The Hurley Building
Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series on architectural landmarks in Fort Worth.
Fort Worth architect John Roberts’ passion is historic preservation.
He has served one of the citizen committees of the city’s Historic & Cultural Landmarks Commission and has served as chairman of Historic Fort Worth Inc.
As part of his avocation, Roberts has documented and mapped the entire measure of downtown Fort Worth. That is, every building and its history. You can find his work at www.fortwortharchitecture.com.
This summer, he gave members of Facebook’s “Fort Worth, Texas History” page a chronology of the city’s tallest buildings, beginning with the first.
Star-Telegram archives via UTA
The Hurley in the aftermath of its encounter with flames.
The Hurley Building, built by Chicago financier Thomas J. Hurley, was a seven-story edifice located on the northwest corner of Seventh and Main streets. The Hurley, its height about 90 feet, was home to the Farmers & Mechanics National Bank.
“It was built in 1889, and was the tallest only until 1895,” Roberts wrote. “The building was tallest only for a short time, but the building also didn't last very long.”
A fire was its demise.
A blaze started in the Edward Dreyfus Company’s dry goods store at 3 a.m. on Feb. 10, 1898. It soon swept up the Hurley Building and the entire building was soon gutted. According to newspaper reports, its huge walls fell with a “deafening crash” and filled the streets with debris. No one was injured except a lineman who was “severely shocked.”
It was at the time the worst disaster in the city’s history. Monetary losses were initially reported to be in excess of $350,000, or more than $13 million today.
In the aftermath, the Hoxie Building was constructed on the site. It was not as tall as its predecessor.
The Hoxie, built by Mary J. Hoxie, widow of another Chicago financier John Hoxie, one of the organizers of Fort Worth’s first stockyards and packing plant, also housed the Farmers & Mechanics National Bank, onced headed by John Hoxie. This was a second Hoxie Building, the first being erected in 1889 at Main and 14th.
It was, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram said at the time, “the most elegant office building in the South.” It was a “strictly fireproof steel-constructed building.”
The first floor was occupied by the bank. The second, third, fourth and fifth stories contained 56 “large, airy” office suites.
The basement contained 10 large offices, and the balance devoted to heating apparatus, fuel and storage rooms, and elevator and pumping machinery.
The Hoxie Building
An artesian well in the basement supplied the entire building with pure artesian water. The building’s halls and lavatories were made up of mosaic tile floors. The exterior was treated with Texas Roman shape buff brick.
And the elevator is of “modern type and will travel at the rate of 25 feet per second.”
The Hoxie was replaced in 1921 with the fourth home of the Farmers & Mechanics National Bank, a 24-story building, at one time the tallest building in Texas. It was renamed in 1950 after being sold to Continental Life Insurance Company. It was also home to the Fort Worth National Bank.
In 2021, it was repurposed, converted into the Kimpton Harper Hotel.