DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker's the source here, and I'm just the one lucky enough to tell it. Now, if you were driving through West Texas in 1930 and you looked up at the Abilene skyline, something would've stopped you cold. Seventeen stories of buff brick reaching up into that wide open sky — taller than anything standing between Fort Worth and El Paso.
That was the Hotel Wooten, and it did not arrive quietly. On June 6, 1930, the doors swung open on a celebration that drew more than two thousand guests. Two thousand.
Out here in West Texas. That alone tells you something about the kind of statement this building was meant to make. The man with the vision was entrepreneur H.O.
Wooten. Now Wooten wasn't aimin' for pretty good. He wasn't aimin' for respectable.
He had his sights locked on something specific — accommodations matching those available in New York City. That was the goal, stated plain, and the Hotel Wooten's two hundred rooms were his answer to it. The man he trusted to draw up that dream was Abilene architect David S.
Castle, and Castle delivered something that still turns heads. Structural steel and clay tile construction, a buff brick exterior, and detailing worked in cast stone, marble, and granite. The style was Art Deco — bold, geometric, unapologetically modern — and to this day the Hotel Wooten stands as one of the most notable examples of that style anywhere in Abilene.
Seventeen stories. Two hundred rooms. New York ambitions planted right here in Taylor County.
Some buildings just refuse to be forgotten.
What the marker says
This landmark building opened its doors on June 6, 1930, with a celebration attended by more than two thousand guests. Entrepreneur H.O. Wooten envisioned a hotel with accommodations matching those available in New York City, accomplishing the goal with the seventeen-story, 200-room Hotel Wooten. Designed by Abilene architect David S. Castle, it was the tallest building between Fort Worth and El Paso at the time of its completion. The building is of structural steel and clay tile construction, with a buff brick exterior and detailing in cast stone, marble and granite. The building remains one of the most notable examples of Art Deco style architecture in Abilene.Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-2008