About

Established in 1969, honored with the 2009 Texas Historical Commission’s Governors Award in Preservation and a member of the National Preservation Partners Network, Historic Fort Worth, Inc. is dedicated to preserving Fort Worth’s unique historic identity through stewardship, education and leadership.  HFW stewards the 1899 Ball-Eddleman-McFarland House, Fort Worth’s second landmark.

HFW’s administrative offices are on the second floor of McFarland House, 1110 Penn Street.  The main floor serves as a historic house museum, and the lower level is a resource library comprised of books, photographs, surveys and thousands of files on historic buildings in Fort Worth.  McFarland House is available to the public for tours, rentals and research.

HFW owned Thistle Hill, 1509 Pennsylvania Avenue, from 2006 – 2022.  With a 12,500 sq. ft. historic mansion, a 2,500 sq. ft. carriage house, and a 1.5 acre garden, Thistle Hill is a unique destination for family members of patients, and its park-like grounds that comprise the largest green space in the Medical District.  Additionally, the carriage house is one of only two urban, transitional, carriage houses remaining in Texas, and was built for both horses and cars.  Inside the carriage house are horse stalls, feeding troughs, a cooling yard, garage bays and a hand-crank gas pump. Thistle Hill is landmarked at the local, state, and national levels, and it is also protected with a special easement held by the Texas Historical Commission.  The trustees of Cook Children’s are looking forward to finishing the restoration of Thistle Hill and will utilize this Texas treasure for meetings and events.

Other HFW programs include membership tours of private and public buildings, programs on restoration and property management, historic property research, marketing of endangered properties, preservation courses for developers and Realtors, preservation awards, tours for special conferences, public appeals for threatened properties, survey updates, and façade easements.  Additionally, HFW works behind the scenes and at public meetings to create opportunities for those places that matter most to Fort Worth’s unique historic identity.

Friends, members and constituents connect with HFW through memberships, community programs, as tourists, and at fundraising events like A Needlepoint Love Story, Preservation is the Art of the City®, the Hidden Gardens Tour of Fort Worth, and holiday events.  HFW is a 501(c)(3) charity.

McFarland Illustration
McFarland House

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