1916 - 9 E Plaza - Paris, TX
N 33° 39.664 W 095° 33.374
15S E 262973 N 3727507
Built right after the Great Paris Fire of 1916, the building at 9 E Plaza St, Paris, TX looks great after over a hundred years. Today, it is home to a children's clothing store, the Itsy Bitsy Spider.
Waymark Code: WM11EZ9
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 10/10/2019
Views: 2
A walk on the square reveals quite a bit of "1916" or "1917" if the visitor will simply look up near the top of a given building, like here. This building is part of the Paris Commercial Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, but as a non-contributing structure. One wonders whether the National Register would change this building's status back to "Contributing" if they were to revisit the district. The building can be seen in a few 1950s-era photos of the square in "Paris" in Arcadia's
Images of America series (by Timothy G. Grammer with Jim Bell). The façade was radically altered back in the day, and it appears that a considerable chunk of the lower level was removed. Today, the restored façade fits in nicely with the rest of the contributing buildings on the square, but that first floor change could forever bar it from inclusion.
The DowntownTX website is a great resource in providing some background, as the National Register's Nomination Form says little other than noting this one as a non-contributor (as property #21) and capturing it (as the Famous Shoe Store) in photo #55. It replaced whatever was there before the Great Fire of 1916, and these are some past occupants:
1917-24: F.W. Woolworth Company
1929: Mi-Lady's Hat Shop
1936: Parisian Hat Shop / The Oriental Shop (art goods)
1940-43: Mode O'Day (women's clothing)
1944-54: Mode O'Day / Famous Shoe Store
1957-62: Famous Shoe Store / Town & Country Shop (women's clothing)
1963-04: Famous Shoe Store
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