Monnig’s (1889-1988): The “Friendly Store”

Before John Marvin and Obadiah Paul Leonard came to town, before W. C. Stripling and R. E. Cox and J. C. Penney and H. C. Meacham came to town, the Monnig family was already here and selling corsets, collar buttons, hat pins, mosquito netting, curling irons, shaving brushes, and garters.

Family patriarch Otto Monnig was born in Prussia in 1826 and immigrated to America in 1847. He settled in Missouri with wife Emma. Their nine children were spaced about two years apart.

Otto operated a hardware store in St. Louis and Hermann.

In 1889 Otto, hearing that Texas was the land of opportunity, sent son William to scout out the commercial prospects. After seeing McKinney, Belton, San Antonio, Dallas, and Fort Worth, William bought two lots at 1304 and 1306 Main Street in Fort Worth.

The family moved here, hired architects Haggart and Sanguinet to design a commercial building: the only brick building south of 6th Street at the time. There were no sidewalks, no paved streets.

The Monnig’s building was only fifty feet wide, two stories high. Half the space housed Otto Jr.’s hardware store, half housed the dry goods store of brothers William and George.

The brothers lived over the stores.

Monnig’s dry goods store and hardware store opened in April 1889.

The store’s location in 1889 was in Hell’s Half Acre. Along one side of the same block three female boarding house (brothel) cribs were sandwiched between two saloons.

But William and George took in $44 ($1,200) on the first day of business and were encouraged.

In the beginning they had a work force of four: George and William clerked, and two boys swept.

The Monnigs priced much of their merchandise in increments of ninety-eight cents, giving two shiny new pennies in change and causing local banks to keep a larger supply of pennies.

When Otto Jr.’s hardware store faltered, George and William used a hatchet to chop down the partition between the two stores: Monnig’s first expansion.

In August 1890 the Monnigs celebrated seventeen months in business.

You might be as surprised as I was to find that before Monnig’s faced competition from Leonard’s, Stripling’s, or Cox’s, it faced The Fair, founded in 1890 by Frank Schermerhorn. Seventy-three years later Monnig’s would get rid of its early competitor.

By 1892 the Monnig brothers were no longer living over their store.

In 1900 the Monnigs bought $40,000 worth of merchandise from a failing store but were unable to sell it retail and were forced to sell it wholesale in neighboring towns.

Thus did Monnig’s enter the wholesale dry goods business.

The wholesale division soon employed twelve salesmen, each traveling around Texas and the adjoining states lugging one thousand pounds of samples in five trunks.

In 1901 Otto Jr. died. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

“Monnig’s wonderful 5c sale” of 1902.

In 1907 family patriarch Otto Sr. died. He, too, is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

The surviving brothers, William and George, prospered and built homes on the near South Side, William’s house (top photo, 1905) on West Leuda Street, George’s on Broadway Street (1910), replacing a house that burned in the South Side fire of 1909.

By 1912, as Monnig’s celebrated its twenty-third year, its space along Main Street had expanded from a building fifty feet wide and two stories high to a row of four buildings 125 feet wide and from three to five stories high.

The company now had 102 employees and did $1.5 million ($39 million today) in business annually.

In 1918 the Main Street store expanded into a six-story building behind on Houston Street.

But brother George died in 1919. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

William continued as president and treasurer.

In 1924 William Monnig announced an ambitious relocation and expansion of both the retail and wholesale divisions. The retail store would move uptown to 5th Street between Houston and Throckmorton streets.

The new store had a beauty salon, toyland, florist, bargain basement, candy shop, soda fountain, and lunch counter. Most of the lunch counter food was prepared at King’s Candy Store and Tea Rooms at 810 Main Street.

A new service was “Miss Shopper,” a Monnig’s employee who shopped for people who could not visit Monnig’s in person, for example, persons in west Texas who saw a Monnig’s newspaper ad in the Star-Telegram, which was delivered to much of west Texas.

The store would continue to expand until it was housed in six connected buildings that covered the entire block bounded by Throckmorton, Houston, 4th, and 5th streets. Its popular air-conditioned Tea Room opened in 1939.

In the late 1940s a new façade would give all six buildings a uniform exterior.

Also in 1925 architects Sanguinet and Staats designed a new building for Monnig’s wholesale business at 100 East 15th Street next to Joseph Brown’s wholesale grocery building.

Years later William’s son Oscar, by then president of the company, would fight to save the building when it was threatened on two sides by construction of the Water Gardens, convention center, and east-west freeway.

And he would be successful. In 1982 Monnig’s left the building, but it was renovated and lives on as Water Gardens Place.

The Monnig’s buildings in the store’s original location were less fortunate: They were demolished for the convention center.

By 1930 Monnig’s had branded itself as “the Friendly Store.”

And by 1933 the grand alignment of downtown department stores (and dime stores) that many of us remember was in place. (Sanger’s had closed in 1930.)

This photo was taken in 1937 from the roof of the Kress Building. The building on the right is the 1925 Sanger-Meacham Building. (Courtesy of the Genealogy, History and Archives Unit, Fort Worth Public Library.)

Monnig’s, like most of the downtown department stores, offered customers the option of shopping by phone or mail via a “personal shopper.” Miss Peggy Prim would be glad to assist you.

After fifty-eight years as president of the family business, William Monnig died in 1947. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

He was remembered as a civic leader: head of the chamber of commerce, Community Chest, Retail Merchants Association, Fort Worth Centennial Association, and Casa Manana. He also served twelve years on the city council.

