George W. Haltom: Cowtown’s King of Diamonds

He was Cowtown’s answer to Charles Lewis Tiffany. For generations his company made and repaired and sold jewelry (especially diamonds), watches, clocks, fine china, cut glass, silver and gold—in short, most anything that ticks and tocks or sparkles or shines.

And it all began in a cotton field.

George W. Haltom was born in 1872 in a log house on a farm in Arkansas. About 1880 the family moved to a farm outside the town of Boston (near Texarkana). George and his brothers helped work the farm, but George soon decided there was no future in farming. Instead he would learn a trade. He put down the plow and picked up the cobbler’s hammer: He half-soled shoes.

But this trade did not satisfy him. He returned to the farm. One day in 1887 while picking cotton he saw his future, and that future had two hands and twelve hours: He would become a watchmaker.

Haltom threw down his cotton sack and ran to the farmhouse. He had seen precious little of watchmaking, but he knew that the basic tools were a pair of tweezers and a screwdriver. He pulled a brass nail from a wooden water bucket and with a file fashioned tweezers. Likewise, he made a screwdriver from an old-fashioned square nail.

Now he had the basic tools to work on a watch. But he had no watch.

So, he traded a gun for a watch to learn on. Using his simple tools he took the watch apart. But when he reassembled it, it would not run.

Nary a tick nor tock.

He took the watch to the nearest watchmaker five miles away. Haltom watched closely as the watchmaker put the watch right again. Haltom returned home, disassembled the watch, and reassembled it.

It ran, and it ran accurately.

Tick tock tick tock.

For George W. Haltom, future king of diamonds, the time had come.

After six years of operating a watch shop in Arkansas, in 1893 Haltom sold his little business for $30 and moved to Bowie, where he leased space in the building of merchant W. C. Stripling. Bowie was a railroad town—the Fort Worth & Denver City railroad and Rock Island—and railroad employees carried watches that were required to keep accurate time. Haltom repaired watches and sold jewelry.

The Bowie newspaper in 1902 printed one-sentence ads for Haltom.

In 1905 Haltom opened a store in Fort Worth at 409 Main Street in front of the Delaware Hotel. The store was operated by his brother Thomas H. Haltom until George moved to Fort Worth in 1907. George Haltom relocated the store to the Fort Worth Club building on Main at 6th Street.

In 1916 the Fort Worth Club built a new building on that site. Haltom held the grand opening of his expanded jewelry store on the ground floor.

The building today is the Ashton Hotel.

The Fort Worth Club building was a perfect location for a jewelry store: Many of Fort Worth’s wealthiest men were members of the club. This photo, from Greater Fort Worth 1907, shows the Haltom’s showroom.

haltom

In 1918 Haltom’s installed the big clock on the corner.

The store also sold Victrola phonograph records.

haltom ad 1930Ad from 1930.

haltom 41 adIn 1941 Haltom’s sponsored a news broadcast on KGKO radio. This ad congratulates Karl Hoblitzelle and Interstate Theaters on the thirty-fifth anniversary of Fort Worth’s Majestic Theater.

For George W. Haltom, the repairer of railroad watches who became the king of diamonds, all that glitters was gold. He prospered in his House of Diamonds and bought three thousand acres six miles northeast of downtown on Denton Highway. There he established his Diamond H Ranch and raised Hereford cattle. (Photo from Tarrant County College NE.)

To the south he bought more land around the intersection of East Belknap Street and Denton Highway and developed a commercial district in the early 1930s. A community grew up around the business district, and in 1932 the community was named “Haltom City Village” to honor the king of diamonds.

In 1941 Haltom built the Haltom Theater. It opened three weeks after Pearl Harbor.

haltom deadGeorge W. Haltom died in November 1943 in the midst of World War II. His grandson, G. W. Haltom II, had been killed in action in April.

George W. Haltom is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

A year after Haltom died, his namesake town incorporated as “Haltom City Village.” In 1950 the town changed its name to “Haltom City.”

After Haltom died, his family continued to operate the business. About 1959 Haltom’s opened a store at 6102 Camp Bowie Boulevard.

In 1960 Diamond Oaks Country Club was built on part of George W. Haltom’s Diamond H Ranch.

