As I’ve reported not long ago, the old Sawyer Grocery Store buildings on South Main are now under restoration by local developer Eddie Vanston. Eddie was kind enough to take me on a walkthrough of the Sawyer buildings and show the progress that has been made thus far. Afterwards, I got an exclusive sneak peek at Eddie’s next project, which you’ll see here as well.

The Sawyer Grocery Store buildings were built in 1909 (red brick corner building) and 1910 (buff brick center building). Henry E. Sawyer operated a grocery store here from around 1888 (in a previous structure) to the late ’20s. The buildings served various uses in the decades afterward, and have been vacant for a long while now. At one point, their ground floors were ruined with bricked-in windows and destroyed facades. As you can see in these “before” photos, the buildings were tired, dirty, run-down, and in need of rescue.

Enter Mr. Vanston. If you’re into historic Fort Worth architecture, you may have heard of Eddie, but if not, here’s a primer. Eddie’s made his living centered around restoring and reopening small-scale neighborhood structures in Fort Worth’s Near Southside. He restored the Leuda-May Apartments from the ’20s and ’30s at, well, Leuda & May. He restored the incredible Markeen Apartments on Daggett, built in 1909 and virtually the only surviving example of multi-family Prairie School architecture in the city. Most recently, he restored the LaSalle Apartments on College in Fairmount, one of only a handful of surviving Tudorbethan courtyard-style apartments from the ’20s in Fort Worth.

Eddie and his crew will go in, install modern HVAC, plumbing, and wiring, then take everything else back to as close to original as they can. In the LaSalle, for example, he used a surviving original cabinet set to recreate the original design for the other units, and used scraps of tile to restore the original green, yellow, and pink bathroom/kitchen tile sets. He found the original frosted glass kitchen cabinet doors and bedroom French doors painted over and restored them. He even restored the old milk & ice delivery doors in the stairwells. The result is like stepping back into the teens or ’20s, but with modern conveniences.

I met up with Eddie this past Saturday for an in-depth look at the project. Here’s a couple of recent exterior photos to give you an idea of just how far the buildings have come:

We headed inside the buildings, taking a look at the four ground-floor retail spaces going in.

The retail spaces are less finished than the residential spaces at this point, but are coming along. The two photos above are from the 1909 building, but the four spaces are of similar size and layout. It will be interesting to see the tenants that go in here – the impression I got is that they’re wanting a pretty eclectic mix.

While downstairs, we took a look at some of the light fixtures that will be going in upstairs.

Then, it was outside, to go to the upstairs entrance of the 1910 building, to have a look at the work going on in the residences.

After just a few steps inside, the building started working its charm. Here’s the simple, but lovely, old mailbox array in the stairwell.

Upstairs, work is actually quite far along. This is the entry foyer in the 1910 building at the top of the stairs.

Stacks of vintage doors and trim work abound, in the process of restoration. Fortunately, pieces like the building’s original floor and window trim survived and are restorable, as is the original flooring. All the original trim, flooring, and counters are coveted, and quite beautiful, Longleaf Pine, which is in short supply now due to severely reduced numbers and must normally be gotten at salvage. The building’s original Longleaf Pine woodwork is being restored in all its various uses and will add tremendously to the buildings’ character.

I particularly like the ventilation windows above each door in the halls. A wonderful bit of vintage design that is being reused.

The units are very interesting, with large windows (with original glass), tall ceilings, and a wide variety of layouts. No two units have the same floorplan. The 1910 building features smaller units than the 1909 building.

As it turns out, the location has some great views, as well.

The buildings are a lot bigger inside than I was expecting, and there are a lot of windows as well, thanks not only to the large ones on the outer facades but also thanks to the breezeway between the two buildings.

We then headed into the 1909 building to look at the larger units. At one point, I asked about the cabinetry that would be used in the kitchens, and Eddie showed me a great find:

That is an original 1930s-era kitchen cabinet assembly. The buildings’ upper floors were used as a hotel in the ’30s and ’40s, and these cabinets were installed at that time. A few remained, so Eddie will be able to use them and build replicas to match for the other units.

Touring the older building:

As I mentioned, the original Longleaf Pine trim survived. Some of it has been painted over the years, but this shot shows the direction it’s all headed. These shots show original, unchanged trim. The dark stained look is the correct, original finish, and it’s this look that will be returned to all the wood trim in the buildings.

Looking across the street at the ABC Flag Company building.

Speaking of wood trim, here’s another great find – original kitchen counters, which will be restored and reused.

More inside the 1909 building.

Another interesting find – these nifty built-in shelves in this unit’s kitchen.

The Sawyer buildings look like they’ll make awesome apartments, full of character and real urban feel. The variety of floorplans mean there’ll be something for everybody – each of the 14 units is unique. Some trend towards a loft feel, with larger, more open spaces and fewer rooms, while some go more traditional with more rooms and various nooks. They all share great tall ceilings and an abundance of original trim. Several times while walking the project, I got a feeling that reminded me of some residences I’ve seen in New York City, in a way. They’re very urban and loaded with charm.

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Afterwards, a surprise – a look at Eddie’s next project. Prepare yourself, ladies and gents, for a Fort Worthology exclusive. Say hello to the Miller Manufacturing Company Building!

