The New York Store

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the New York Store in Jim Hogg County. Now settle in, because this one's about something rarer than a blue norther in July, a family that held on. Sixto E.

Garcia opened the New York Store back in 1909, right there at Pine and Tilley streets. Let that sink in. Nineteen-oh-nine.

He ran that general store for years, and then in 1924 he moved the whole operation to the location where it stands today. Before long the store wasn't just a place to pick up dry goods, it offered a variety of goods and, if that wasn't enough, a tailoring and cleaning wing. A man could walk in needing a sack of flour and walk out looking sharp for Sunday.

Then came 1938, and something happened that would tie the next chapter of this story together real tight. Garcia's daughter Herlinda married a store clerk by the name of Blas M. Salinas.

The man who worked the counter married into the family that owned it. They and their children lived upstairs, right above the business, close enough to hear the floorboards of commerce beneath their feet every single day. When S.E.

Garcia passed in 1944, the family didn't fold up. They kept right on. And here's the part that'll sit with you: the New York Store has remained in the same family for more than a century.

The building itself is worth a good long look, two stories of common bond brick, a dentil course running along the top, a stepped parapet rising above storefront windows, and a projecting awning reaching out over the sidewalk like it's shading everyone who ever walked by. Some stores sell things. Some stores become something.

This one became both.

What the marker says

Sixto E. Garcia opened the New York Store in 1909 at Pine and Tilley streets, moving to this location in 1924. The general store later offered a variety of goods and a tailoring and cleaning wing. Garcia's daughter Herlinda married store clerk Blas M. Salinas in 1938. They and their children lived upstairs while continuing the family business after S.E. Garcia's death in 1944. The New York Store has remained in the same family for more than a century. The two-story commercial building features common bond brick with a dentil course and a stepped parapet above storefront windows and a projecting awning. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2010