The Hilton Fort Worth is a historic hotel in downtown

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. Accord ...

. Constructed from 1920 to 1921 as the Hotel Texas, it was designed by Sanguinet & Staats and Mauran, Russell, & Crowell, with Westlake Construction Co. as the contractor. A two-story addition was constructed to the North in 1963, featuring a bank on the ground floor and a new 25,000 sq ft ballroom on the second level. On November 21, 1963,

United States President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

and Mrs. Kennedy stayed at the hotel in Room 850. The next morning, Kennedy gave what would be his last address in the Crystal Ballroom, just hours before he was assassinated in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. The hotel became the Sheraton-Fort Worth Hotel in 1968. A major renovation, completed in 1970, coincided with the opening of the

Fort Worth Convention Center The Fort Worth Convention Center (formerly known as the Tarrant County Convention Center) is a convention center and indoor arena located in Sundance Square in Fort Worth, Texas. The complex opened on September 30, 1968, and was expanded in 19 ...

, making the hotel a "headquarters hotel" for the center. In the main building, the work involved splitting the original two-story lobby into two floors, with additional meeting rooms on the upper level, and the renovation of the guest rooms, reducing their number to 289. It also included the addition of a new 230-room, 8-floor hotel annex atop a 5-story parking garage built in 1928, across Commerce Street from the hotel and linked to the main building by a skybridge. The Sheraton closed in 1979. The hotel was gutted and renovated at a cost of $33 million by architects Jarvis, Putty, Jarvis. The lobby was returned to its original two-story configuration, the interior was entirely redone, an atrium was created between the rear wings of the "U" shaped tower, and new lighting was installed on the upper levels to resemble the original lighting of the hotel. The hotel reopened in January 1981 as the Hyatt Regency Fort Worth. The hotel was renamed the Radisson Fort Worth in 1995. Under Radisson, the lights on the upper floors were turned off. From 2005 to 2006, the hotel's interiors were renovated, and it was renamed the Hilton Fort Worth on April 1, 2006. The 1970 annex tower was not renovated. Instead, it was sold off and left vacant. The Hilton Fort Worth currently contains 294 guest rooms. Part of the new work for the conversion included relighting the top of the building. The Hotel Texas was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on July 3, 1979. A boundary increase was approved in November 2014 to include the annex as part of the listing. In 2015, plans were announced to convert the 1970 annex, empty since 2006, to an apartment building with 140 units. Hilton Fort Worth was also inducted int
Historic Hotels of America
the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in 2016. In 2020, plans were announced to reopen the annex as a hotel, operated by the Le Méridien brand of Marriott International. Jim Thompson, the American author and screenwriter, known for his hardboiled crime fiction ( The Getaway, The Grifters,

After Dark, My Sweet ''After Dark, My Sweet'' is a 1990 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by James Foley and starring Jason Patric, Bruce Dern, and Rachel Ward. It is based on the 1955 Jim Thompson novel of the same name. Plot Ex-boxer Kevin "Kid" C ...

), worked as a

bellboy A bellhop (North America), or hotel porter (international), is a hotel employee who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform (see bell-boy hat), like certain other page boys or doormen. This o ...

at the Hotel Texas for two years during

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

while attending high school during the day.

References

External links

Hilton Fort Worth
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hilton Fort Worth, The Buildings and structures associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Skyscraper hotels in Texas Hotel buildings completed in 1921 Hotels established in 1921 Hotels established in 1981 Skyscrapers in Fort Worth, Texas National Register of Historic Places in Fort Worth, Texas 1921 establishments in Texas Sanguinet & Staats buildings Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks Chicago school architecture in Texas Historic Hotels of America Tourism in Fort Worth, Texas

See also

References

External links