DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, in my own words. Now, some buildings just stand there. They hold up a roof, keep out the rain, do their job, and nobody much thinks about them.
And then there are buildings that seem to announce themselves — buildings that reach up toward the sky like they've got something to prove. The Busch-Kirby Building in Dallas is one of those. Let me tell you about it.
Adolphus Busch had this building constructed in 1913 — not as a landmark, mind you, not as some monument to himself, but as a complementary retail and office facility for his nearby Adolphus Hotel. Complementary. That word does a lot of work.
This building was meant to serve the hotel, to round it out, to complete the picture. And yet here it stands, decades later, still drawing eyes. The design came from the St.
Louis architectural firm of Barnett, Hayes and Barnett, working in association with the Dallas firm of Lang and Witchell. Between them, they gave the building a strong vertical emphasis — and then, as if that upward reach wasn't enough on its own, they topped it off with Gothic pinnacles and spires. Pinnacles and spires.
On a retail and office building. Fine terra cotta details running all the way up. Then in 1919, the Kirby Investment Company acquired it, and the building got the hyphenated name it carries to this day — Busch-Kirby.
Two names, one building, reaching skyward over Dallas. That's the whole story. Sometimes what starts as a complement becomes the thing you remember.
What the marker says
Adolphus Busch had this building constructed in 1913 as a complementary retail and office facility for his nearby Adolphus Hotel. It was acquired by the Kirby Investment Company in 1919. Designed by the St. Louis architectural firm of Barnett, Hayes & Barnett, in association with the Dallas firm of Lang and Witchell, it features a strong vertical emphasis with Gothic pinnacles and spires highlighting the top, and fine terra cotta details. RTHL - 1988