the structure was purchased and restored to serve its present retail function. It is again a local landmark and an example to the rest of the town of how they can again restore the character of their heavily modified older buildings.</p>

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1986.