Dal-Tex Building at 501 Elm in Dallas

It seems that the companies which operated within the Dal-Tex Building were part of the textile industry which was marketed through the Dallas fashion center, which periodically changed its name to reflect a broader area it encompassed.

Ian Griggs posted the following:

The photograph of Day with the plaque behind him is in Matthew Smith's "JFK: The Second Plot" and several other books. The companies listed on the plaque are as follows:

Allyn & Bacon, Inc.
American Book Co.
Gregg Publishing Division
Lyons and Carnahan
McGraw Hill Book Co.
The MacMillan Co.
Scott, Foresman & Co. [employer of Vickie Adams, Girl on the Stairs]
Southwestern Publishing Co.

I think those are the only book and publishing companies which rente premises in the building. Employees from thoswe lodger companies did not all appear on the infamous list of absentees. For example, Warren Caster was the Regional Manager of Southwestern Publishing Company but his name was not on the list despite him being away in Denton all day. They didn't seem to bother about all the employees of the above companies.

 If you get around to the Dal-Tex Building, the following companies had premises inside the building:

M & B Manufacturing Co, Inc.
Eddie Mister, Inc.
Adaptables, Unc.
Marilyn Belt Manufacturing
Dallas Uranium & Oil (aka DUO)
Edward Barry Inc.
Miller Cupaioli, Inc.
Stanlea of Dallas
McKells Sportswear, Inc.
Edwill Fashions
Cupaioli/Leeds Ltd.
Jennifer Juniors, Inc.

Hope this helps.
IAN

We have already identified some of the above companies in previous blog posts. Jennifer Juniors, Inc. was Abraham Zapruder's company, and Morty Freedman operated M & B, Marilyn Belt, and Mr. Eddie's. We can learn more about the other companies, listed in boldface above, in various news media in the 1950's. Mildred Whiteacre, fashion editor for San Antonio's  Express and News boasted in a March 1955 item:

Whoops! I'm headed Northeast again—this time to Dallas and three style-packed days as guest ot the Dallas Fashion Center. More than 30 newspaper fashion editors will be on hand for a preview of the summer collections of 23 Dallas clothing and accessory manufacturers, all members of the Fashion Center. Texas is gaining more and more prominence in the ready-to-wear manufacturing picture each season, and fashion editors on hand for this current showing will represent cities throughout the country....

A preview of three Dallas manufactured ensembles to be presented during the Dallas Fashion Center's press week beginning Monday. Left, a subtly curved, soft suit of cotton and silk with printed silk collar and cuffs by Miller-Cupaioli.

M.C. Feldman was said to be president, and Clyda Johnson the director, of the Dallas Fashion Center.

Another news article (press release?) datelined Dallas 1958 that appeared in the Tucson Daily Citizen:

Boxy blouson jackets, ribbon trim and decorative use of white buttons marked the summer collection of Miller-Cupaioli Inc. and Edward Barry, Inc. This company, which manufactures under two labels—the Miller Cupaioli and Edward Barry, Inc., specializes, in high fashion silk ensembles—with emphasis on fabrics. They are the largest users of Italian silks in America.

When we search the phrase "Dallas Fashion Center," one of the hits discusses research of both Russ Baker (Family of Secrets) and Bruce Adamson in his self-published manuscripts about George de Mohrenschildt's many relationships. Adamson, who is not a writer, did a phenomenal amount of research. Unfortunately for him, research is not something that is subject to copyright laws; only the published words writing up that research can by protected under the federal law. Baker did give Adamson credit for discovering some priceless information and paid him for Adamson's self-published "books," but for some reason Adamson still felt miffed, as we detect here:

Bruce Adamson

Many people have watch [sic] author Russ Baker being interviewed on TV and Radio about his book Family Secrets. People who have studied the JFK assassination have said to me that he has stolen my work. Without making a judgment I can only point out that Russ Baker purchased my 14 volumes and made a threat he was going to use the material that I spent 19 years working on with or without my help.

One needs to only look at my radio shows since 1992 and my books to see that Baker has used in four of his chapters are identical material. Yet, different words. One can not copyright facts. If you have to read Family Secret's [sic] I recommend checking it out of the library.

As any literate person can see from this example, reading Adamson's work is nerve shattering for anyone with even a smattering of grammar and syntax, not to mention the ability to spell. Later in his diatribe, he writes: 

Baker p. 78-79; In 1953 Jeanne and Robert LeGon moved to Dallas. Her first job there was as a designer with Nardis Sportswear, which was owned by Bernard L. "Benny" Gold a tough-talking Russian-born Jew who had started out as Brooklyn cabdriver and ended up as a titan of the Dallas fashion scene. The store shipped goods out on planes via Slick Airways, owned by the oilman and renowned explorer Tom Slick, a Dresser Industries board member and good friend of Prescott Bush. Benny Gold knew everyone he was president of the Dallas Fashion Center and the huge parties. When Jeanne first arrived in town, Benny Gold put her up in his mansion. Gold joined all the anti-Communist groups as well as Neil Mallon's Dallas Council of World Affairs. He employed... Jeanne designed clothing, her coworker Abraham Zapruder cut the patterns and material. A decade later Zapruder, by then the owner of his own company would become world famous for his breathtaking home-movie footage of the Kennedy Assassination. Adamson vol. 1 p. 77-78. Adamson's discovery on Bernard Gold was published in the Dallas Morning News twice he ran ad to locate 4 people to confirm at a cost of $1,000 dollars for a month. [my emphasis added]

Russ Baker had contacted me some weeks before he even heard of Bruce Adamson. I know because I was the one who told him about the research Adamson had done, apologizing profusely for Adamson's inability to convey his ideas articulately. Baker looked at the information and together we verified everything before it was used in the book. He insisted on purchasing the work because he found it valuable, and he offered to work with Adamson further, but was refused. Yet Adamson still complains--whines--because he doesn't like the fact that he can't write. It's like a gold miner wanting credit for a gold ring a jeweler creates.

