They built THIS CITY

Their names are the building blocks of early Dallas, spelling growth, wealth and self-esteem for a young city raising itself out of the flatlands. They left legacies in steel and concrete-the skyscrapers, landmark buildings, and freeways that bear their names-but their energy is diffused through the city in a hundred less visible ways: in art, in libraries, and in the sustaining belief that something well begun is well continued.

rie and his brothers were called “Terminus Merchants,” which was not a term of endearment. As the Houston and Texas Central Railroad was moving northward after the Civil War, the Sanger brothers opened makeshift retail establishments at each new stop, but when the rails touched the town of Dallas in 1872, Alex and his brother Philip found a home.

What followed was marketing history. Sanger Bros, (the official spelling) was the first store in Dallas to offer merchandising in departments, a one-price system, retail charge accounts, home delivery, shopping by telephone and fringe benefits for employees. It was the first store to hire female sales persons and one of the fringe benefits was a free ride home in a delivery wagon for unmarried female employees with Alex serving as guardian. He established a free night school at the Sanger Bros, store as well as the first employees’ savings and loan association. Sanger Bros, anchored the downtown retail trade and made the center of the city the place to shop for three-quarters of a century.

Alex, a Bavarian immigrant, fell in love with Dallas and took a keen interest in all things civic. He headed the bond drive that made Dallas a rail crossroads when the Texas and Pacific laid east-west tracks down Pacific Avenue, and served as a town alderman, overseeing the fire department. He gave $1,000 to start a public library, helped establish the forerunner of the United Fund, and was instrumental in the inauguration of the State Fair of Texas.

In 1951, years after Alex’s death, Sanger Bros, was sold to Federated Department Stores and 10 years later merged with A. Harris and Co., a long-time competitor. Federated later sold the Sanger-Harris operation to Foleys. The old Sanger Bros. building downtown is now part of El Centro Community College.

No one called him “John,” just “J.B.” He had no interest in publicity, which is probably why he is not often thought of as a key player in the early development of downtown Dallas. Born in Canada, he moved to Louisiana near the end of the Civil War to boss a logging camp while still in his teens. Wilson was down-to-earth and farsighted; when rail lines were laid into Dallas in the early 1870s, he realized he could make money shipping beef in cattle cars. By the 1880s, he had expanded his operation to include the shipment of thousands of head of cattle from the Gulf ports to Europe. amassing a fortune in the process.Wilson became heavily involved in Dallas political and business affairs, serving as an alderman and heading the powerful City National Bank, a forerunner of First National. He set the tone among the downtown crowd for a no-nonsense, sobersided approach to the public and privare affairs of the city. Though his wealth made him a tempting target, he was no easy touch. When asked for a substantial contribution to a local cause by a society contingent, Wilson flatly refused, but said there might be a chance of doing business in the future. “If you ever decide to sell your gall, I’d like to bid on it,” he called to the solicitors as they were leaving.

When the operators of the streetcar company fell on hard times, Wilson agreed to bail them out with a loan of $365,000 at 10 percent interest, with the understanding that the first $100 collected each day would be paid to him to cover that days interest. Every morning, as the streetcars were making the loop around Sanger Bros., the operators would stop to empty their coin boxes into a bucket until Wilson’s $100 was collected.

Wilson cook personal charge in the planning and construction of the magnificent eight-story office building at the corner of Main and Ervay that still bears his name. And, true to form, he tore down the shacks that once covered the site because they were not returning a profit. 1 here is no shortage of worthy candidates for the Dallas Founders’ Hall of Fame. Many have played pivotal roles in the growth and development of the city, but one man, Nathan Adams, did it longer than anyone else. He landed in Dallas in 1887 with $4 in his pocket, an by 1889, he had lined up a job as a relief clerk for National Exchange Bank at $75 a month. Following a series of mergers and name changes, Adams became the first president of First National Bank in 1930- Later serving as chairman of the board, he was with First National and its forerunners for 66 years.

