S. H. Kress Building, 100 Mills Avenue
Research Packet and Narrative by: Kathy Pepper and Dr. George D. Torok
Spring 2002, National Endowment for the Humanities Historical Markers Project
Historical Narrative:
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.[i]
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.[ii] 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.[iii]
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.[iv] 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.[v] 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.[vi] 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.[vii]
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,[viii] “the only Kress in the country having entrances and exits on three different streets.”[ix]
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,[x] and it became one of Sibbert’s favorites.[xi]
Since the opening of the El Paso Kress store, it led the nation in sales.[xii] 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.[xiii]
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.
[i] Leon Metz, El Paso: Guided Through Time (El Paso 1999), 24-27.
[ii] Samuel H. Kress Foundation, “S. H. Kress & Company.”
[iii] Jim Sweeny, “Remembering the House of Kress.”
[iv] “Kress Favors Spanish Style,” El Paso (TX) Times, April 20, 1937.
[v] Bernice Thomas, America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores (NY 1997), 153-155.
[vi] Marcus Whiffen and Carla Breeze, Pueblo Deco: The Art Deco Architecture of the Southwest (Albuquerque 1984), 66.
[viii] Thomas, America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores , 155.
[viii] Ibid., 96.
[ix] Metz, El Paso: Guided Through Time, 27.
[x] “Two Views of El Paso’s Newest Business Building,” El Paso (TX) Times, Nov 6, 1938.
[xi] Thomas, America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores, 150.
[xii] Metz, El Paso Guided Through Time , 27.
[xiii] El Paso Museum of Art, Galleries.
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.
America's 5 and 10 Cent Stores by 
American Art Deco Modernistic Architecture and Regionalism by References:
Breeze, Carla. Pueblo Deco. NY: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc, 1990.
El Paso Museum of Art, Galleries http://www.elpasoartmuseum.org/collections/european
“Kress Building Plans Checked,” (El Paso, TX) Times, August 11, 1937.
“Kress Favors Spanish Style,” (El Paso, TX) Times, April 20, 1937.
“Kress Gets Permit For New Building,” (El Paso, TX) Times, June 3, 1938.
“Kress Serves its Last Lunch,” (El Paso, TX) Times, February 23, 1997.
“Kress to Close Landmark Store,” (El Paso, TX) Times, January 26, 1997.
Metz, Leon C. El Paso Guided Through Time. El Paso: Mangan Books, 1999.
----- Robert E. McKee, Master Builder. El Paso: Robert E. and Evelyn McKee Foundation, 1997.
“125 Sales Girls at Mahogany Counters to Open Kress Store,” (El Paso, TX) Post May 20, 1938.
Sasser, Elizabeth Skidmore. Dugout to Deco: Building in West Texas, 180-1930. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993.
Thomas, Bernice L. America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1997.
“Two Views of El Paso’s Newest Business Building,” (El Paso, TX) Times, November 6, 1938.
Whiffen, Marcus, and Carla Breeze. Pueblo Deco: The Art Deco Architecture of the Southwest. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.
