Dallas’ First Retail Giants

Dallas’s fashion industry began with the railroads, which attracted merchants who opened small shops that grew into major department stores. The most notable one was Sanger Brothers. Seven Sanger brothers left Bavaria to escape anti-Semitic persecution. Experienced merchants, they continued that work in the U.S. Three of them became “terminus merchants,” following the progress of railroad lines and opening stores at each new city reached by the line. Alexander and Philip Sanger followed the Houston and Texas Central Railroad to Dallas in 1872. The city became the home base of a retail and wholesale empire that served all of Texas and beyond.