James William Corn, born in 1850, came to Texas at age seventeen and made a fortune as a cattle and land dealer. In 1922, he was recorded as owning nearly 55,000 acres in Tarrant and other counties, and the following year was called one of the “pioneer builders” of Texas. Corn was also vice-president of the Mutual Cotton Oil Co., manufacturers of cotton seed oil products and cattle feed. Corn acquired all 480 acres of the Finley survey in 1900, and was identified by 1920 as residing near Benbrook, presumably at this house. The property passed eventually to his daughter, Pearl C. Littleton, in 1929, and to Thomas E. Mercer, owner of a beer distributing company and a teaming and trucking firm, in 1945. On a commanding hilltop site, the rectangular house has three full stories under the gambrel roof and is designed in the Colonial Revival style. A two-story wing extends northward from the rear elevation. The house features a full, two-story recessed gallery supported by boxed and paneled posts and a porte cochere to the east. Although part of a site proposed for mixed-use development, the house has been sympathetically rehabilitated. Development plans call for the retention of the structure. With additional documentation, the resource would be eligible for the National Register. Information received since this section of the survey was compiled indicates that the Corn House is located in Benbrook rather than Fort Worth. It is included here because of its relationship to the history and development of the area, but will also be repeated in the volume which covers Benbrook.
