S.S.
Kress Building
El Paso, Texas
Research Packet and Narrative by:
Kathy Pepper
Dr. George D. Torok
Honors Project
Spring 2002
National Endowment for the Humanities Historical Markers Project
Historical Narrative: S. H. Kress Building, 100 Mills Avenue
Kress department store first opened its doors in El
Paso in 1907, at 211 N. Mesa. A 1916 fire destroyed part of the store,
but it was rebuilt at the same location. A second fire in 1924
destroyed the store, and again it was rebuilt. In 1937, the store
location was moved to the corner of Mills and Oregon Streets and the
design of this new store became one of the most beautiful and unique
stores in the entire chain. This new location originally housed part of
the San Antonio and San Diego (Jackass) Mail stage line, which started
business in July 1857, and a shop operated by Sam Hing, a private banker
for the Chinese who also supplied labor for railroads and other
contractors. Later, these businesses and others adjacent to it were
replaced by the United States Federal Building. These were subsequently
torn down to make room for the new Kress building.1
Samuel Henry Kress (1863-1955) opened his first S. H.
Kress & Co. 5 - 10 - 25 Cent store in Memphis, Tennessee in 1896. He
continued building and opening stores until he had over 200 stores in
1944. The most distinctive stores in the chain were the ones designed
by Edward F. Sibbert (1899-1982) and were built from the beginning of
the Depression through World War II. Dime stores and movie houses were
popular escapes from the dreariness of the Depression, and Kress
constructed his stores to take advantage of that.2 Even
though the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, Kress
realized that it would not last forever and he took the opportunity to
use cheap labor and materials to build his unique store designs.3
At the request of the Women’s Department of the El
Paso Chamber of Commerce, Sibbert designed the El Paso Kress store with
regional architecture in mind.4 Native American architecture
of the Southwest is suggested in the stalks of desert plants decorating
the doors leading
to each balcony on Mills Street, Mayan motifs, sculptures resembling
primitive masks, and the Indian motif ironwork on the balcony. Actual
Mexican tiles are set in the door frames inside the Oregon Street
entrance. Kress’s interest in the production of cotton and the cotton
lace that sold well in his stores is reflected in the design on the
tiles on either side of the store name on the Oregon Street entrance.
Red-clay tiles mark the roofline along the street elevations adding to
the allusion of Spanish architecture. The bell tower reflects the
Anglo, Indian, Spanish, and Mexican cultures of El Paso: the tower
itself echoes the tower on the Federal Building that had been at the
location; the shape of the tower and its carillon suggest the Socorro
Mission; the colorful latticed walls, buff-colored blocks, and finials
imitate the towers of mosques in Muslim Spain; and the honeycomb
latticework is reminiscent of the walls of a Mayan temple.5
The pattern of the tiles flanking the store’s name over the Oregon
Street entrance derives from the plan of a Moorish patio of enclosed
garden.6 Sibbert also designed a tower that functioned as a
carillon and was wired for both chimes and lighting. A tower that
played music was a one-time phenomenon in Kress’s building history.7
The Kress store used
terra-cotta extensively for the outside walls and the embellishments.
Kress stores had been constructed in either brick or terra-cotta until
1934, when terra cotta facades became standard. However, stores with
more than one elevation were not made entirely with terra-cotta until
the El Paso store,8 “the only Kress in the country having
entrances and exits on three different streets.”9
It was difficult to classify the type of architecture
because the design was so new and unique, but it has usually been
described as Spanish style with Moorish influence,10 and it
became one of Sibbert’s favorites.11
Since the opening of the El Paso Kress store, it led
the nation in sales.12 Partly because of this, the El Paso
Museum of Art received 57 paintings and two sculptures from the Kress
Collection that are permanently displayed in the Kress Collection
Gallery.13
Kress went out of business in 1980, and was purchased
by McCrory Stores Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992.
The building is now being used by a variety of small business.
1.
Leon Metz, El Paso: Guided Through Time
(El Paso 1999), 24-27.
2. Samuel H. Kress Foundation, “S. H. Kress &
Company.”
3. Jim
Sweeny, “Remembering the House of Kress.”
4.
“Kress Favors Spanish Style,” El Paso (TX) Times, April 20,
1937.
5. Bernice
Thomas,
America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores
(NY 1997), 153-155.
6. Marcus Whiffen
and Carla Breeze,
Pueblo Deco: The Art Deco
Architecture of the Southwest
(Albuquerque 1984), 66.
7. Thomas, America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores ,
155.
8.
Ibid., 96.
9.
Metz, El Paso: Guided Through Time,
27.
10. “Two Views of El Paso’s Newest Business
Building,” El Paso (TX) Times, Nov 6, 1938.
11. Thomas, America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores,
150.
12.
Metz, El Paso Guided Through Time,
27.
13. El
Paso Museum of Art, Galleries.
Proposed Marker Text
Samuel
H. Kress (1863-1955) opened the El Paso Kress store in 1937 on the site
of the former United States Federal Building. At the request of the
Women’s Department of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce, Edward F. Sibbert
(1899-1982) designed the store with regional architecture in mind. The
design is described as Spanish style with Moorish influence and it
became one of Sibbert’s favorites. Native American architecture of the
Southwest is suggested in the stalks of desert plants decorating the
doors leading to each balcony on Mills Street, Mayan motifs, sculptures
resembling primitive masks, and the Indian motif ironwork on the
balcony. Actual Mexican tiles are set in the door frames inside the
Oregon Street entrance. Red-clay tiles mark the roofline along the
street elevations adding to the allusion of Spanish architecture. The
bell tower reflects the Anglo, Indian, Spanish, and Mexican cultures of
El Paso. It functioned as a carillon and was wired for both chimes and
lighting. A tower that played music was a one-time phenomenon in
Kress’s building history. Additionally, the El Paso store was the only
one having entrances and exits on three different streets. The Kress
chain sold out to McCrory in 1980; this store was closed in 1997.
