800 Houston Street, Commercial Building, 1935; 1951. This commercial building, constructed in 1935 by Marvin Leonard, was apparently built to provide a central ticket office location for several of the railroads serving Fort Worth. The Texas and Pacific; Fort Worth and Denver City; Missouri, Kansas and Texas; Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe; and Missouri Pacific all had ticket offices here for some period between 1935 and 1950. Russell Stover Candies moved to this location in 1951 from 201 W. Seventh St., and their trademark glass and metal trim was probably added to the building at that time. Original design elements on the building consist of the frieze above the shop fronts composed of a central dark band between courses of stylized floral and scallop ornamentation. The property was formerly the site of the Martin Brown Department Store, a nineteenth-century red stone building later called the Fine Arts Building, which was demolished when this building was erected.
