Downtown Landmarks: Towers, Hotels & Theaters

When cattle and oil money started pouring into Fort Worth in the early 1900s, downtown grew up — literally. Within a few blocks of Main and Houston, the city's businessmen raised the tallest buildings in North Texas: a wedge-shaped 'Flatiron' tower, the headquarters of cattle and oil barons, an Art Deco theater, and a library funded with a check from Andrew Carnegie. This compact loop visits the surviving towers, commercial blocks, and entertainment landmarks of downtown's first building boom — deliberately staying clear of the Sundance Square stops covered elsewhere. Most of these buildings were the work of Fort Worth's great architectural firms, above all Sanguinet and Staats, whose steel-and-concrete designs gave Cowtown a real skyline. Look up as you walk: the best ornament — eagles, cornices, terra-cotta — lives above the storefronts, where it has weathered a century of Texas weather.