The Jamison Building

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Jamison Building in Bowie County. Now settle in, because this one's about a man who looked at a city and decided to build something it had never seen before. Dr.

Garling Urih Jamison, Senior, born in Mississippi in 1881, came to Texarkana with a vision. And in 1930, he opened a building that would become unlike anything the city's black community had ever had: the first black business and professional office building Texarkana had ever known. Think about what that means.

The first. Not one of the first. The first.

Now, Dr. Jamison didn't just throw up four walls and call it a day. He hired the Texarkana architectural firm of Witt, Seibert, and Halsey to design the place, and those architects answered the call.

The building features an interesting and decorative use of brick, the kind of detail that tells you somebody cared deeply about what this structure was going to say to the world. And the world listened. The Jamison Building became a center of economic, cultural, and social life in the city's black community.

Business, culture, community, all flowing through those decorated brick walls. Dr. Jamison passed in 1951, but the building he raised kept right on standin', keepin' its place as an important local landmark in Texarkana.

Some structures just hold a story too big to let go. The Jamison Building is one of them.

What the marker says

Mississippi-born Dr. Garling Urih Jamison, Sr., (1881-1951) opened this structure in 1930 as Texarkana's first black business and professional office building. Designed by the Texarkana architectural firm of Witt, Seibert, and Halsey, it features an interesting and decorative use of brick. The Jamison Building became a center of economic, cultural, and social life in the city's black community and has remained an important local landmark. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1983