Heritage, Volume 2, Number 4, Fall 1985 Page: 26

The buildings reflect an exhilarating time in our history, and the preservation of this history is as important
as the construction of monuments to modern commerce and society.

therefore, removed and replaced with new
stone to match. This was accomplished
without any failures in the brick work,
some of which had been removed and reversed
by hand.
The three-story turreted structure is said
to resemble both a medieval guild hall and
a northern European city hall. An eightfoot
"knight," made of galvanized iron,
was erected in the corner of the original
building. Salvaged after the 1901 fire, the
knight was reinstalled above the third
floor on the exterior of the building facing
Main Street. The original knight remained
in place until 1976. Members of the
Weatherford, Texas Order of the Knights
of Pythias were worried that the knight
was to be demolished when they heard
that the building was undergoing renovation.
They wanted to keep him intact, and
launched a plan. Members arrived in the
middle of the night to save the statue, yet,
when they tried to take it down, it
crumbled. A replica, fashioned of copper,
was returned to the building in March
1983.
Adding to the building's historical interest
was the invention of the offset printing
press by Staley T. McBrayer in the early
1950s. Today, the first floor is occupied by
a women's boutique; the third floor is used
for lectures, civic and professional meetings
and private parties.
26

The Knights of Pythias Building was
listed as a Texas Historic Landmark in
1962 and was placed in the national Register
of Historic places in 1972. This
beautiful structure forms the cornerstone
of the Sundance Square project.
The Plaza Hotel
In 1908, Winfield Scott, one of Fort
Worth's leading citizens and richest entrepreneurs,
built a hotel at 301 Main Street.
Guest rooms graced the upper floors of
the three-story structure and the ground
floor housed a saloon and commercial
businesses.
Winfield Scott bought the property in July
1907 from a widow, Mrs. Carrie D.
Brown, for $50.000. Because he leased it
to Mrs. Emma Inman, it was first called
the Inman Hotel. The name was changed
to the Scott Hotel in 1911, one year after
Scott's death. Finally, in 1923 the property
was renamed the Plaza Hotel, which
it remained for the next 60 years.
While restoring the building's interior,
workers removed many layers of stucco.
Under the innermost layer they discovered
an original Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show
poster. Construction came to a halt as
Kimbell Art Museum curators, specializing
in delicate preservation, meticulously

After several years of reconstruction and
restoration, the Plaza Hotel is a beautiful addition
to downtown Fort Worth. Photo courtesy of City
Center Development Company.
removed the poster from the stone wall,
preserved and framed it. This relic hangs
in its original spot today.
Winfield's '08 Restaurant & Bar, on the
first floor, is named in Scott's honor. To
commemorate the restaurant's opening in
July of 1982, developers buried a time
capsule in the sidewalk in front of the renovated
structure. Scheduled to be reopened
in 2082, the capsule includes
memorabilia from Sundance Square's
modern-day tenants: menus, a Polo shirt,
a bottle of wine, tickets for a trip around
the world, a can of Diet Dr. Pepper, and
before-and-after blueprints of the Plaza
Hotel. The capsule's purpose, of course,
is to carry forward Sundance Square's rich
history to future generations.
City National Bank Building
The old City National Bank Building,
constructed in 1886, was designed by one
of Fort Worth's leading architectural firms
at the time, Haggart & Sanguinet. The
four-story structure initially housed the
John S. Andrews Loan, Land and Livestock
Co.; shortly after opening, however,
it became the City National Bank, a hub
of finance for cattle barons, traders and a
vast ranching empire.
Records indicate that the fourth floor was
removed from the building in the early
HERITAGE * Fall 1985