In 1919 Monnig, W. C. Stripling, Amon Carter, and other civic leaders had formed the Citizens Hotel Company to build a showcase hotel for Fort Worth: the Hotel Texas.

Upon William’s death son Otto W. Monnig took over as president.

In 1974 William’s son Oscar became the last Monnig to hold the presidency.

In 1951 the school board voted to name a new junior high school for William Monnig.

(That year Monnig’s Department Store became the first store in town to offer charge-a-plates.)

In 1963 Monnig’s Department Store got rid of its early competitor, buying The Fair. Monnig’s closed The Fair’s downtown building (1930, Hedrick) at 307 West 7th (now home of the Star-Telegram) and rebranded The Fair’s four suburban stores: River Oaks, Westcliff, Meadowbrook, Ridglea.

Monnig’s ad of 1967.

In 1980 family ownership of the Monnig’s chain ended when the company was sold to Eugene Adelson and Gerson Bernstein.

Then began a wild roller-coaster—make that escalator—ride for the department store chain.

In 1986 local businessman Ken Landers bought the chain from Adelson and Bernstein. Soon the chain had fourteen outlets. In 1987 Monnig’s opened a branch in a West Monroe, Louisiana.

Escalator up.

But that same year Monnig’s closed its branch in Amarillo.

Escalator down.

In 1988 the escalator ride was one way: into the basement. By May 25 Monnig’s Meadowbrook, Monnig’s River Oaks, Monnig’s Westcliff, the Outlet Store, and the Ridgmar Mall and Irving Mall branches closed, leaving the chain with seven stores.

In June 9 Monnig’s filed for bankruptcy and closed its branch in Louisiana and its Ridglea Mall and Hulen Mall stores in Fort Worth, leaving it with four branches.

In October the Wichita Falls and Hurst branches closed. Two stores were left: downtown Fort Worth and Arlington.

In November 1988 Monnig’s closed its downtown store and then the Arlington branch.

Just five months short of its centennial Monnig’s, the “Friendly Store,” was gone—lock, stock, and Tea Room.

Postscript: The Basses bought the downtown property and demolished the building to erect a parking lot for Sundance Square.

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11 Responses to Monnig’s (1889-1988): The “Friendly Store”

  1. Jillian Wagenheim says:

    My grandfather was Gerson Bernstein. I have fond memories of going to the store – especially the hat section.

  2. John Olthoff says:

    I started working for Monnig’s in 1982,I worked on 2nd floor where new owners gave Mr. Oscar Monnig an office. Outside was a display case with part of his meteorite collection (now at TCU), He would light up when talking about the pieces in the case. I also once carried out Mrs. Monnig’s purchases, she handed me some money. I told her not supposed to take money, she said nonsense I am Mrs. Oscar Monnig and will tip who I want too. If they say anything to you, tell them to call me.

    I later went to work at Monnig’s Arlington, I left company then came back. Sad that all that is left is the name, it’s former home now a parking lot

    So many great memories of the people who worked there, thank you for the story.

  3. Richard White says:

    Little-known fun fact:

    The famously successful wishbone-T formation used to great effect by the University of Texas in the late ’60s was created at Monnig Junior High.

    Of less note, I did some early growing up — from 1951 to 1956 — in one of the houses razed for Travis Avenue Baptist Church’s parking lot.

  4. Sarah Monnig Barnes says:

    Howdy! This was so informational. I just happened onto this in my ebay search for something from the Monnig’s Deparment store in Waco. That store was run by my grandfather Edward Monnig.I remember trips to the store in the 70s and alway enjoyed seeing the merchandise and the employees. I specifically remember my grandfather’s description of the tornado that broke the front windows.
    Would you possibly sell copies of your research? I would love to share your newspaper clips with my side of the Monnigs. Thank you. Sarah Monnig Barnes

    • hometown says:

      Ms. Barnes, thanks. I don’t know much about the Monnigs and their store beyond what is in the post. You are certainly free to use any of it however you wish. Most browsers let you save a post as a pdf file with text and images.

  5. Robin D says:

    My grandmother was a/the store manager at the Ridglea store. My brother and I were in a Christmas commercial for Monnigs in the early 80s (I think). The commercial was filmed in the downtown Fort Worth store. Is there a tiny possibility that commercial is stored somewhere physically and/or digitally?

  6. John F says:

    Who were George Monnig’s neighbors on W. Broadway? Those were substantial homes (after the fire) too.

    • hometown says:

      John, according to the 1909 city directory, Monnig had the 100 block of West Broadway to himself. But by 1910 Sanborn maps show he had two neighbors, both with comparable two-story houses and carriage houses in the rear. One of these neighbors was Michael C. Hurley, a local entrepreneur who in 1892 had gone to Boston to convince Greenlief Wadleigh Simpson to come have a look-see at the livestock business north of Fort Worth, resulting in formation of the Fort Worth Stock Yards Company.

  7. Hugh Maddox Evans says:

    Yr work here is fascinating & exemplary– wondering if you have any line on the interplay between BC Evans & the three Maddox Bros at the end of the 19th century

    • hometown says:

      Thanks, Hugh. I have separate posts on Evans and on the Maddox family but know of no connection. Anne Maddox is an Evans descendant, but I don’t recall if she is related to that Maddox line.

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