Adams was a champion of order and stability in the cotton markets; his prodding led to the warehousing of ginned bales rather than leaving them exposed to the elements. In the 1930s, he extended the notion of loaning money on stored inventory to the oil business, reasoning that oil “stored” in the ground wasn’t that much different from cotton stored in a warehouse.

Perhaps Adams’ greatest contribution to Dallas’ business and financial community was his persistent effort that resulted in the surprising announcement, in 1914, that Dallas was to become regional headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, New Orleans and other cities could all document more mature financial reputations-but all were passed over, Adams and his cronies won the day by focusing on what Dallas had done lately. He died in 1966 at the age of 96.

K. L. Thornton, distracted by the fast-moving traffic outside his downtown window, once told a visiting developer that what Dallas needed was more congestion. “Uncle Bob,” as he was called, could see beauty in traffic jams, waiting lines and construction dust. No list of Dallas founders can ignore him.

He was born in a sod dugout in Hamilton County, Texas, and dropped out of school when he was nine, but claimed to be an alumnus of “C.C. & M,” which, he would tell the uninitiated, stood for Corn, Cotton and Mules. He moved to Dallas, borrowed enough money to take a bookkeeping course, and in 1916, borrowed more money to found what would become the Mercantile National Bank in what had been the Blue Goose Saloon. Thornton’s bank was the first in town to keep late hours and the first to make loans on the purchase of automobiles.

His fortune secured, Thornton dedicated himself to civic affairs, first through the Chamber of Commerce and then in 1936 by winning the Texas Centennial celebration for Dallas, a town that had not even existed when the state won its independence a century earlier. It was his idea to form the powerful Citizens Council in 1937, as he put it, “to organize the boss men so we can act quick.” During the 1940s and ’50s, these Dallas patriarchs would have a lot more to say about the path the city was to take than any elected officials.

Thornton’s “cotton-pickin” talk” brought him and Dallas national fame when he used a term that inspired a 1949 FORTUNE magazine article entitled “Dydamic Men of Dallas.” Thornton and others like him, from a generation in which there was no time or money for formal education, did not know how to do much or anything except make money and build a city.

Thornton, who died in 1964, served as Dallas mayor from 1953 until 1961. In reality, he held the post much longer than that.

Though not as colorful as R.L. Thornton or as well known as Stanley Marcus, Fred Florence took a back seat to no one when it came to influence. During his three decades as president of the Republic National Bank, Florence was the single person whose support of a civic undertaking was coveted as a sure sign of success. Though he never held public office, he played a key role in determining who did.

The son of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants, Florence got his start in the banking trade in Alto, Texas, and helped form the Guaranty Bank and Trust in Dallas in 1920. If he ever had a small-town image, he left it behind in East Texas. In 10 years, under his leadership at Guaranty, the bank’s deposits grew from less than $5 million to more than $50 million, and the name of the bank was changed to Republic National. By the 1950s, the bank had the tallest building in town and had assumed its role as the most powerful and influential lending institution in the state.

Florence, by the way, was the first banker in the country-and perhaps the world-to lend huge sums of money based on his estimate of the value of unproven oil reserves. Luckily for him (and for Dallas), there was plenty of oil to back up his gamble.

“This property for sale. Call Henry S. Miller.” The sign is familiar but the story of the man is not. Few realize that the firm founded by Miller, always operating outside the limelight, put together the deals that gave downtown Dallas the boost to the big time.

Like many of his generation. Miller dropped out of school in 1904 at the age of 14. He worked for a few years as an office boy at Sanger Bros., then gave up the secure but measly salary for a more risky job selling real estate-and raising a family on commission. In 1914, he opened a one-man real estate office and spent decades developing the trust and respect of an invaluable network of personal and professional relationships.

Nudged by his son Henry Jr., who joined the firm following discharge from military service after World War II, Miller agreed to expansion, which led the firm to prominence as one of the largest and most influential real estate operations in this part of the country. During the boom years downtown, developers were inspired to take on risky projects by the remarkable speed with which the Miller firm was able to lease up a new building. In 1968, Miller became ill while working on a million-dollar project with Dallas developer Trammell Crow. Miller signed the final papers, brokering his last deal, from his deathbed.

