Butler Place Historic District

Butler Place is a public housing complex on twenty acres east of downtown Fort Worth, framed by three major highways. Built in 1939-40 with federal funding through the U.S. Housing Authority, it replaced a blighted area of substandard private dwellings and was designed to house 250 African-American families, along with a library and administrative space. The district holds twenty-two brick buildings and three small utility structures. Most residential buildings are six-, eight- or ten-unit designs in a stripped Colonial Revival style, with Moderne touches such as cast-concrete porch supports and contrasting dark brick bands. The buildings are arranged in U-shaped groupings with live oak trees and green courtyards. Wiley G. Clarkson led a group of well-known Texas architects, and nationally recognized Hare and Hare contributed landscape plans. Alterations are mostly interior, and the layout is largely intact apart from buildings lost to Interstate 35W. The complex still provides affordable housing.