Seen around town, formal entrances to six subdivisions, an automaker, two parks, a stockyards, a cattle baron mansion, a university, a business, and a cemetery:
The entrance of Oakhurst (1924) on Sylvania Avenue. Oakhurst was developed and marketed as a “garden suburb” just minutes from downtown by John P. King, as in the King Candy Company.
The entrance of Chase Court (1906) on Hemphill. The single block of Chase Court is the earliest documented planned subdivision in the city.
Entrance to the Jennings-May-St. Louis neighborhood on Lowden Street at Hemphill Street.
The west entrance of Ryan Place at 8th Avenue. Ryan Place was the first restricted residential development in Fort Worth. Developer John C. Ryan Sr. envisioned Fort Worth as “the oil center of the southwest” and wanted Elizabeth Boulevard to be “the residence section of oil men located here.”
The east entrance of Ryan Place at College Avenue. The first house on Elizabeth Boulevard, the W. T. Fry home at 1112 was built in 1911. The gates were erected that year.
The east entrance on Elizabeth Boulevard has been scaled down since this 1911 ad.
The entrance to Ryan Place on 6th Avenue at Jessamine Street.
Entrance to Park Hill on Winton Terrace West.
Standing like a “vast and trunkless leg of stone” from Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is this lone surviving column at the eastern entrance to the Mount Vernon subdivision on the East Side.
Likewise, only one column remains to remind us of the Texan automobile plant on McCart Avenue. In the background the T for “Texan” can also be seen on a tower of a corner of the old auto plant.
Forest Park (Pollard, 1918).
Two entrances to Botanic Garden (1934) on University Drive. The lamp is from the 1928 Montgomery Ward building on West 7th Street.
North Main Street entrance to the Stockyards area at 26th Street. Another pair stands on North Main at 23rd Street.
But, of course, these are the two columns we know best: the entrance (1910) to the Stockyards (1902) on Exchange Avenue.
Winfield Scott’s Thistle Hill (Sanguinet and Staats, 1904) on Quality Hill.
I had never noticed TCU’s formal entrance as I drove through the campus on University Drive: always too busy trying not to commit freshmanicide at the student crosswalks.
Williamson-Dickie on West Vickery Boulevard.
How very snobby that Ryan Place ad is!
Thanks for including the last gasp of Mt. Vernon.
Thanks, Ike and Sally. That’s a sad old column hanging on in Mount Vernon.
Wonderful remembrances and photos, Mike. Thanks.
You’re very welcome, Susan.