The red brick warehouses in the northwest corner of downtown Dallas are reminders of the city’s early years as a manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution entrepôt. The Texas and Pacific Railway was built along Pacific Avenue in 1873, and many of the existing structures orient to that service. Elm Street was the cotton market, the region’s top cash crop. Although the tracks were removed in 1923 as part of the traffic safety improvements of the Kessler Plan, Pacific Avenue is again the center of rail transportation, with four lines of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system.
Built as a warehouse for the John Deere Plow Company (by 1891, Dallas was the country’s largest distribution center for farm equipment), 501 Elm Place (1902, Hubbell and Greene; 1986 adaptive reuse, Corgan Associates) at 501 Elm Street is a seven-story, load-bearing brick structure, evident by its heavy corner bays, robust central piers, and few windows.
The Southern Supply Company Building (1911, J. Riely Gordon with H. A. Overbeck; 1985 adaptive reuse, Corgan Associates) at 211 N. Record Street shows the strong influence of H. H. Richardson and Louis Sullivan in the tripartite layering of the arcaded ground floor, tall arched bays of the shaft, and small arched windows in the attic story. The individually framed windows and corner quoins on the masonry walls of the Purse and Company Building (1905, H. A. Overbeck; 601 Elm) are elements of an earlier classical mode.
The simplicity of the Awalt Warehouses (c. 1905; 208 N. Market Street), capped by arched windows and a Lombardic cornice, is typical of the warehouses that once lined nearby Pacific Avenue. Rusticated brick coursing at the ground floor and upper bays expressed with varied window groupings and tall, arched central bays mask the utilitarian function of the Texas Moline Plow Building (1903, H. A. Overbeck; 1984 adaptive reuse, Corgan Associates) at 302 N. Market.