For Christmas in 1915 members of the Fort Worth Club gave themselves a six-story stocking stuffer: a new home.
On December 19 the Star-Telegram announced that the Fort Worth Club was about to move into its new building on Main at 6th Street. The building was designed by Muller and Pollard of Fort Worth and built by future mayor William Bryce’s company.
The club would occupy the upper floors (dining room, library, lounge, bedrooms, billiard room, game room). The main tenant on the ground floor would be Haltom’s jewelry store. The new building may have been “up-to-minute,” but note that in the photo Haltom’s big clock is not yet on the corner.
The Star-Telegram on April 23, 1916 reported that the Fort Worth Club would officially open its new home with a reception on April 25.
The two-ton clock was installed on the corner of Main and 6th in 1918.
In 1922 oilman Floyd J. Holmes bought the building and leased space to the Fort Worth Club. In 1926 the club would move two blocks west to its third and current home on West 7th Street. In 1949 the building on Main at 6th would be bought by Mid-Continent Supply Company, owned by Ken Davis, father of Cullen and William S. Davis. Mid-Continent would own the building until 1989.
After two years of renovation, the building reopened as the Ashton Hotel, the city’s first boutique hotel, on April 23, 2001.
Next to the Ashton Hotel (and now an annex of it) is the little Winfree Building, which was the second (and last) home of the White Elephant Saloon.
Photo by W. D. Smith in Fort Worth in Pictures, 1940.
Today, of course, the big clock on the corner is on a different corner—Main and 3rd at the Knights of Pythias lodge building.
More on the history of the Fort Worth Club, Haltom’s, and the big clock on the corner
Some views of the Ashton Hotel today:
Class on glass.
Best building downtown, in our hearts, and downtown’s got a lot of great buildings. Thanks for the pix.