Minding the Store

2. Exodus

2 Exodus ON A SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 11, 1913, a devastating fire destroyed the Neiman-Marcus store, five and a half years after it had opened. I had just returned from Sunday school and was greeted by my mother, "The store has just burned down." We took the streetcar to town to meet the family, which had gathered there as in a wake, mourning the total loss of what had been The Store. The next day the partners counted up the monies that would be coming in from the insurance, took stock of their savings, canvassed the family for additional funds, and decided that they would rebuild in a different location. It would take time to find the proper site, so they leased temporary quarters and fixtures and dispatched the buyers to New York to buy new stocks of merchandise. In seventeen days they reopened for business. My father, who still wrote the advertisements, had this to say: "Rather pretty temporary home, comfortable and cool; clean, with good air circulating around and around; refreshing roominess." As long as they were forced to move, the partners decided to be venturesome by going "uptown," opposite Titche-Goettillger's department store and seven long blocks from Sanger's. Dad, the "dreamer," persuaded his partners to build a larger store on the basis of the Neiman-Marcus experience and to add additional departments to better serve the clientele. Their available funds 21 EXODUS weren't adequate to build, fixture, and merchandise the new store, so Uncle Al went to New York to sell stock to some of the store's leading suppliers. Uncle Theo, the most affluent member of the Marcus family, having made his money as a cotton merchant, was a conservative, politically and financially; he was the direct opposite of his brother Herbert, the perennial optimist who never saw problems, only opportunities. Uncle Theo opposed the move uptown on the grounds of the high rent ($2,000 per month on a ninety-nine-year lease with gradual escalation) and the cost of building, which he felt confident would exceed his brother's estimates. He predicted failure, and urged my father to sell the store and salvage whatever he could. While Dad respected Uncle Theo's financial judgment and counseled with him frequently, he refused to take his advice, and proceeded with the plans for the new store. When Uncle Theo realized his recommendations were being ignored, he not only bought additional stock himself, but persuaded one of his cotton merchant associates in New Orleans, E. V. Benjamin, to invest as well. Such was the solidarity of the Marcus family. World War I began in August of 1914, and Neiman-Marcus opened its forty-thousand-square-foot building on September 15. From an "outer-garment shop" at Elm and Murphy, it became a "specialty shop" at Main and Ervay, with the addition of accessories , lingerie and corsets, infants, girls, and boys wear, and a moderately priced apparel department called "the Misses Shop." The four-story building was faced with red brick and had two elevators, which were supposed to have elaborate bronze doors on the first two floors. Unfortunately, the money ran out just before the opening, and the "tour de force" doors had to be abandoned for plain ordinary warehouse doors, all they could afford. With the outbreak of the war, the English, French, and German mill representatives who bought cotton in Dallas were forced to return home, unable to ship Texas cotton across the submarine· 22 EXODUS infested Atlantic. Cotton dropped to ten cents a pound and glutted the market. It was a common sight to see bales of cotton on the sidewalks of the main streets, as merchants and other businessmen joined the "buy a bale of cotton" movement to help the nearly bank. rupt cotton farmers. Texas was hit hard during the early days of the war. All of this had not been foreseen in the spring of 1914, for the United States had no precedent for a military involvement in Europe. On February 22, my father forecast the store to come by writing an editorial advertisement, of which he was so fond, because it gave him the opportunity to sell and resell the concepts of NeimanMarcus to its public. He reviewed the history of the store to date, "Its impetus found six years ago led by spare means but unlimited ambitions . . . Its leaders were beset with...