The Sumpter Building — 1912 | Flashback : Dallas

The Sumpter Building — 1912

by Paula Bosse

by Paula Bosse

Behold, the Sumpter Building and a partial view of its little buddy, the Edwards & Phillips Building, which were built simultaneously. (See them on a 1921 Sanborn map here.) Both were designed by Dallas architect C. D. Hill, whose spectacular Municipal Building would be built a couple of years later, two and a half blocks away.

Guess what? Both are still standing — part of the Joule empire. See what they look like today — at 1604-1608 Main Street — on Google Street View here. (The shorter building has been through a multitude of renovations over the years, but at some point, by at least 2007, someone had restored it — however briefly — to its original design, as you can see in a 2007 Google Street View here — look how tired and dirty the Sumpter Building looked back then, before its recent scrubbed and rejuvenated revitalization.)

The Sumpter Building served primarily as office space over the years — architect C. D. Hill had a “penthouse” office on the top floor (I wonder if he knew that when he was drawing up the plans?) — and the smaller building was retail space on the ground floor and office space above. It might be remembered as the home of Linz Jewelers for several decades.

Dallas Morning News, Dec. 17, 1911 (click to read)

DMN, Mar. 7, 1912

DMN, Aug. 25, 1912

Dallas Historical Society, 1912

The smaller building debuted as home to retail tenant Matthews Brothers. (It is presently the home of another fashion mecca, Traffic Los Angeles (1608 Main).

April 1912

In 1940, Linz took over the shorter building. Articles in The Dallas Morning News described “construction” and a new design by Lang & Witchell, but I think the building was just gutted and (weirdly) refaced.

Linz Bros. Jewelers (Lang & Witchell, 1940)

Here it is in living color, in 1970.

WFAA-Channel 8 News, Jan. 1970 (Jones Film Collection, SMU)

By the end of 1970, the building had undergone another (weird) “facelift” (and an expansion).

WFAA-Channel 8 News, Jan. 1971 (Jones Film Collection, SMU)

(The two screenshots above are from Channel 8 news reports about a fantastically successful jewelry heist in January 1970. Linz would never reveal the value of jewels stolen in the massive theft, but it was estimated at the time to be between $1.6 million and $3.5 million (the equivalent in today’s dollars of $12.5 million to $27 million!). It was the biggest burglary in Dallas history, and it was estimated to have been the biggest in the South. As far as I can tell, the crime was never solved. A great report on how it happened — with interesting little tidbits such as the fact that the robbers emptied a safe and took everything except for a few pieces of costume jewelry and that the burglars stopped for a break to brew a cup of coffee in the adjacent shoe store — can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives in the story “Gem Loss $3 Million?” by Robert Finklea (DMN, Jan. 13, 1970). It reads like a movie!

I’m always surprised to find these century-old buildings still standing downtown. Poor things have been through a lot.

Thank you to Chad K. for asking on Patreon if I knew anything about the history of these buildings. As it turned out, I knew NOTHING about the history of these buildings. I do now! Thanks for asking, Chad!

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