Hemphill Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This Neo-Classical auditorium was built in 1925 to serve the increasing membership of Hemphill Presbyterian Church. Dedicated the following year, the building features a brick parapet and a bay window on the north corner. The imposing entrance consists of three open oval brick arches flanked by large pilasters. The neighborhood landmark continues to serve a large congregation. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1984.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1925 and dedicated the following year, this Neo-Classical auditorium served the fast-growing membership of Hemphill Presbyterian Church in a booming Fort Worth. Its imposing entrance of three open oval brick arches, flanked by large pilasters and topped by a brick parapet, made it a distinctive neighborhood landmark. The building has continued to serve a large congregation ever since.
Why it matters
The church reflects the confident civic and religious growth of Texas cities in the 1920s, when swelling urban congregations raised ambitious landmark sanctuaries.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Saint Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church
Fort Worth, TX
This Fort Worth Catholic parish held its first Mass in 1909 in a small wooden church that burned in 1922. The present Romanesque Revival building, designed by the prominent firm of Sanguinet, Staats and Hedrick, was dedicated in 1924 by the Most Rev. Joseph P. Lynch, Bishop of Dallas. Over the decades the parish has been guided by the Vincentian, Benedictine, and Salvatorian religious orders.
Emanuel Hebrew Rest Cemetery
Fort Worth, TX
In 1879 Fort Worth civic leader John Peter Smith donated this land for a cemetery to serve the city's early Jewish residents, its grounds first tended by the Emanuel Hebrew Association formed by local families. The earliest marked grave belongs to a child, Leah Kaiser, who died that same year. Now under the care of Congregation Beth-El, the cemetery holds many of the business, professional, and civic leaders of Fort Worth's Jewish community.
Gunhild Weber House
Fort Worth, TX
This was the first house built in a 1907 Fort Worth subdivision, its design carrying West Coast influences absorbed by developer John W. Broad during a decade in California. Attorney Charles K. Lee, later a State Bar president, bought and enlarged it in 1914. Since 1944 it has belonged to Gunhild Weber, a Norwegian-born Fort Worth business executive whose long ownership gave the house its name.
Laneri House
Fort Worth, TX
Italian immigrant John B. Laneri settled in Fort Worth in 1883 and rose to become a leading businessman and civic figure, founding the O.B. Macaroni Company and a private boys' school known as Laneri College. In 1904 he built this classically detailed brick home, with fine interior woodwork, in one of the city's most fashionable neighborhoods, living there until his death in 1935.