Ross Building Emporium preserves a taste of simpler, safer times

December 20, 2006
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

One of Del Rio’s most historic buildings is also one of its most cherished landmarks, visited robustly this time of year by customers seeking a very special gift for a friend or loved one.

The Emporium gift shop, scrapbooking mecca, bookstore and old fashioned soda fountain is eagerly visited by “regulars,” and always shocks newcomers and tourists with the turn-of-the-20th Century feel of the place.

The Sanders hold children in high regard, and offer a selection of books and educational toys to parents who do the same. In addition, Betty promotes scrapbooking to safeguard memories of those children, as well as recollections and souvenirs from loved ones of all ages.

Jim and Betty Sanders, now the patriarchs of old Del Rio families, don’t have far to go when they come to work every day at 1 p.m.; their home is upstairs, above the high-ceilinged showroom that anchors the corner at 801 S. Main Street.

They began major restoration work on the old building in the late 1980s, and re-opened it in 1991 as a modest version of what it is today. Constructed in the last years of the 19th Century, Jim’s grandfather, Dr. H.B. Ross, a physician, purchased the building which was formerly a drugstore. When the Plaza Del Sol Mall was built around 1980, the drugstore went to Eagle Pass, and the building was vacated.

Jim and Betty bought it and began the long process of restoring the old edifice. When they completed the first restoration of a major commercial building in Del Rio, the soda fountain was – and remains – a huge attraction. “But we also sold baby things,” Betty recalled, chuckling, “but that changed in about two years. I thought I had a good idea, but people here didn’t have that idea with me.”

But Sanders also learned, in those formative years, of a new toy company called Melissa & Doug, specializing in wooden toys, in Westport, Conn. The company was small then, “But now they’ve grown by leaps and bounds,” Sanders said. The selection of wooden games and toys is attractively packaged, and labeled for age-appropriateness. They’ve branched out this year with a “Treehouse” toy with tiny ropes and pulleys that lets children imagine many kinds of raising and lowering work.

“They can lower a bucket to get water, and bring it up, the character dolls can climb a rope ladder or moving stairs, and pull the stairs back up at night so nobody can get to them. There’s a hammock and a swing, too,” Sanders said.

She carries about 18 different hand puppets from Melissa & Doug, too, including a fireman, policeman, cowgirl, cow, pig, dinosaurs and a dragon, to name a few. Also the Emporium sells a puppet theater in which to stage productions by the characters.

Books – with a focus on those for very young readers – occupy a nook that most visitors see immediately on entering the Emporium. There are books for older readers, too, and Sanders strives to keep a healthy inventory of publications by local writers. Among them are Judy Jarrett’s Billy the Kid, and Diana Fitzgibbon’s Somewhere in Texas.

When longtime Del Rioan Betty Hollingsworth closed Herald Printing downtown, Sanders bought out her stock of stationery and decorative adhesive stickers, and these became the inspiration for producing high-quality scrapbooks. “Then we went into the scrapbooking part, but I went in very slowly because when we went to market [in Dallas] materials were very hard to find.”

Now, however, the pastime is flourishing, and scrapbookers come from a broad part of the United States to stock up on the latest materials – books, paper, adhesives, stickers, frames, and the like – from Sanders and the Emporium. “We get people in here all the time from Houston!” Sanders exclaimed, adding that customers also come from New Mexico, the Panhandle of Texas, and Denver. Some have husbands who came to the area to hunt or fish. Sanders estimates that about 40 percent of the store’s gross sales are attributed to this creative hobby.

Additional items enjoying a lot of popularity now as gifts and stocking stuffers are a new line of decorative sandstone coasters, Texas-made jams, jellies, preserves and barbecue sauces.

Customer hours at the Emporium are 1 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday.