DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight. Fort Worth, 1919. A group of civic leaders looked around at their city — growing, pushing, alive with ambition — and decided that kind of energy deserved a building worthy of it.
So they started planning. Not just any hotel. A hotel that would reflect the city's dynamic growth.
That was the charge, and they meant it. Two years of work later, in 1921, the Hotel Texas was completed. The architects supervising the design were Sanguinet and Staats, Fort Worth's own, and they did not phone it in.
The building came out as a mixture of styles, dressed up in elaborate terra cotta detailing — the kind of ornamentation that makes you stop on the sidewalk and tilt your head back and just look. For decades, the Hotel Texas stood as exactly what those civic leaders had envisioned. A landmark.
A gathering place. The kind of address that meant something. And then comes the part of this story that settles over you like a cold November night.
On the eve of his assassination in 1963, President John F. Kennedy stayed here. Right here.
In this building those Fort Worth leaders dreamed up back in 1919. He was in Fort Worth, he slept under that terra cotta roof, and the next day — well. You know what the next day brought.
Some buildings hold history lightly. This one carries it.
What the marker says
In 1919 a group of Fort Worth civic leaders began planning for a hotel that would reflect the city's dynamic growth. Their efforts resulted in construction of the Hotel Texas, which was completed in 1921. Designed under the supervision of Fort Worth architects Sanguinet and Staats, the building features a mixture of styles and elaborate terra cotta detailing. President John F. Kennedy stayed here on the eve of his assassination in 1963. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1982.