When Dallas loses a Neiman’s and control of Southwest Air, it hurts Fort Worth, too | Opinion
Say goodbye to the Dallas that was the city of trailblazers, the city of business mavericks and Marcuses who taught the world about the ingenuity of Texans.
And say a prayer for Fort Worth, now a booming city of 1 million people but still tied by a hyphen to the city to the east.
Dallas’ reputation has taken a few dents lately.
Neiman-Marcus is now part of a Canadian store chain. It plans to close the old Main Street store, where the late retailing genius Stanley Marcus made Dallas sophisticated and made the rest of the world know.
Southwest Airlines, once the model of can-do Dallas success, has lost late pioneer Herb Kelleher’s let-’er-rip spirit. It’s just another airline run by Floridians scrounging for dollars.
The Dallas Mavericks basketball team, showpiece of owner Mark Cuban’s tech empire, is now owned by a casino family from Vegas.
I don’t need to mention what’s happened to the Dallas Cowboys.
When the Mavericks traded world basketball superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, it made Dallas feel even more like a much smaller market, without the bright lights or celebrity fame of the West Coast.
Dallas used to have its own TV show.
(But it starred Larry Hagman from Fort Worth and Weatherford.)
Now, when Dallas makes the news, it’s for the newest preacher in trouble or the newest fried glob at the State Fair.
None of this should make anyone in Fort Worth take any glee.
In the eyes of world business leaders and tourists, we’re part of Dallas. When Dallas sneezes, Fort Worth catches a cold.
“When you see the name come off the side of [Neiman’s] building, it’ll be like an amputation to Dallas,” said Jody Dean, a Fort Worth native who went on to a 40-year career as one of the region’s top-ranked radio hosts.
“Dallas achieved whatever sophistication the city has because of Neiman-Marcus. He created this international image — without Stanley Marcus, would the NFL have put the Cowboys here? Would ‘Dallas’ have been shot here? He brought Grace Kelly to town, Princess Margaret — and ‘The Book’ [the nationally distributed holiday catalog of extravagant gifts] had this aura.”
Marcus made Dallas feel closer to New York than to Fort Worth.
Then along came Southwest Airlines, building a reputation as a defiant upstart that sued and won the right to reopen a mostly closed Love Field. Led by Kelleher, Southwest sold $19 “peanut fares” and served them, growing into a nationwide competitor in the 1980s.
“They went for years on the slogan, ‘The Airline that LUV built,’ “ Dean said.
That’s been gone for years. So have the cheaper fares, now comparable to other airlines’.
“I know they changed — they had to,” Dean said.
“But they lost their fun. Somewhere along the way they became just another airline.”
Yes, Southwest bucked Fort Worth in court and won the right for airlines to fly from a limited Love Field instead of from DFW Airport.
But Southwest’s lower fares also brought hundreds of thousands of travelers and business leaders to the region.
Southwest Airlines’ success in its now-gone days as a budget airline brought 100 million travelers and business leaders to a Dallas airport. But having two strong airlines based here (with American) is better than having one, and some of those 100 million wound up visiting or making business deals in Fort Worth.
It took 55 years for Neiman-Marcus to migrate west and open a Fort Worth store, now in the Shops at Clearfork.
But by then, the retail giant had already made North Texas a world center of fashion and style. The Star-Telegram used to publish special fashion sections and sent a reporter to cover the Paris and Milan fashion shows.
“It was just an incredible time when we had some of the greatest giants as leaders,” Dean said.
“It’s a gut punch to Dallas.”
Neiman-Marcus and Southwest Airlines are still important to Fort Worth, too.
They’re just not as Texan anymore.
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 2:20 PM.