The Haltom’s business had a factory on East Belknap Street.

Among Haltom’s products were class rings for high schools and colleges.

haltom to sundance 88

In 1988 the store at 6th and Main streets moved its inventory—lock, stock, and great big clock—to its current home in Sundance Square in the Knights of Pythias lodge hall (1901) on Main Street. By then the Haltom family no longer owned the company. But the name of George W. Haltom and of his House of Diamonds lives on in the name of the Haltom’s stores, the town of Haltom City, Haltom Theater, Haltom Road, Haltom High School, and Diamond Oaks Country Club.

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19 Responses to George W. Haltom: Cowtown’s King of Diamonds

  1. Ginna says:

    Thank you for the info. I still live in Haltom City and it has declined/changed significantly. I am sure Mr. Haltom is rolling in his grave. The home place is still intact although I am not sure who resides there. Much of his land was sold off. It is sad to watch the end of such an era.

  2. Frank Gossett says:

    Hi Mike. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the building tha housed the Fort Worth Club and Haltom, became the Davis Building. It was owned by Ken Davis and he placed a large sign on the corner for his Mid Continent Supply.
    An (auto?)-biography, called “I’ll Take the Rest of the World”, tells atleast part of his story, but here is some fodder for your files:
    1> He was called “Stinky”, but not to his face. I believe it was because he didn’t bath that often.
    2> He would watch employees from his corner office and if the were late or left early, he docked their pay.
    3> My Father worked for Great Western Drilling Co., which was owned by Davis. He told of the time that Ken Davis went into one of the stores in West Texas. It was very busy and the clerk said, ‘Just a minute Pops and I’ll be with you.’ Davis blew his stack and the next week every Mid Continent store in the world had his photograph front and center over the front counter.
    4> He had an large array of framed nude female photographs in his office.
    I never saw the office but saw the photos and his relative, who I was working for, told me the story.
    He would be a good story.

    • hometown says:

      Thanks, Frank. Here is a post about Floyd Holmes, who renamed the building the Floyd J. Holmes Building. Ken Davis later renamed it.
      Here is a partial history as I understand it:
      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.

  3. Ralonna Fitzgerald says:

    I worked for Haltoms from 1966 to 1975. Great experience.

  4. Alfred Theis says:

    I graduated from Loyola Dental School with my best friend G W Haltom in 1973. We had allowed contact to lapse many years ago. I would love to find him and relive the “ole days”, I can not find him :-((

    • H Newberry says:

      George W. Haltom III is retired from his dental practice in Colorado. I googled your name and sent him a text with your work phone number. (I just hope the cell number I have for him isn’t old.)

      Good luck!

  5. M. Benuit says:

    Bought my first Rolex, 1980, at Haltom’s.

  6. Stephen English says:

    I’d love to know whether Haltom City was named for the Haltom family;do you have any sources on this?

  7. Pam Burnett says:

    Can you tell me about the knight’s history on the Knights of Pythias building? I know he is not the original. At what point was he replaced? I have a 1980’s pic of the building and he is missing. Maybe you have written about this little guy already.

    • hometown says:

      What little I know about him is in this post. I think the replica was placed up there when the building was restored in 1981. I do not know if the original knight was still up there until it was replaced.

  8. Lesley says:

    Hometown wins this round.

  9. earl belcher says:

    Good work, Mike. But don’t get Bobby Bass fooled by the reproduction of the lodge hall. The real one was leveled in the 1980s; this is a fake one and just as ugly as the original. The Haltom house looks like one I lived in in the mid-1970s at Eagle Mountain Lake. It was Ken Davis Sr.’s house, then belonged to Cullen, Ken Jr., and Bill Davis. There was a couple thousand acres on the lake front near Azle, Texas.

    • hometown says:

      Thanks, Earl. Because both the Star-Telegram in 1982 and the website Fort Worth Architecture today refer to the building as having been “restored” in 1981, I continue to include its original 1901 construction date.

  10. george klecan says:

    Great page…There’s a good article about Mr.Haltom in Monday’s FWST

  11. Stu Langley says:

    Great story, HH. Didn’t have a clue.
    Thank you for your diligence in helping your neighbors- me- better understand a little history about Fort Worth.

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