Built in 1911, the Miller Manufacturing Company building sits a block off South Main on Bryan Avenue, just about a block east and south of the Sawyer buildings. It’s a two-story concrete factory building constructed after the old building at the site burned in the Great Southside Fire of 1909. One particularly nifty feature of the building shown in the photo above is on the Bryan facade – a large arched entrance with multiple large windows. In addition, a rail spur used to come right up to the building for freight loading & unloading.

The building’s history is fairly remarkable, as well. The Miller Manufacturing Company was organized in 1903, with Byron Miller as president and none other than W. C. Stripling (yes, of the department store fame) as vice president. There is evidence to believe that it was the first overalls and pants factory in Fort Worth, and the first to use union labor. After the 1909 fire on the Near Southside, the current building was constructed.

On June 15, 1922, the workers (mostly women) at Miller Manufacturing went on strike, to protest the misuse of the union label and use of nonunion labor. The strike shut the factory down for seven weeks. On August 14, the company declared the factory an “open shop,” meaning that the company would not discriminate against potential employees for being (or not being) in a union, effectively meaning that the company did not recognize the unions. What happened next was a relatively unknown, fascinating event in Fort Worth history. I’ll let historian Susan Kline tell the tale herself, in her historical documentation of the building:

The union workers picketed the plant and within a few days after the open shop declaration they were alleged to have engaged in various forms of intimidation of the nonunion workers. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that fourteen women and three men kidnapped one of the nonunion workers from her home. The victim “was scratched about the face and arms, carried a few miles in the country and returned to town under the promise that she would resign her place and would also use her influence to obtain the consent of other open shop workers to resign.” Strikers allegedly also surrounded the car of a company official who was driving two workers home, called him names and threatened to kill him. On August 17, a striker was arrested at the factory and charged with disturbing the peace after attempting to assault a woman entering the plant. The striker and about a dozen of her compatriots denied any intention of using violence.

That same day it was reported that another worker was kidnapped on her way to work. Mrs. H. L. Hinckle claimed that she was taken by car out to the Grapevine road, stripped from the waist up, had her shoes taken off and cut to pieces and then was flogged and left bound with rope and wire by the side of the road. The assailants included a male drive and four women. A few days later, the newspaper printed a detailed account of the attack. The victim later recanted parts of her story, including the part about being stripped and left out in the country. Although she had been struck with a rope, the beating was not as severe as she originally stated. She claimed she exaggerated her story “so as to turn the whole world against the Garment Workers Union” and to claim damages against the company.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on August 18 that another woman worker was hidden in the interurban watch tower at Handley, about seven miles east of Fort Worth, in order to protect her from pursuing strikers. The woman was identified as living in Dallas and was said to be one of the best operators at the plant.

The strike dragged on into September. A similar strike at nearby Williamson-Dickie was resolved at around the same time when the company and the workers negotiated an agreement that recognized the union. The workers at Miller Manufacturing, though, did not have the same good fortune.

On September 30, C. R. Miller announced that the Fort Worth factory would be relocated to Paris, Texas. The company claimed that it could not secure protection for its open shop workers. Fort Worth remained a distribution center for the company but production of its overalls and other work clothes ceased in the city.

The building changed hands throughout the years, and has been vacant since 1995.

The building features large tilt-out windows on all sides, and has a very interesting little feature out back:

This one-story appendage was a stable, of all things, with workers in the nineteen teens using it as, basically, a parking garage for the horses some of them rode to work. It’s quite incredible realizing that people were building big concrete factories like this…while riding horses to work. (Of course, Fort Worth had a large streetcar network back then as well.)

Next, we headed inside.

The building is filled with a huge assortment of random items that had been stored inside by previous owners – a broken forklift, drafting tables, all manner of pipes, and pretty much everything else you could dream of. Tucked away in a corner of the ground floor, we even found this massive old camera:

We didn’t get a chance to check it out, since we had no flashlights, but apparently the building’s basement was converted during the ’50s into a Civil Defense Shelter, and still has original barrels of supplies dating back to the days of “Duck and Cover”-era nuclear scares.

The ground floor is much darker at the moment, with lots of its windows blocked by the random assortment of, well, “stuff” inside, so we headed upstairs…

…to have a look at the space.

Awesome.

If you’re looking at that and picturing some real hardcore industrial-style lofts, you’ll be pleased to know that’s exactly what Eddie has in store for the building. Giant warehouse windows, big open spaces, tall ceiling, exposed structure, the works.

Check out those skylights! How great is that?

Even though the building’s farther back off Main than the Sawyer buildings, it’s taller as well, so the view is still great (you can see the back of the Sawyer buildings in the center of the photo). Love the tilt-out windows as well.

So there you have it – a sneak peek at another Near Southside structure that will be getting brought back to life. I have a feeling the units in the Miller Manufacturing building will be absolutely awesome – it’s a building just screaming out for hardcore industrial lofts, and I can’t wait to see it start to progress as well. According to Eddie, there will be eight units on the second floor and seven on the first floor.

If you want to check out more of Eddie’s projects and currently available apartments, make sure to head over to OldBuilding.com, his web site.