National Register Listing

SMS Building

a.k.a. Berry Furniture

101 S. Wetherbee and 210 E. McHarg, Stamford, TX

<p>The Berry Furniture/Swenson (SMS) Land and Cattle Company Building is one of the most significant structures in the city. It is an architecturally sophisticated building, as well as the main local offices for the SMS Land and Cattle Company, Stamford's most historically significant commercial venture.</p><p>This building was constructed in 1927 and early 1928 to replace the original Stamford Townsite Company land sales office, built on this location in 1902. The new facility was designed to contain profit-making commercial space in the front two-thirds of the building and to house the SMS Land and Cattle Company's local office in the rear third. The SMS Company felt that an expensive and durable structure was warranted, one that would uphold its image as an important element in the local economy. Thus the company commissioned a sophisticated and unusual building. The entire project was a local affair, as the firm of Nichol and Campbell, Architects, of Abilene, designed the structure while the contractors were C.S. and C.B. Oats, also of Abilene.</p><p>The Swenson Land and Cattle Company (SMS Ranches) is one of the great ranching enterprises in Texas. In the Handbook of Texas (1952), the four SMS ranches were said to occupy considerable portions of twelve counties in western Texas comprising more than 3000,000 acres. The SMS Building achieves statewide significance as the principal headquarters for many years of the Swenson Ranches.<br><br>The Berry Furniture/SMS Building is one of the most elaborately designed and finely crafted structures in the city. Its understated elegance reflects the SMS Company's conservative, yet impressive, economic and commercial position in the area. It is not a flamboyant building but is exceedingly well built and full of details only apparent to the close and thoughtful observer. It is an important structure, not only in Stamford but in the region and state as well.</p>

Local significance of the building:
Agriculture; Architecture

Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.