Adamson is his own worst enemy. The information, as I say, is priceless, but if he was willing to pay $1,000 a month to run an ad, he should have forked over an equal amount to pay someone to write the data up into a well-worded narrative about what happened.

For anyone who wants to know about George Bush's possible links to the Kennedy assassination, I highly recommend Baker's book, whose limited subject was about George W. Bush and how he was molded into the man he was by his father. This is not an assassination book per se, however. For anyone who considers himself/herself to be a researcher who can wade through redundant facts stated in a way that makes you want to cringe, I also recommend Adamson's work as a resource for further research, even though many of the conclusions he drew from the facts were somewhat laughable. I cannot praise his research skills enough!

The facts and data that researchers find, by whatever means and expense it takes to get there, are the truth. Truth cannot be copyrighted. Anyone can tell a story that is true in his own words without violating anyone's copyright. When Adamson published his research by furnishing copies of it and selling the copies, he more or less provided the work to anyone else to use without additional payment for the research. All he has left are sour grapes, but that's the law.

But that's enough carping. Onward and upward!

Further investigation into the history of the Dallas Fashion Center reveals in a 1965 Marketing masters thesis written by Edward Kay Fisher, that the Center began in 1942:

The Dallas market realized its potentialities in June, 1942, when the Dallas Fashion & Sportswear Center (later the Dallas Fashion Center, and eventually Texas Fashion Creators), was bom. Later, during the war years, traveling was difficult and the Office of War Transportation issued a directive canceling all conventions and trade shows....A growing problem in 1946 was the shortage of hotel rooms for buyers wishing to attend the market, A housing committee was established to assist in finding rooms in private residences where buyers could stay during Market Week, After the war, business was booming as more goods became available and the association grew rapidly.

The Dallas Fashion Center discussed in the above thesis was referred to as one "marketing group" utilized by textile manufacturers. In March of 1951 readers of the Ogden Standard-Examiner were told: "This week's style shows, designed to place the Lone Star state firmly on the world's fashion map, are sponsored by the Dallas Fashion Center, an organization of some 40 of the city's 80 apparel manufacturers, who do a total business of $150 million a year." Dallas directories show the center to have been located in the Chamber of Commerce building in Dallas at 1101 E. Commerce St.

Texas Fashion Creators began to evolve in 1961 out of the Dallas Fashion Manufacturers Association, already rated second to New York in the number of manufacturers of clothing in the United States. The Texas State Historical Association handbook tells us:

During the 1930s such Dallas companies as Nardis, Donovan, Marcy Lee and Justin McCarty capitalized on the marketability of the low-cost cotton house dress and produced new distinctive lines of sportswear, especially ladies' slacks, for national consumption. Texas had 73 clothing factories in 1917, 102 in 1929, and 103 in 1933. The receipt of federal contracts to manufacture large quantities of military uniforms during World War II enabled Texas firms to modernize plant machinery and expand national sales contacts. In 1942 manufacturers formed the Dallas Fashion and Sportswear Center, now the Southwest Apparel Manufacturers Association. This aggressive trade organization used advertisements in national fashion magazines, sponsored elaborate style shows, expanded the size and number of apparel markets held in Dallas, and published its own magazine, Dallas Fashion and Sportswear (later Texas Fashions) from 1942 to 1972....A catalyst to the continued growth of the Texas industry was the opening of the $15 million Apparel Mart building in Dallas in 1964. By 1984 it was the nation's largest wholesale fashion market under one roof, having 2.3 million square feet of space in seven stories with 2,000 separate showrooms. The Apparel Mart attracted approximately 80,000 buyers annually.

Time Magazine also did a close-up in 1950 on the man it called Benny Gold:

Tough-talking Benny Gold often sounds like a New York cab driver, and used to be one. Born in Russia, he started a taxicab company in Brooklyn soon after World War I, went broke when he tried to buck the cab drivers during a taxi strike in 1938. Confesses Benny: "They run me out."

Corduroy Man. Benny ran all the way to Texas, where his brother Irving was part owner of Nardis, a near-bankrupt dress firm which he wanted Benny to pull out of the red. To the horror of other Dallas garment-makers, who are still only 20% unionized, Benny called on the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union for help. I.L.G.W.U. engineers taught him an assembly-line method of making dresses. Benny not only signed a union contract but became the first Dallas manufacturer to employ Negroes....

As president of the Dallas Fashion Center, formed three years ago by 40 of the biggest manufacturers, he whooped it up with a welcoming party at Pappy's Showland nightclub, got up early to greet buyers at his own shop.

Texans in the late 1940's must have really freaked out when Gold brought in the union, which David Dubinsky led, and hired blacks to work alongside white workers.

Irving Gold in 1939 was involved in incorporating the Texas Novelty Jewelry Co., Inc., Dallas; manufacturing; capital stock. $10,000. Incorporators: Irving Gold, Fred Levy, and Martin Rosenbaum. Fred Levy was listed in a Dallas 1944-46 directory at the address 912 Commerce St., and Martin Rosenbaum (novelties) at 906 Commerce. There was no listing under the manufacturers agents for Irving Gold, but the name of Irving and Celia Gold did show up in a regular listing as a venetian blind maker at 216 N. Marsalis in Oak Cliff, while Fred S. Levy and his wife Hermine lived at 6113 Vincient (possibly Vincent Ave).