Texas Spring Palace

The Spring Palace was an advertisement for the state. The Handbook of Texas says the plan was to rival the Corn Palace at Sioux City and the Ice Palace at Toronto, with samples of Texas grains, fruits and minerals under one roof to draw settlers and investors. More than fifty counties sent exhibits, and about 28 percent of the visitors came from outside the state. After the fire the city spent a decade trying to revive the idea. The Handbook says it failed for lack of money, and the Fat Stock Show grew out of the same ambition.

What the plaque says

Texas Spring Palace Following a suggestion by General R.A. Cameron, an officer of the Fort Worth & Denver Railway, city promoters developed the idea of an annual exhibition for the display of Texas agricultural products. In 1889 they constructed the Texas Spring Palace near this site to house the exhibits. Designed by the Fort Worth firm of Armstrong and Messer, it was a two-story wooden structure featuring influences of Oriental and Moorish styles. Women's groups added ornamentation using flowers, seeds, and grasses. On the evening of May 30, 1890, during the second season of the exhibition, a fire swept through the Spring Palace, completely destroying the structure. A number of people who crowded the building at the time had to leap from the second floor to escape the flames. Alfred S. Hayne (b. 1849), a native of England, returned to the burning Palace to help others who were still trapped inside. The only fatality of the fire, he died the next day of burns suffered in the rescue effort. In 1893 the Women's Humane Association dedicated a monument near this site in memory of his heroism and courage. Efforts to rebuild the Texas Spring Palace failed because of economic problems in the Panic of 1893. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tarrant County Courthouse — 0.9 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 2.3 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 2.5 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 3.2 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.

More markers nearby

• Hell's Half Acre — steps away
• Site of Saint Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church — 0.3 mi
• John Peter Smith — 0.3 mi
• Ephraim Merrill Daggett — 0.4 mi