Look up for the neon Pegasus crowning this 29-story tower, once headquarters for the Magnolia Petroleum Company. Opened next door to the Adolphus Hotel in August 1922 at a cost of US $4 million, it began life as the Magnolia Petroleum Building — the headquarters for the Magnolia Petroleum Company. For many years it rose taller than any other Texas building after surpassing the Adolphus Hotel, a proud emblem of the city's ambition.
In 1934 the company mounted its trademark neon Pegasus on the roof to celebrate the American Petroleum Institute meeting held in Dallas for the first time; that rotating winged horse became one of Dallas’s most recognizable and endearing landmarks. After Magnolia merged into Mobil Oil in 1959 the Pegasus also served as Mobil’s logo, and by 1974 the sign stopped rotating due to mechanical issues. The building itself is a Dallas Landmark and sits on the National Register of Historic Places; today it is an upscale hotel known simply as the Magnolia.
Your eye can trace the rooftop Pegasus, still fixed since 1974's mechanical failure, and the Beaux-Arts ornament that once outranked every building but the Adolphus next door.