Can a 1937 land deed save Fort Worth ISD’s historic Farrington Field from being sold?
Evan Farrington was just 5 years old when his father first pointed out to him the fluted columns and sculpted frieze of Farrington Field’s iconic west facade.
“I remember driving by the stadium and dad telling me, ‘You know that stadium is named after my dad.’” Farrington recalls.
Farrington is the grandson and namesake of E.S. Farrington, a long-time superintendent of the Fort Worth school district who for many years devoted his time and interest to high school athletics, and who made possible the construction of the new football stadium.
But the legendary football coach and athletic director never had the opportunity to see his 10-year project come to fruition. On Nov. 14 1937, days after the stadium was approved by the school board, E.S. Farrington died of a heart attack.
“There were times when it seemed hopeless,” wrote Amos Melton, a sports writer for the Star-Telegram at the time. “So it is indeed fitting, even necessary that this Field be dedicated to E.S. Farrington, the dreamer and doer, until the concrete crumbles away, until the steel rusts into dust.”
Farrington has joined forces with preservationists who hope the stadium can continue to stand for generations as a bridge between old Cowtown and the present, but the school district has decided the 80-year-old stadium has run its course.
On the 82nd anniversary of E.S. Farrington’s death, the board announced it was planning to sell 18 underused properties, including Farrington Field. The district said the stadium is too big and needs $20 million in repairs for new turf, ADA requirements, HVAC repairs and locker rooms.
That day Farrington began digging through newspaper clippings and family scrapbooks.
“I didn’t think it was right, for them to sell it and for some developer to tear it down,” Farrington said. “I wanted to get involved, I wanted to do something about it.”
He remembered his father telling him there was a deed restriction that said if the land wasn’t used for athletic purposes or if the school district tried to sell it, the land on which the stadium was built would revert back to its original owner.
His father was right, this land has had many deed restrictions dating back almost 100 years, but the city and the school district say the stadium and most of the property is clear and ready to go on the market.
Farrington and others who want to save the stadium continue holding onto hope that there’s something in the original land deeds that will save the stadium.
But unless the heirs of K.M. Van Zandt take the district to court, there’s not much that can save the stadium. Van Zandt, an early settler in Fort Worth, originally owned the property, and placed restrictions on the deeds. But some of them have since been removed through court challenges and changes in federal law.
The Van Zandt deeds
In February of 1937, the K.M. Van Zandt Land Co. sold 137 acres of land to the city of Fort Worth around what is now the bustling Cultural District. Some of that land, including the site of Farrington Field, was later sold to the school district.
Original deeds from the company prohibited the sale of alcohol and set limits to how much could be spent on improvements to the property. If the restrictions were violated, the property would revert back to the ownership of the company, according to the original deeds.
The restrictions also included Jim Crow prohibitions that barred the sale of land to Black people, provisions nullified by federal fair housing laws adopted after the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
In 2008, several landowners along West Seventh Street and University Drive went to court to overturn deed restrictions on their land set by the K.M. Van Zandt Land Co. in the late 1930s. But the judgment applied only to the properties in the lawsuit — not the stadium.
Deed restrictions travel with the deed to succeeding buyers unless a new owner removes them through legal action, according to Leann D. Guzman, a real estate attorney with the city of Fort Worth.
A Tarrant County District court found the restrictions set by the Van Zandt Land Co. to be unenforceable because the company dissolved in 1947. Guzman said it is no longer an issue for the property owned by the city.
Neither the city nor the school district have fought these deed restrictions in court. Although it’s unlikely, this could be an issue if a title company decides it’s a viable risk, according to Guzman.
City Restrictions
On December 1, 1937, the city sold 38 acres of the land it bought from the K.M. Van Zandt Land Co. to the school district so it could build the stadium, according to Tarrant County property records.
About 17 acres had conditions set by the city, including that the money from a future sale had to go back to the city and another that required the district to lease or rent the property only for parking athletic, recreational, stadium and other general and similar purposes, records show.
The conditions were first introduced by a City Council member who said that if the school system abandoned its plans for an athletic field on the land, the title would revert back to the city. A day earlier, the same council member had told E.S. Farrington, “We are not selling you this land, we are giving it to you,” according to a Nov. 11, 1937, report by the Star-Telegram.
The city now has an agreement with the school district for the right to be paid half of the net proceeds in the sale of 1.7 acres surrounding the stadium, where the city built Trail Drive in 2016, according to Guzman.
“From the city’s perspective, there is nothing in the agreement that would prohibit Fort Worth ISD from selling Farrington Field,” Guzman said.
She also said because there is no local historic designation there is no demolition protection that could make it difficult for a future developer wanting to tear down the stadium.
Preserving History
Clint Bond, spokesman for the school district said the rumor of the Fort Worth ISD not being able to sell the land comes up every time there is talk of selling Farrington Field. But everything other than the city’s roadway is “free and clear,” and ready to sell.
The district sold eight properties earlier this month, including the central administration building and the original Women’s Leadership Academy. The district has hired a preservation architect to help the district and any future bidders find ways to preserve some of the historic aspects of the stadium, including the west side of the field where you can see the fluted piers with star capitals and bas-relief panels of athletic figures designed by Fort Worth artist Evaline Sellors.
Farrington Field was a depression-era relief project that employed about 500 workers. Preston M. Geren served as the consulting architect for this Art Deco, Classical Moderne structure, according to Historic Fort Worth, a nonprofit that has been calling for the stadium’s historic designation since at least 2012.
In February, Farringtons’ grandson, an attorney for the Texas Workforce Commission, drove from his home in Austin to join the group as it discussed the district’s plans to sell the stadium.
Farrington brought along a box full of photos, scrapbooks and stadium-related memorabilia that has been passed down in his family: a purple ribbon with gold letters, a picture of Gen. Douglas MacArthur from when he gave a speech at the field in June 1951, and an engraved pocket watch given to his grandfather by the North Side football team for winning the Fort Worth city championship in 1921.
The box also included dozens of newspaper clippings detailing historic moments from the field: the first African-American state high school championship game played in 1940, the first televised football game in the Southwest in 1948, and the first sudden death overtime game in pro-football history between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos in 1964.
“There’s no high school football stadium in Texas that even comes close to having its history,” Farrington said. “I want to make sure that all options have been considered by the Fort Worth ISD and School Board before a landmark and treasured public school monument such as Farrington Field is destroyed in the name of cost savings.”
As of Friday, the district had not put the stadium on the market.
