Smith-Burnett Home
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This area of Fort Worth became a fashionable subdivision during the early part of the twentieth century and attracted many prominent residents. In 1906 Fort Worth banker Ben O. Smith (1867-1932) purchased land at this site. He built a home here for his wife, Frances, who hosted many Fort Worth social gatherings. In 1916, the home was purchased by Tom Burnett, a prominent cattleman and the son of rancher S. Burk Burnett. The site retains historical significance for its association with these two prominent Fort Worth families.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As Fort Worth blossomed in the early 1900s, this neighborhood became a fashionable address for the city's rising elite. Banker Ben O. Smith bought the site in 1906 and built a home where his wife Frances hosted the town's social set; a decade later it passed to cattleman Tom Burnett, son of the legendary rancher S. Burk Burnett. The house links the worlds of finance and the open range that together built early-twentieth-century Fort Worth.
Why it matters
The home connects two families who bridged banking and the cattle empire, illustrating how Fort Worth grew from a frontier cowtown into a modern city.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early twentieth century Fort Worth was in the middle of a remarkable transformation. Its nickname, Cowtown, came from the cattle drives of the late 1800s, when herds passed through on their way north. By the 1900s the city had become a major livestock market and meatpacking center, with big national packers building plants near the stockyards early in the century.
That new wealth reshaped the city itself. Bankers, cattlemen and merchants who had made fortunes in livestock and land began building handsome homes in new, fashionable neighborhoods away from the bustle of downtown and the stockyards. As the marker notes, this area became one of those desirable subdivisions, drawing many of the city's prominent families.
It was the Progressive Era nationally, a time of growing cities, rising banking and business power, and a booming new middle and upper class. Fort Worth's elite neighborhoods were part of that story. Their houses advertised that a frontier town had become a modern American city.
People & events
In 1906 Fort Worth banker Ben O. Smith bought land on this site. He built a home here for his wife, Frances, and she made it a center of the city's social life, hosting many gatherings. In a growing city, events in homes like this one helped knit together the business and civic leaders who were shaping Fort Worth's future.
A decade later, in 1916, the house changed hands. Its new owner was Tom Burnett, a prominent cattleman in his own right and the son of S. Burk Burnett, one of the best-known ranchers in Texas history. The elder Burnett built an enormous ranching operation in North and West Texas, famous for its Four Sixes brand, and the town of Burkburnett near the Red River bears his name.
The Burnett family's world was the open range and the cattle business. It stood in contrast to, and yet was closely tied to, the banking world of the Smiths. Cattle needed capital, and bankers needed the cattle trade. In passing from a banker's family to a cattleman's, this house captures that partnership in a single address.
Its place in the American story
The Smith-Burnett Home tells, in miniature, the story of how the American West's cattle economy matured. The open-range era of long trail drives gave way to large, organized ranches, railroads, stockyards and packing plants, all supported by banks that financed the trade. Cities like Fort Worth, Kansas City and Chicago grew rich at the junctions of that system.
The Burnett name connects this house to the great Texas ranching dynasties, whose operations covered vast stretches of the state and became part of the enduring image of the American cowboy and cattleman. Yet the family's fortune, like those of many ranchers, was spent and displayed in the city, in houses like this one.
Neighborhoods like this also show how American cities grew outward in the early twentieth century, as prosperous families left crowded downtowns for planned residential districts. That pattern of growth would reshape nearly every American city in the decades that followed.
If you visit
This marker stands in an older Fort Worth neighborhood just west of downtown. When you visit, look at the setting as well as the house: the scale of the lots, the mature trees and the architecture of the surrounding homes all hint at the area's past as a fashionable address for the city's leading families. Please be respectful, since homes in the area may be private property, and enjoy them from the sidewalk.
To understand where the money behind houses like this came from, pair your stop with a visit to the Fort Worth Stockyards area on the city's north side, where the city's cattle heritage is still celebrated. Downtown Fort Worth, with its historic commercial buildings, rounds out the picture of the city that bankers like Ben Smith helped build.
For a longer road trip, the ranch country of North and West Texas, where the Burnett family made its name, stretches out to the northwest. Following that route lets you trace the cattle business from the open range to the city parlors where its profits were spent.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Ben O. Smith
- · Tom Burnett
- · S. Burk Burnett
Themes & tags
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