 |  |
| Fort Worth's Flatiron Building was commissioned by local physician Dr. Bacon Saunders in 1907 after returning from a trip to New York City, where he had marveled at the original 22-story Flatiron Building -- one of the tallest buildings in the world at that time and remains to be one of the most photographed buildings in the world. |
The Fort Worth version was slated to be 10 stories tall, to be located on a similarly-shaped triangular-shaped corner lot as the one in New York, and was originally known as Saunders' Triangle Building. Due to budgetary concerns in the wake of "The Panic of 1907", the building was scaled back to seven stories. |
 |  |
| Upon its completion, the Fort Worth Flatiron was considered one of the tallest buildings in the state of Texas, and has the distinction of being both the first office building in Fort Worth to have an elevator, and the first steel frame building in Fort Worth. |
Over the decades, the building has been home to several doctors' offices, dentists and various shops and local businesses. |
 |  |
| The building fell into disrepair in the 1970s and for over twenty years it was boarded up and left in relatively abandoned condition. During this time, the Flatiron changed hands several times, and lots of various plans were announced for the building; however, because all of the major building components were in ruin and would need a significant investment in refurbishing everything back to running condition, none of those plans ever materialized. |
Dr. George Cravens, a Fort Worth neurosurgeon, bought the building in 1995 and spent several years restoring the building to its original grandeur. The restoration effort was a large-scale operation that involved removing large amounts of asbestos, installing a new HVAC system, retrofitting the plumbing and electric cabling, modernizing the elevator equipment, and a significant amount of repair and carpentry work. |
