History

HISTORY OF THE MONTANA BUILDING

The Montana Building was originally built for GUNNING – CASTEEL DRUG STORES in 1948. At the time, GUNNING – CASTEEL dominated the pharmaceutical needs of El Paso. When the store opened, root beer floats could be purchased for just one quarter.

"In the year 1913 Mr. Wylie E. Casteel and Mr. Thomas C. Gunning, Sr. initiated a retail drug business which they owned and controlled as equal partners. As time went by, they expanded and established a number of other drug stores. There was a corporation formed and the stock was equally divided between Mr. Casteel and Mr. Gunning. Thereafter, they made some stock available to the employees of the corporation. They also created two additional corporations to manage the real estate used or owned by the drug stores. Somewhere in the 1930's R. M. Wiggs, Jr. became an employee and eventually acquired stock in all three corporations, and was President of the company known as Gunning-Casteel, Inc. (the drug company). Mr. Wiggs died suddenly and unexpectedly on November 22, 1963......" Quoted from 402 S.W.2d 529 Wylie E. CASTEEL et al., Appellants, v. Thomas C. GUNNING, Jr., et al., Appellees. No. 5767. Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. El Paso. March 16, 1966.Rehearing Denied April 6, 1966.

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"Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, a large part of the top floor facing Montana and Virginia streets was jointly occupied by Humm Optical owned by Troy Land, and Lone Star Contact Lens Laboratory owned by Glenn Schall. While newly married and in college, I was a
tech there until I went into the Army in 1971. Lone Star was a respected hard contact lens laboratory that sold to many of the ophthalmologists and optometrists in the El Paso.  Soft contact lenses had yet to become popular. Humm Optical, a joint endeavor by Troy and Glenn, stood for “Help Us Make Money”.  While Humm mainly sold supplies to Lone Star, Troy made custom prosthetic eyes. Since our entrance was on Virginia Street, our address was 812 N. Virginia." Charles Wood

"In September of 1978 Zale Corp., parent company of Skillern's, the Dallas-based drug chain, announced it had agreed to buy Gunning-Casteel, the 22-store, El Paso-based drug chain. Gunning-Casteel, said Zale, would continue to operate under its own name but would henceforth be part of Skillern's."

Around the same time part of the Montana building (808 Montana) was leased by FURR FOOD STORE. FURR FOOD STORE was founded in 1929 by Roy Furr (1905 – December 1, 1975) after he bought six grocery stores in Amarillo, Texas and converted them into Furr Food Stores with help from his father.

Furr's, Incorporated, grew steadily, and at the time of the founder's death it included sixty-eight supermarkets, as well as family centers in three states, fifty-seven cafeterias in seven states, and a realty company in Lubbock. Furr and his wife, Lela, had two sons and a daughter.

The family business did not fare well after Furr's death. In 1979, the company declared bankruptcy; the grocery business was sold to a group of West German investors and the restaurant business, Furr's Cafeterias, was bought by Kmart Corporation.
furr food


Later, Art Moreno converted much of the building into Art's Photographic

The Montana Building is located in downtown El Paso. It is used as a mixed-use retail office building. An elevator and a stairwell serves the second floor offices, accessed by a period style entrance on the Virginia side of the building. Montana frontage is one-half block long, with great visibility and ample depth for multitude of commercial or retail tenants.
The Montana building is located at a signalized intersection, on a major arterial near downtown El Paso, at Montana Avenue (US 62/180) and Virginia Streets. The surrounding neighborhood is re gentrifying with an infusion of new capital to restore the building base into a mixture of business and multi-family residential properties. In close proximity to churches, schools, service retail and residential neighborhoods. Downtown El Paso and the Port of Entry to Juarez, Mexico is only a short five-minute drive away.

If you have an old photo or more info, please let me know. anthonygiustina@gmail.com