DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker on this one reads, in my own telling. George B. Monnig was a Fort Worth merchant — the kind of man who built things to last.
He and his wife Lura acquired this piece of Tarrant County ground in 1905, and up went a two-story frame house. Now, a frame house is a fine thing. Until it isn't.
In 1909, a neighborhood fire came through and took that first house right down to nothing. You can imagine standing there, looking at the ash and the empty lot, deciding what comes next. What came next was this: the Monnigs came back swinging.
By 1910, they had replaced that lost house with the brick structure standing here today — tile roof and all. And they didn't just rebuild plain. The design details they chose speak to real intention: corbelled brick, milled wood, cut limestone, all of it blending Bungalow and Arts-and-Crafts styles into something that still catches your eye more than a century on.
George Monnig was born in 1869 and died in 1919, so he didn't see every chapter that followed. Lura — born 1870 — carried the story forward. She remarried and had moved on by 1923.
The family held onto the property for years after that, finally selling the house in 1947. Lura herself lived until 1948. The house outlasted nearly all of it — the fire, the grief, the years, the goodbyes.
Some things, if you build them right the second time, just refuse to go.
What the marker says
Fort Worth merchant George B. Monnig (1869-1919) and his wife, Lura (1870-1948), acquired this property in 1905 and built a two-story frame house here. In 1909, a neighborhood fire destroyed that house, and the Monnigs replaced it with this tile-roofed brick structure in 1910. Its design details, executed in corbelled brick, milled wood, and cut limestone, reflect a blend of Bungalow and Arts-and-Crafts styles. Lura remarried and moved by 1923, and the family sold the house in 1947. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1986.