Today's Hilton Fort Worth began life as the Hotel Texas, a historic hotel in downtown Fort Worth. 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. As you take it in, remember the hotel’s layered story: a two-story addition was built to the north in 1963 that placed a bank on the ground floor and a new 25,000 sq ft ballroom on the second level.
History pressed close here on November 21, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, stayed in Room 850; the next morning he delivered what would be his last address in the Crystal Ballroom, just hours before he was assassinated in Dallas. The building became the Sheraton-Fort Worth in 1968, and a major renovation completed in 1970 — timed with the opening of the Fort Worth Convention Center — made the hotel a “headquarters hotel” for the center. That work split the original two-story lobby into two floors, added meeting rooms on the upper level, and reduced guest rooms to 289, while adding a 49 m (161 ft), 230-room, 8-floor annex atop a 5-story parking garage.
Those changes still show to the north, just past you.