Grayson County TXGenWeb

The Denison Press
Friday, January 7, 1938

REMODELING OF GUTTED HOUSES HERE UNDERWAY
Two Buildings on Opposite Sides of Main Street BUrn Within Short Time Here.

Work remodeling the JUlian C. Feild building gutted by fire thi week and destroying the S.H. Kress stock, will start at an early date and is expected to be under way before the building owned by Mrs. B.J. Lindsay, just across the street from the Kress store, is remodeled following a fire in that structure.
It is a coincidence that the only fires to occur on Main street in several months have been in the same block and opposite each other and housed business concerns of a substantial nature....Work at remodeling is being rushed and when completed by Mrs. Lindsay, now in an adjoining building and the one she occupies will be taken over by the Simms company. A large vault, both burglar and fire proof, is being built to protect the large stock of valulable cigarets and cigars carried by Mr. Simms. The whold structure will be much better equipped for this business than before. Mr. Simms has built up in a few years the largest wholesale tobaccco and candy business of any operator in this part of the south. He is a Denison born and reared young man and has also purchased his home on West Sears street where he resides with his family. His brother, Mercer D. Simms, who operates a large planning mill, is doing the mill work for the remodeling work. The father of the Simms boys, R.B. Simms, Sr., operates a shoe repair and manufacturing plant immediately adjoining the tobacco store.
The Kress store building, one of the early buildings on the 400 block of Main, is owned by Julian C. Feild, also a Denison man, born and reared, son of the late Dr. Feild, prominent in the life of the city. He wil rebuild the store in line with the needs of the Kress concern and promises to be one of the most up-to-date buildings in the entire group of stores operated by this concern. Work is to be started at the earliest possible moment.