Hall Furniture Building

The Hall Furniture Building in Sherman qualifies for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in the area of Commerce, and Architecture, at the local level of significance. It has been the headquarters building for one of the oldest and largest furniture businesses in Texas and is an embodiment of the evolution of architectural changes over the lifetime of a commercial enterprise in a growing city. The Hall Furniture Company traces its origins to 1868 and was based in this building from 1892 to 1992. The building began as two adjacent buildings circa 1876-1885 and was transformed into one business headquarters, ultimately receiving a unifying and distinctive Art Deco façade in 1936.

SHERMAN HISTORY AND COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Sherman was founded in 1846 as the county seat for the newly formed county of Grayson. By 1848 residents realized that there was not enough water or timber to support the city, thus moved east 3 miles to an 80-acre site donated to the city by Thomas J. Shannon, the first member of the State Legislature from Grayson County. From this black clay prairie emerged the current city of Sherman serving the needs of county residents and a principal trading and shipping point for grain and cotton in north Texas and the Indian Territory. The downtown lots were laid out around a large public square. Within ten years Sherman had a population of 500. In September 1858, the Butterfield Overland Stage made its first run through Sherman, stopping on the south side of the square en route from St. Louis to San Francisco. This was the first public transportation in and out of the city.

Development slowed in the 1860s due to the Civil War, general lawlessness, and border troubles in the Indian Territory. Following the war, the city went through a period of postwar unrest. Federal troops were present trying to maintain law and order. The business was at a standstill but by 1868, the year that R. G. Hall opened his dry goods business, the economy was improving. The public square was lined with small businesses working from clapboard and log buildings. Hall's first store was one of these wooden buildings located on the east side of the square.

The buildings that became Hall Furniture Store were built for John Brooke, who had arrived in Grayson County in July 1848. Brooke, then a 26-year-old medical doctor from England, qualified for 320 acres of free land in southwest Grayson County under the Peters Colony Agreement. In 1851 he moved off his farm to Sherman and married Nancy Chaffin, daughter of another early settler in what may have been the first marriage in Sherman. In 1853 he purchased the two lots that the Hall Furniture Building now occupies. On one lot he built a drugstore, and on the other a saddle and harness shop. Dr. Brooke was Sherman's third postmaster from April 1854 to May 1857. On October 30, 1859, he wrote to his sister living in England: "I have two large establishments now in Sherman which requires a good deal of my time besides my trips occasionally to see my farm. I have four assistants in one house and two in the other but still, my attention is required more or less all the time. I have got some of the finest stock of horses there is in the country which will be profitable to me should I be lucky and get no disease among them".

In October 1875 a fire destroyed Brooke's two businesses, as well as all the buildings on the south and east sides of the courthouse square, including R.G. Hall & Son. The Sherman Courier later reported that Brooke's losses were $2,500 at the harness shop and $12,000 at the drug store. The 1876-77 city directory lists him as co-owner of Brooke & Lamb Harness and Saddle Manufacturers on the southwest corner of the square. Since he still owned the property, it appears likely that he was one of the 40 new brick replacement buildings built in 1876 and now a portion of the Hall Furniture Building.

Grayson County enjoyed explosive growth between 1870 and 1880, sparked by the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central and Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroads. The population increased from 14,387 residents to 38,108 in ten years, making Grayson the most populous county in Texas in 1880. Brooke died in 1879, and in 1889 his heirs sold the building to R. R. Dulin, an undertaker.

HALL FURNITURE COMPANY

The Hall Furniture Company was one of the oldest and most successful wholesale and retail businesses in North Texas. The company's roots began in 1868 when Rufus Gaines Hall and his brother-in-law R.B. Chapman formed Hall & Chapman, engaged in general merchandising on the east side of the Grayson County square. That firm later became R. G. Hall & Son. From Sherman, they operated 40 notion wagons, driven by freed slaves, to West Texas selling everything essential to pioneers. The Encyclopedia of the New West published in 1881 describes the business: "An extensive wholesale and retail trade was developed and in 1879 their business extended over a vast scope of country, three counties east and ten counties west and into the Indian territory. The annual trade in 1878 was $213,000 and in 1879 was $250,000. R. G. Hall & Son thus far have made larger sales yearly than any other house in Sherman".

Rufus Gaines Hall left his sizable fortune (a plantation near Osceola, Missouri and mercantile interests in Humansville) one night in the early 1860s as the neighbor's barn and house were being burned by Kansas Jayhawkers and followers of the fiery abolitionist John Brown. Knowing that he and his family were not safe because of his political beliefs and sympathies with the South, Hall was forced to abandon a comfortable lifestyle and start anew. He settled in Sherman about 1862 on a small farm where Austin College now stands. He served as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War under Colonel Bourland along the Red River Valley. For a time during the war, William C. Quantrill, the infamous guerrilla fighter who led Quantrill's Raiders for the Confederate Army, stayed at his home while his men were encamped near Sherman. Following the war, Sherman was very chaotic but by 1868 Rufus saw a lucrative business opportunity to sell supplies and household items to farmers in north Texas & Oklahoma. Teaming up with his brother-in-law R. B. Chapman, he opened retail and a wholesale dry goods store in Sherman and started running 40 notion wagons, run by freed slaves to remote farms and settlers in north Texas and the Indian Territory. Business prospered. In 1872 he co-founded the City Bank of Sherman and later served as president and director.

