Fairmount-Southside Historic District

Fairmount/Southside is a large neighborhood of about 340 acres south of downtown Fort Worth, built mostly between 1905 and 1920 as a middle-class streetcar suburb. Wood-frame bungalows dominate, with Four Square houses, Queen Anne cottages, apartment blocks, small commercial strips along former streetcar lines, churches and schools mixed in. Chase Court, a private deed-restricted street begun in 1906, holds the grandest houses, with Prairie School, Renaissance Revival, Tudor and Colonial Revival influences. The area grew after the Texas & Pacific Railroad arrived in 1876, annexation in 1891, and the arrival of meatpacking plants in 1902, which drove a population boom. Residents included clerks, tradesmen, teachers, business owners and professionals. Most houses were built on contract to standard designs without architects, with details varied by owners and carpenters. The district was listed for its architecture and its intact collection of quality, modest homes, with boundaries drawn to exclude edges that lost historic fabric.