Felix Brunschwig co-founded the store in 1900, and this is its home: the White House Department Store and Hotel McCoy in El Paso, Texas. This block of brick and story is the product of a 1912 commission, designed in the Chicago School style by architect Henry C. Trost of Trost & Trost. The commercial life you see here began earlier: the store was co‑founded in 1900 by Felix Brunschwig and three of his nephews, Myrtil, Gaston, and Arthur Clobentz, and in 1904 it was incorporated as Felix Brunchswig & Co. The building you face was later remodelled between 1946 and 1949 at a cost of 1 million dollars, a postwar investment that reshaped its presence on the street.
Its significance was recognized decades later when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 24, 1980. Stand here and let those dates settle around you — 1900, 1904, 1912, 1946–1949, 1980 — each a layer in the story of this address. Chicago School lines from Trost's 1912 commission still shape the block, remodelled between 1946 and 1949 for one million dollars.