Starting an investment fund with $40,000 of his own cash, he won backing from prominent New York investors and achieved excellent results.
That year, it was sold to a group of New York investors, and it has not reopened.
James Rogers, a New York investor, is one of them.
The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992, and emerged two years later when it was bought by New York investors.
The New York investor said he was "a little surprised, but not shocked" by the commission's decision.
Six months ago the 51-year-old New York investor offered Prime's stockholders $20 a share in cash, or $1.3 billion.
He told some of them he was using money provided by New York investors.
When the store burned down in 1913 New York investors he knew helped to rebuild it.
But now, he and other New York investors are enjoying a commercial real estate boom.
The Heard building was sold in December 1951, to a group of New York investors for $710,000.