Sundance Square's three-story Northern Texas Traction Co. interurban-railway office, c.1902 — host to Richard Haas's famed Chisholm Trail trompe-l'oeil mural and to a phantom woman and pale cowboy reported by tenants.
400 Main St, Fort Worth, TX 76102
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Building exterior and Chisholm Trail mural are free to view from Sundance Square Plaza.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved Sundance Square Plaza
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1902 · Sundance Square contributing structure · Northern Texas Traction Company Interurban Railway headquarters · Richard Haas Chisholm Trail mural (1985, restored 2013)
The Jett Building stands at the corner of Third and Main Streets in downtown Fort Worth's Sundance Square district. Built around 1902, the three-story brick commercial building was originally the Fort Worth headquarters and station for the Northern Texas Traction Company, which operated the Interurban electric railway between Dallas, Fort Worth, and Cleburne from the early 20th century through 1934. Per Historic Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Architecture archive, the first floor served as the railway's ticket office, the second floor housed the company's administrative offices, and the third floor functioned as a bunkhouse where conductors stayed between runs.
The Interurban era ended with the rise of private automobiles and intercity buses in the 1920s and 1930s; the Northern Texas Traction Company ceased Interurban service in 1934. The building subsequently passed through multiple commercial tenants and was at one point known by the Jett surname of a later owner.
In 1985, the building's south facade became the canvas for Richard Haas's 'Chisholm Trail' trompe-l'oeil mural — commissioned as a public-art commemoration of the 1867-1875 Fort Worth segment of the Chisholm Trail cattle drive era. The mural depicts a longhorn cattle drive moving along a painted version of the building's facade, with cowboys, dust, and architectural detail rendered in forced perspective. The mural became one of Fort Worth's most-photographed downtown landmarks.
In 2013, the Sundance Square Plaza opened immediately south of the building, and as part of the plaza work the Chisholm Trail mural was restored and the Jett Building fully renovated. The building continues to host private commercial tenants on its upper floors.
Sources
Per Ghost City Tours' Haunted Fort Worth feature and CBS Texas's 'Some Convinced Certain Fort Worth Buildings Are Haunted,' the Jett Building has accumulated a small but durable catalog of paranormal reports from people who have worked in or visited the upper floors. The most-cited apparition is a phantom woman seen inside the building; a second figure, described as a pale cowboy dressed in black, has been reported by multiple independent tenants per the CBS Texas reporting.
Ghost City Tours additionally documents cold spots, unexplained sounds, lights cycling on and off, and — per Fort Worth Architecture's compilation — frozen-drink machines and similar electrical appliances operating seemingly at random. Tour-operator narrative ties the phenomena to the building's early-20th-century bunkhouse use, when conductors slept between Interurban runs in the third-floor space.
The building's interior is not open to the general public, so most accounts come from former tenants and from ghost-tour-led visits. Reports are atmospheric-to-apparition in nature and are positioned at the medium-verifiability end of Fort Worth's haunted-downtown catalog — strong enough to ship but with the caveat that public access is limited to mural viewing from Sundance Square Plaza.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk Sundance Square Plaza on the south side of the Jett Building to view Richard Haas's 1985 Chisholm Trail trompe-l'oeil mural — restored in 2013 as part of the plaza redevelopment. Interior of the building is private; this is an exterior visit.
The Jett Building is a recurring stop on Ghost City Tours' downtown Fort Worth ghost-history walking tour, which weaves the building's interurban-railway bunkhouse past with the phantom-woman and pale-cowboy reports from former tenants.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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