Dallas Downtown Historic District (Additional Documentation)

Downtown Dallas contains a dense core of commercial architecture just east of the Trinity River. The district covers 98 buildings, sites and structures, with 54 counted contributing resources, 32 noncontributing, and twelve more buildings already individually listed, including the Adolphus Hotel, the Majestic Theater and the Neiman Marcus Building. Most date from the 1910s through the late 1950s and range from modest one- and two-story brick storefronts to tall bank, hotel and office towers in Beaux Arts, Art Deco, Moderne and International styles. Two late nineteenth-century survivors, the Hart Building (1888) and the Sumpter/Leggett Building (1892), predate the boom. The district was recognized for its role in the city's rise as a banking, insurance, oil and retail center, and for showing the growth of city planning, including the Kessler Plan and the 1927 Ulrickson bond program. Buildings sit close to the street, and most changes to them were limited to storefronts or occurred during the historic period.