Glance to your left to spot the Titche-Goettinger Building, an enormous, block-shaped structure faced in pale Indiana limestone with a distinct row of tall, arched windows lining its lower levels. Check out the picture on your app to see the full stretch of this old retail giant. This historic building stands as a monument to the colossal ambitions that continually reshaped this city's skyline through endless cycles of fortune and failure. But the foundation it rests on was not just raw commercial ambition... it was heartbreak.
Edward Titche came to town in 1892. He only planned to stay long enough to settle the estate of his uncle, who had been brutally murdered in the nearby woods for his gold watch and some cash. But the booming local economy convinced Edward to stick around. He eventually joined a local bicycle club, which is where he met Max Goettinger.
The two men quickly realized they shared more than just their roots as children of German immigrants. They shared an unbelievable weight of loss. Max was a grieving widower who had lost his infant daughter, his young wife, and would eventually lose his only surviving son. Edward had been engaged to be married, but his fiancee died of a sudden illness just one month before their wedding day.
It makes you wonder... how often does profound personal grief become the bedrock of a city shaping empire?
Bonded by tragedy, neither man ever married again. Instead, they poured their entire lives into their dry goods business and their community. By the late 1920s, they needed a huge new flagship store. The plot of land they chose had its own tragic past. It was the site of the legendary Dallas Opera House, which had been destroyed by a devastating fire in 1921. Talk about rising from the ashes... Edward and Max bought the scorched lot and transformed the charred ruins into a modern retail palace.
When it opened in 1929, it was a marvel. The outside featured Renaissance Revival style, an architectural design mimicking grand Italian palaces, while the inside was pure Art Deco. The main level had patterned terrazzo floors, a luxurious surface made by setting marble chips into concrete and polishing them smooth. Deep below ground, a state-of-the-art refrigerated vault held up to three thousand fur coats.
Yet, despite designing every inch of this masterpiece, the two aging bachelors unexpectedly sold their business mere months before the grand opening. Even so, their names remained permanently etched into the facade.
Decades later, this building bore witness to a national tragedy. On November 22, 1963, the store was buzzing. They were running a holiday promotion on color televisions marked down to four hundred ninety five dollars, which is roughly five thousand dollars today. Crowds spilled out of these very doors to cheer as President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed by. The assassination carried a devastating personal blow right here. The store's president at the time, Lee Starr, had been Kennedy's roommate for a semester at Harvard. Starr was actually waiting at the Trade Mart to reunite with his old friend, a reunion that was violently thwarted.
Today, the structure houses university classrooms and loft apartments. It is a quiet new chapter for a building born from such deep emotional roots. Now, let us shift our focus from sprawling department stores to the story of Dallas's first true skyscraper. We are going to head toward the Praetorian Building, which is just a three minute walk away.
