Sanguinet, Staats and Hedrick records

Sanguinet and Staats, one of the most successful and influential architectural firms in Texas from the turn of the century through the 1930s, was founded in 1903 by Marshall R. Sanguinet and Carl G. Staats. Sanguinet, who was twelve years older than Staats, moved to Fort Worth in 1883 and practiced architecture there with a variety of partners until the turn of the century. Staats, a native New Yorker, emigrated to Texas in 1891 and worked for noted San Antonio architect James Riely Gordon before being hired by Sanguinet as a draftsman in 1898.

In 1903, Charles D. Hill became the general superintendent for the Sanguinet and Staats firm. He served in this position in Fort Worth until 1905. In 1905, the firm Sanguinet, Staats and Hill, Architects, was established in Dallas. Hill withdrew from the firm in 1907 and with D.F. Coburn and H.D. Smith, he organized the architectural firm of C.D. Hill and Company.

Sanguinet and Staats, headquartered in Fort Worth, rapidly developed into one of the state's largest architectural practices, producing buildings of all types from factories and large hotels to churches and schools. It is best known, however, for its contributions to the design of steel-framed skyscrapers. The firm's work encompassed almost every tall building constructed in Fort Worth before 1930 and--for a time--the tallest structures in Beaumont, Houston, Midland, and San Antonio. The 20-story Amicable Insurance Co. Building in Waco, completed in 1911, was for a brief time, the tallest building in the Southwest. Other prominent examples include: First National Bank Building, Fort Worth (1907); Scarbrough Building, Austin (1910); C.F. Carter Building, Houston (1919); South Texas Building, San Antonio (1919); Neil P. Anderson Building, Fort Worth (1920); and the Jackson Building, Jackson, Miss. (1923). Designed in a variety of styles and forms, their numerous works transformed the scale and style of the state's rapidly growing cities during the teens and twenties.

Despite Sanguinet and Staats' emphasis on large commercial buildings, the firm also designed a number of large residences for some of the state's cattle, cotton, timber, and oil magnates, prominent examples of which may still be seen on Pennsylvania Ave. in Fort Worth and Courtland Place in Houston.

Sanguinet and Staats were also instrumental in transforming the practice of architectural offices to have a state-wide general architecture practice with branch offices in Dallas, Wichita Falls, San Antonio, Waco, and Houston.

In 1922, Sanguinet and Staats were joined by Wyatt C. Hedrick who bought a partial interest in the firm. The practice was known as Sanguinet, Staats, Hedrick and Gottlieb, under the direction of R.D. Gottlieb, a limited partner. That arrangement lasted until 1926 when Sanguinet and Staats officially retired and sold their share of the firm to Hedrick. Thereafter, Hedrick continued the practice under his own name in Fort Worth, and in limited partnerships in Houston and later Dallas.

-Christopher Long

-From "Texas 50." Texas Architect (Nov./Dec. 1989): p. 58.

Wyatt Cephas Hedrick (1888-1964) was born in Chatham, Va. He attended Roanoke College and graduated from Washington and Lee College in 1910. Employed as an engineer by Lane Brothers of Alta Vista, Va. from 1910 to 1913, he became associated in 1913 with Stone and Webster Engineering Corp. of Boston as a construction engineer in their Dallas office. Hedrick ran his own construction company in Fort Worth from 1914 to 1921, when he became a partner of the architecture firm Sanguinet, Staats and Hedrick, which had offices Fort Worth and Houston. In 1925 Hedrick established his own architectural enterprise, with offices in Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston.

Hedrick's moderne-style buildings in Fort Worth include the Worth Theatre (with Alfred C. Finn, 1927), Lone Star Gas Co. Building (1929), Hollywood Theatre (with Alfred C. Finn, 1930), Aviation Building (1930), Central Fire Station and Fire Alarm Signal Station (1930), Texas & Pacific Terminal and Warehouse (1931), Will Rogers Memorial Center (1936) and City Hall (1938), (both in association with Elmer G. Withers), and Mrs. Baird's Bakery (1938).

Although his firm became one of the foremost exponents of the moderne style in Fort Worth, Hedrick completed many more local commissions in other stylistic idioms. He had an active practice in many cities (often with partners, simultaneously maintaining Hedrick & Lindsley and Hedrick & Stanley, for example) across the nation from the 1920s to the 1950s, and at one time his was the third-largest architectural firm in the country. Hedrick's other Fort Worth projects included the Medical Arts Building, Worth Hotel, Electric Building, Fair Building, US Public Health Service Hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital, and the Tarrant County Civil Courts Building of 1953, which was resurfaced and given a disguising mural by artist Richard Haas in 1988. He also designed the Sterlick Building in Memphis and scores of educational facilities throughout Texas, including Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas Christian University and Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth, and North Texas State University in Denton. Other important Hedrick projects included the Shamrock Hotel in Houston (object of a famous jeer by Frank Lloyd Wright, who, on seeing the rooftop sign in 1949, said, "I can understand the `sham,' but where's the rock'?"), Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple, and US Air Force bases in Iceland (at $221 million, the largest in his portfolio) and British Guiana. Hedrick is a charter member of TSA [Texas Society of Architects].

-Judith Singer Cohen

-From "Texas 50." Texas Architect (Nov./Dec. 1989): p. 58.