Every May, during National Preservation Month, Historic Fort Worth, Inc. releases a list that’s equal parts love letter and distress call. The nonprofit’s “Most Endangered Places” program — more than a decade strong — isn’t just about aging buildings. It’s about memory, place, and the stories that make Fort Worth Fort Worth. The 2025 list, announced this month, is particularly pointed: a full half of this year’s designations are Fort Worth public schools — many of them architecturally and historically significant, all of them facing uncertain futures.
Historic Fort Worth bills the list as an educational and marketing tool, but its impact runs deeper. The idea is simple: raise awareness before it’s too late. Properties that make the list are often suffering from extreme neglect, lack of landmark protection, or looming development pressure. Once highlighted, these places receive increased attention, potential assistance, and a better chance at survival. Past campaigns have helped rally support for the Fort Worth Public Market, the Ridglea Theater, and parts of the Stockyards.
But this year’s entry is unusual for another reason: schools. Five Fort Worth ISD campuses—some slated for closure, others simply at risk — join churches, a historic cemetery chapel, and a New Deal-era stadium in a sobering inventory of what could be lost.
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S.S. Dillow Elementary
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J.P. Elder Middle School
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Hubbard Heights Elementary School
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McLean Middle School
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Richard J. Wilson Elementary School
The Fort Worth ISD announced in February that it was considering multiple school closures amid declining enrollment and state budget cuts. At least one of those — S.S. Dillow Elementary — will close after the 2024–25 school year. Built in 1937 with Public Works Administration funds, Dillow was named for Samuel S. Dillow, a civic leader and bank president in the Polytechnic area. The school’s Mediterranean Revival architecture, with additions by Easterwood & Easterwood Architects, reflects New Deal optimism in brick and tile.
Other schools on the endangered list haven’t yet been targeted for closure, but Historic Fort Worth is sounding the alarm in advance. McLean Middle School, for instance, was completed in 1955 in the clean-lined International style. It was designed by Fort Worth’s Wilson, Patterson & Associates and built by Cadenhead and Roeser. J.P. Elder Middle School, constructed in 1927 in the Tudor Revival style, boasts striking polychrome brickwork and a designation for demolition delay by the city. Meanwhile, Hubbard Heights and Richard J. Wilson Elementary schools both trace their origins to the early 20th century and reflect Mediterranean and early 1900s schoolhouse design trends, respectively.
While a few Fort Worth schools have been landmarked over the years, most have not. Historic Fort Worth is encouraging the district to seek designation before any further closures or sales occur. Without that recognition, many of these buildings could face demolition or radical alteration — removing not just architecture, but cultural anchors from their neighborhoods.
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Mount Gilead Baptist Church
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North Fort Worth (Primera) Baptist Church
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North Fort Worth (Primera) Baptist Church
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Oakwood Cemetery Chapel
Beyond schools, this year’s list includes two historic churches with overlapping legacies. Mount Gilead Baptist Church, built between 1912 and 1913, is believed to be Fort Worth’s oldest African-American church. It was designed by Sanguinet & Staats, built by J.W.O. Guinn, and sourced from B.W. Owens Lumber Company — an ensemble of historic names in local construction. The church's raised basement, now partially obscured, speaks to the period’s utilitarian ingenuity.
Not far away, another structure with nearly identical architectural DNA — Primera Baptist Church at 1519 Circle Park Boulevard — was also built by Guinn using the same materials and design firm. In fact, it once housed Mount Gilead before the congregation moved. Both are considered eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and are included in the Texas Comprehensive Historic Resources Survey.
The Oakwood Cemetery Chapel, sitting on land donated in 1879 by Fort Worth founder John Peter Smith, is also in peril. The roof is leaking, and the wooden frames securing its stained-glass windows are rotting. Buried nearby are luminaries like Electra Waggoner, Samuel Burk Burnett, and Jim Courtright. A repair estimate places restoration at $100,000 — work that would be funded by the Oakwood Cemetery Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
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Then there’s Farrington Field. For the seventh time, the Depression-era stadium appears on the endangered list, a testament to its stubborn presence and equally stubborn decline. Built in 1938–39 with a $244,000 budget split between the WPA and the school district, the structure was designed in the Classical Moderne style by Preston M. Geren, Sr., under the supervision of A. George Kind and Everett Lee Frazior, Sr. With seating for 20,000 and sculptural reliefs by Fort Worth artist Eveline Sellors, the stadium is both functional and monumental.
While the inclusion on the list doesn’t guarantee salvation, it can make a difference. And in recent years, the city has started to invest more seriously in historic preservation — most notably in 2023 when it hired five full-time staffers to help manage landmark efforts and guide owners through the often-complex web of preservation incentives, including a 25% rebate on eligible rehabilitation work.
Historic Fort Worth’s 2025 list is as much a call to action as it is a catalog of concern. Each property named has stories layered in brick and plaster, in names carved above doors or etched into cornerstone plaques. The question now is whether those stories will be preserved — or paved over.
