The Wilson Building, located at 1623 Main Street, is one of the most beautiful structures still standing in downtown Dallas. It was built in 1903 by John B. Wilson. The building was designed by the firm of Sanguinet & Staats, a large firm out of Fort Worth. Carl Staats of that firm was the designer of the Wilson Building. The firm is credited for many other interesting buildings such as Waco’s Amicable Life Insurance Company Building and Fort Worth’s Burk Burnett Building, Hotel Texas Building and First National Bank Building.
The Wilson Building was said to be “patterned after” the Palais Garnier in Paris, France. Its style is said to be French Renaissance/Second Empire. The original tenant of the E shaped building was the Titche-Goettinger department store on the lower floors with office space above. An 12 story annex was added in 1911 with the same exterior styling as the original building.
John B. Wilson (1849 – 1920) was born in Canada and moved to Texas to join his brother Fred. J. B. was well known as a cattleman and was the owner of the 7-D Ranch near San Angelo. He married Laura D. Witt (1854 – 1932) of Illinois in 1878. The couple had met on the occasion of Miss Witt visiting her uncle, a partner of Wilson’s in the cattle business. The couple had five daughters: Mrs. Mabel Wilson Richards, Mrs. Fay Wilson Munger, Mrs. Bess Wilson Schoellkopf, Mrs. Lucile Wilson Pattullo and Mrs. Margaret Geraldine Wilson Knight Smith.
After Titche-Goettinger moved to its own building downtown two blocks away in 1929, W. A. Green operated a department store in the area formerly occupied by Titche-Goettinger in that location until 1961. H. L. Green operated a variety store on the lower floors until 1997. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It is currently operated as a residential and retail property.
The initial building has a brick exterior and rises eight stories high, having a reinforced concrete frame and concrete beam foundation. It is currently configured to provide 135 apartment units in its 89,368 square feet. It has a basement area of 22,592 square feet. Its HVAC is provided by central heating and air conditioning. It has a parking garage having a reinforced concrete frame and consisting of 55,855 square feet and rising four stories high. The parking garage has a foundation of concrete piers and amounts to 13,963 square feet. The annex rises twelve stories high and is of the same construction. It amounts to 62,550 square feet. Another 26,462 square foot five story addition was said to have been added in 1957, but to all appearances, the exterior of the main building and annex appear to be much the same as they did in 1911.
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