Land Title Building
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneer architects Haggart and Sanguinet designed this brick, sandstone and cast iron building with rounded arched windows and other ornate details. It featured the first known stone carving in Fort Worth, the figure of an owl, and displayed the initials of the lawyers Ross, Head and Ross, who occupied the second floor, above the title firm. The structure is architecturally important because its style was rare in this region when it was built in 1889. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1977.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Designed by the pioneering firm of Haggart and Sanguinet and raised in 1889, the Land Title Building brought a rare ornamental style to a young, fast-growing Fort Worth. Built of brick, sandstone, and cast iron with rounded arches, it carried what is remembered as the city's first stone carving—a small owl—and the initials of the lawyers who kept offices above the title firm. It survives as a marker of the boomtown's early architectural ambition.
Why it matters
As frontier cattle towns matured into commercial cities in the Gilded Age, ornate downtown blocks like this announced permanence and prosperity, giving the American West a built face beyond the trail and the depot.
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