National Register Listing

Flatiron Building

1000 Houston St., Fort Worth, TX

The Flatiron Building in Fort Worth is a commercial building constructed of reinforced concrete over a steel frame and faced with brick. It is Fort Worth's version of the large Flatiron buildings found in New York and Chicago, and was built by the firm Sanguinet and Staats for a well-known Texas doctor, Bacon Saunders. Both the builders and original owner of the Flatiron building were well known throughout the Southwest. Marshall R. Sanguinet, the senior partner of the architectural firm Sanguinet and Staats, earned his professional degree at Washington University in St. Louis. He moved to Fort Worth, first practicing alone, and then joining successively, Sanguinet and Dawson, Haggart and Sanguinet, and Sanguinet and Messer. Carl Staats was a building engineer from New York City, who came to Texas at the age of twenty to join the office of J. Riley Gordon in San Antonio. In 1898, he joined Sanguinet in Fort Worth. For well over twenty-five years Sanguinet and Staats were architects and builders of scores of towering buildings all over the Southwest. They had branch offices in many Texas cities such as San Antonio, Houston, and Wichita Falls. Some of their best-known buildings have included courthouses for Fort Worth, Wichita Falls, and Galveston. They also designed the Houston City Hall and Dallas Public Library, about twenty exchange buildings for the Southwestern Telephone and Telegraph Company, and thirty-five schools in North Texas. They designed numerous department stores and bank buildings, such as the Amicable Building in Waco (once known as the tallest building in Texas), the First National Bank in Houston, the City National Bank in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the Scarbrough Building in Austin. Finally Sanguinet and Staats were architects and engineers for the Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. In 1907, the firm built a Platiron Building for Dr. Bacon Saunders. It is likely that Sanguinet and Staats were influenced by Burnham and Root to design such a building, for the Fort Worth Flatiron demonstrates many of the characteristics of buildings by the Chicago School. Saunders, the man for whom Sanguinet designed the Flatiron, was a well-known Texas doctor. Saunders was born in Bowling Green Kentucky, January 5,1855. He grew up in Dallas and Bonham, but returned to Kentucky to graduate highest in his class of 190 from the University of Louisville Medical School. He was one of the founders of the medical department of Fort Worth University and remained as professor of surgery when the school became the Texas Christian University medical department and then the Baylor School of medicine. He was a founder and the second President of the Texas Surgical Society, as well as a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He was chosen to be chief surgeon for six major railroads, and a consulting medical director of the Fort Worth Life Insurance Company. Saunders commissioned the Flatiron Building to house offices for himself and several other doctors. The building is now owned by the Blue Mound Corporation, a group of Fort Worth Investors. The corporation plans to remodel the interior since the building is not air-conditioned. However, they will keep the exterior of the building substantially as it is to retain its "landmark" characteristics. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 1970.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1971.