Dr. Hugh Logan Hall, son of Rufus, was born in 1850 and was 11 years old when his father made the late-night decision to leave Missouri. Hugh Logan Hall became a well-known citizen and promoter of Sherman. A graduate of Tulane Medical School in New Orleans, he practiced medicine for a short time before deciding to join his father to form the firm R. G. Hall & Son in 1872. He spent eight years in New York City, his duties being a "resident buyer" for the store in Sherman and for Sanger Brothers in Dallas. Enjoying a good income, he apparently was something of a "man about town", frequenting fashionable restaurants of Delmonico's and Rector's with glamorous girls from casts of musical comedies and plays. Hugh Logan was admitted as a member of the Manhattan Club, an anti-Tammany organization for gentlemen of the Democratic Party. He lived in the club. Some of the more prestigious members included James Roosevelt (F.D.R.'s father), Robert Dun (Dun & Bradstreet), Joseph Pulitzer (newspaper publisher), Grover Cleveland, William Randolph Hearst, Potter Palmer (Chicago Financier and builder of the Palmer House), Charles L. Pullman (railroad sleeping cars), Samuel Tilden (Governor of New York and Democratic nominee for president), James Woolworth (merchant) and many others.

In 1892, Dr. Hugh Logan Hall, like his father 24 years earlier, saw a business opportunity and purchased from Robert Dulin the building and furniture business located on the south side of the public square, now known as the Hall Furniture Building. Also in 1892, Hugh Logan Hall obtained a state charter to organize "The Sherman Club", a corporation for the purposes of promoting fine arts and the support of literary undertakings, and the maintenance of a library and Club facility. Members included some of the most important people of north Texas at that time such as Tom Randolph, the second president of the Merchant and Planters Bank (today it is Bank One Texas); W.L. Lemmon, father of prominent Dallas architect Mark Lemmon; C. B. Randell, future U.S. Congressman; and Edwin Kidd, son of Mrs. Kidd-Key and future president of Kidd-Key College. In 1905 Sherman was honored by an official visit from President Theodore Roosevelt that drew a crowd of over 30,000 spectators. Members of the reception committees met the President's train wearing Prince Albert coats and stove-pipe silk hats. Dr. Hugh Logan Hall was chairman of the Executive Committee and rode in the third carriage behind the president.

HALL FURNITURE BUILDING

The Hall Furniture Building enjoys an expansive view of the county courthouse, its grounds, and monuments to history, 10 The building is situated in a key location in Sherman's downtown commercial district. Other businesses known to have occupied portions of the building include a carriage warehouse 1882-1885, agricultural implements 1885-1888, the D. E. Andrews Saloon/Liquor store 1886-1902, the Mahan Commercial College 1892-1899, the Sherman Mineral Water Bottling Works 1892-1902, and R. R. Dulin Funeral Parlor 1889-1904, but most notable was its continued use as a furniture store since 188911. R.R. Dulin, an undertaker, started the furniture store in 1889. He sold part of the building to Rufus Gaines Hall and Son in 1892. The balance was purchased later. Five generations of Halls maintained the business for the next 100 years 12. In 1992 the Halls sold the building to Aldridge Appliance & T.V. In February 1997 Ivert and Jeanette Mayhugh purchased the Hall Furniture Building and opened the Touch of Class Antique Mall and the 2400-square foot Historic Exhibit Room of Grayson County.

The Hall Furniture Building is recognized today for its bold use of structural glass in the Art Deco facade that was developed in 1936 to keep the store's appearance modern. Although a number of buildings in Sherman also modernized during that period, very few were known to have used structural glass and most of those have since been altered to other materials and styles. No others are on the square. Structural glass was first produced around 1900 but did not become popular until the 1930s and 40s when it was used extensively to modernize the exteriors of commercial buildings, like the Hall Furniture Building. Structural glass is very versatile and can be easily attached to most flat surfaces using asphaltic mastic. It is durable and does not warp, craze, fade or stain easily but is vulnerable to impact which can cause breakage. By the 1950s styles were changing and other products, such as porcelain enamel, were replacing the use of structural glass. It is no longer made in the U.S. and is very difficult to find. Jay C. Henry, in his book Architecture in Texas 1895-1945 says of this building: "The Hall Furniture Building in Sherman is another excellent surviving specimen of the commercial application of structural glass".

As the primary example of the Art Deco style in commercial architecture in Sherman, and as the headquarters building of one of the oldest and largest commercial ventures in North Texas, the Hall Furniture Building possesses a historical character worthy of inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is eligible for listing in the area of Commerce, and Architecture, at the local level of significance. It retains the integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.