Archive for April 6th, 2009

The rockwork chimneys on either side of the cottage speak of the building's pioneer origins.

In Trinity Park northeast of the Botanic Garden is a small rectantangular house which packs more historic punch than you would expect from driving by.  A large City Parks sign identifies the site as the Van Zandt Cottage, but two stone markers, erected in 1964, do not give much background on the site proper, instead containing information that focuses mostly on the Civil War record of General H. P. Mabry, who apparently owned the site before the man for who it’s now named, and of Major K.M. Van Zandt, whom the stone notes went on to various commercial enterprises in the city and became known, before he died at age 95, as “Mr Fort Worth.”

The visitor might wonder. If he came to be one of the most respected and known men in the city, was this Van Zandt’s childhood home? The cottage, almost certainly less than 1000 square feet, looks far too modest for someone who became so prominent, and who had an entire county named after the family (Van Zandt, east of here.) The homestead, with an oak and pecan tree stretching their branches over, is silent, as historic places tend to be.  It is left for the researcher to go home and surf the web for more information.

K.M. (Khleber Miller) Van Zandt was the great great grandfather of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, profiled in this blog a couple of weeks ago. The elderVan Zandt (1836-1930) was born in Tennessee and came to Texas three years later.  He served with Company D of the 7th Texas Infantry, was captured in the second year of the war, was exchanged at Vicksburg, and served through the war’s end before coming to Fort Worth around 1865 at age 29. He bought the cottage and the land around it  for himself and his young family (wife and three children.) Van Zandt was accustomed to go to work in the “city,” which when he arrived numbered less than 250 people, located where downtown is now, riding his horse, fording the river as there was no bridge.  He served in the Texas Legislature in 1873, founded Fort Worth National Bank and the First Christian Church, and arranged for private railroad construction to bring the railroad into town to spur growth. He is also credited with starting a newspaper that became the Star-Telegram.

Eventually widowed twice, married a total of three times with 14 children, Van Zandt was nothing if not a busy man. A photo taken as a young man shows a handsome face, longist hair, as was the style, a cravat tie, and, overall, the combative features of those raised on the frontier.  In his autobiography, excerpted elsewhere on the web, he claimed to be more interested in the future of his city and fellow citizens than in enriching himself, which I assume was true, although he and his family certainly did well. There is more about Van Zandt, including a photo, and about the house on the website of MBR Guarenteed Foundation, which did a restructuring of the property just last year. Additional information and mapping details can be had from Waymark.

It is the image of Van Zandt riding his horse to go downtown, I suppose, that strikes me the most. The cottage is close by the 7th Street Bridge over the Trinity, and I wonder where the ford was. I imagine the horse picking its was through the rocks in the water, the man in a 19th century suitcoat, looking down. He is the frontier, yet he, in bringing civilization, is also its end. He is foreign born (well, Tennessee) but he is a true Texan, a soldier and a businessman. It’s a conundrum. I can hear the water splash, and then the splash dies away and the image with it.

Photo credit: mbdezines on fickr.