One might not readily associate the name “Carpenter” with downtown Dallas, but with the Carpenter Freeway, perhaps, or Las Colinas, which is becoming a downtown of its own on land once owned by the Carpenter family. But think again: John W. Carpenter, as a leader in utilities, transportation and insurance, was indeed an instrumental figure in the development of the downtown area.

At one time or another he was présider of Dallas Railway and Terminal Company, Texas Power and Light, Texas Electric Service Company, Texas Public Utilities Corporation, Gulf States Life Insurance Company and Southland Life Insurance Company. It was with the latter firm in 1959 that he made his most dramatic physical impression on the Dallas skyline with the opening of the 42-story Southland Life Building. At the time it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi.

In his spare time, Carpenter helped found a hospital, a college, a church and a steel mill. A former employer once remarked that “John is as faithful as a dog, as industrious as sunshine, and almost as constant as gravitation.”

He probably never ser foot in a cotton field; he did not talk “country,” and no one ever called him “Uncle Erik.” But he was able to overcome these disadvantages not to mention having been born in Brooklyn, to become one of the great Dallas leaders. He was from a different school than Thornton, Adams and Florence-Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, to be exact, where he earned a graduate degree in engineering. He came to Dallas in 1934 with Geophysical Services, the predecessor of Texas Instruments, where he made a sizable fortune. When he had finished doing that, he served as mayor of Dallas from 1964 until 1971.

For Jonsson, the promise to pay back some of what the city had given him was more than a catchy slogan. He devoted his full energy to leading Dallas through the transition to major metropolitan status, and accepted the challenge of restoring the city’s image, which had hit rock bottom with the assassination of President Kennedy. Accentuating the pos- itive and employing the goals-oriented approach of big business, Jonsson introduced the “Goals for Dallas” program, through which thousands of local citizens have contributed their ideas for making Dallas a better place to live. By 1970, our image had improved to such an extent that Dallas was named an “All-American City” by Look magazine, a coveted honor at the time.

Jonsson’s tenacity was largely responsible for our current city hall and he played a major role in the realization of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, a factor in a number of corporate relocations to this area. Much of the downtown system of underground passageways, praised by some, condemned by others, is a vestige of the Jonsson years. In 1979, at the age of 78, Jonsson led the fund drive to build a new main library downtown, named in his honor.

Mr. Stanley,” as he is known to much of the world, may be Dallas’ best-known citizen. Picking up where his father Herbert Marcus left off and adding the sophisticated touch of his own inimitable style, Stanley Marcus made shopping in Dallas, rather than New York or Paris, acceptable behavior for those Texans who could afford to shop anywhere. Before the Neiman-Marcus catalog and before The Store was sold to the Carter-Hawley-Hale Corp., the real value of Stanley Marcus7 monumental success in gaining worldwide fame for the downtown landmark was nor the business it brought from the rest of the world, but the sense of comfort it gave to the reliably regular shoppers from North Dallas and the Park Cities. This success spilled over to the other quality retail establishments in the downtown area.



Marcus attended Amherst, graduated from Harvard, spent a year at Harvard Business School, then eagerly entered the family business in 1926. By 1929, his merchandising genius was put to good use when he was made manager of the apparel divisions. By 1937, the Neiman I Marcus legend grew beyond the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar when FORTUNE magazine ran a major feature story called “Dallas in Wonderland,” The writer was agog at the remarkable discovery of a world-class array of fine fashion in Dallas, seemingly as startled as if he had stumbled onto an Egyptian tomb in the Trinity River bottoms.

Apart from his merchandising wizardry, Marcus has long served as one of Dallas’ most solid citizens. A few weeks after the Kennedy assassination, he published an even-handed critique called “What’s Right in Dallas?” in a hair-page advertisement in The Dallas Morning News. It was a reassuring call to reason in an irrational time.