DUANE
Duane's take
The marker's the word, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Here's what it says about the Thannisch Block Building in Tarrant County. Back in 1906 and 1907, a man named Colonel Thomas Marion Thannisch — born in 1853, still had decades ahead of him — put up the eastern portion of what would become one of north Fort Worth's landmark structures.
The marker calls him one of north Fort Worth's early developers, and this building gives you a pretty good idea of what that meant. He didn't build small, and he didn't build plain. The whole idea was to serve the Stockyards community and its trade — hotel space up top, office space below, the kind of place where deals got made and travelers found a bed after a long day on dusty ground.
Then in 1913, somebody decided what was already standing wasn't quite enough, and the building got expanded. Now what you're looking at is a three-story commercial structure — and it earns every one of those stories. Decorative brickwork dressed it up, chevron designs run across the upper story like somebody wanted to make sure you looked all the way up, and a corbeled parapet crowns the whole thing.
Colonel Thannisch lived until 1935, long enough to see his building settle into the fabric of Fort Worth, stone by stone, year by year. Some buildings just stand there. This one has always had something to say.
What the marker says
The eastern portion of this structure was built in 1906-07 by Col. Thomas Marion Thannisch (1853-1935), one of north Fort Worth's early developers. Designed for use as a hotel and office space to serve the Stockyards community and trade, the building was expanded in 1913. The three-story commercial structure features decorative brickwork, chevron designs in the upper story, and a corbeled parapet.