Site of: The Antlers Hotel Fire of 1929

Police officers across the street saw the flames first, around 3:30 on the morning of December 12, 1929, and alerted the fire department. The hotel was barely nine years old. The collapse of its wall helped change how buildings were constructed in the city. The Wichita Falls Public Library now stands on the site, and the marker stands just inside its main door. On the fire's ninetieth anniversary in 2019 the fire department paused to remember the two firemen who died, and the chief noted that today's fire code is shaped by lessons from local tragedies like this one.

What the plaque says

Site of: The Antlers Hotel Fire of 1929 A three-story brick hotel building was constructed at this site in 1920 by the firm of Bachman and Goodwin. Originally known as the Argonne, the name was later changed to the Antlers Hotel when the structure was purchased by H. G. Karrenbrock. In the early morning hours of December 12, 1929, a fire broke out in the building. Firemen of the central station were the first to arrive on the scene and were promptly aided by additional units responding to a second alarm. Flames were visible throughout the city and quickly attracted a large crowd. Thirty minutes after the first alarm, the west wall of the structure began to crumble. Although some of the fire fighters escaped, assistant city fire chief Smiley Turner and fireman Guno Anderson were killed by the collapsing wall. One occupant of the hotel, Kenneth (Toby) Brice of Bowie, also died in the fire that morning. As a result of the destructive Antlers Hotel fire, significant changes were made in the Wichita Falls Fire Department. Equipment was updated, new training programs were established, and city officials began strengthening ordinances in an effort to actively enforce the municipal fire code. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 0.3 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Kell House Museum — 0.5 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 12 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• Wichita Falls Opera House — steps away
• The Zale Legacy — 0.2 mi
• O'Donohoe, John F. — 0.2 mi
• Wichita Falls Bank Robbery of 1896 — 0.2 mi