Historic red bricks uncovered in West 7th Street construction will be saved for reuse
Historic bricks uncovered during West 7th Street construction will be saved and used for future repairs at other locations, Fort Worth officials say.
The red bricks were exposed under thick layers of concrete as work crews dug new landscaped medians on West 7th Street, a long-time thoroughfare to and from downtown. The construction also revealed traces of wood ties from streetcar tracks.
Drivers won’t see the red bricks kept in place on West 7th, but those that have been dug up will be reviewed by Fort Worth’s historic preservation officer and used to patch up other roads that are still brick, such as Camp Bowie Boulevard, said Jeffrey Allen, a Department of Transportation and Public Works communications specialist.
Star-Telegram photos from the 1950s, archived by the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, show West 7th was brick like Camp Bowie and Main Street.
Brick streets were common in Fort Worth between the late 1890s and the mid-1950s, according to Historic Fort Worth. Some roadways like Main Street were rebricked during the Great Depression and have their bricks intact like Camp Bowie Boulevard, while others were paved over.
Jerre Tracy, the Historic Fort Worth executive director, previously told the Star-Telegram that Fort Worth’s brick roads were an ingrained part of the city’s culture.
“Students in Fort Worth high schools and universities still ‘Hit the bricks’,” she said. “That phrase passes from generation to generation.”
Camp Bowie Boulevard was paved with Thurber bricks in the late 1920s, so the initial brick laying was not part of a Works Progress Administration project. However, WPA projects still remain in Fort Worth including Farrington Field and the Will Rogers Memorial Tower and Coliseum.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, a San Francisco-based architectural firm that led historic surveys of the city suggested Fort Worth’s downtown brick streets could qualify for a National Register Historic District designation, Tracy said.
The designation would likely mean federal grants for maintenance work. But the segment on West 7th Street has not been registered.
The construction project on West 7th includes bike lanes from University Drive to Trinity River Bridge, as well as improvements for pedestrians, lighting and traffic signals.. The work is expected to be completed around the end of October, according to the city.
This story was originally published September 12, 2022 at 4:06 PM.
