William John Bryce: Fort Worth's Influential Mayor and Philanthropist (1861–1944)

William John Bryce, Fort Worth mayor, businessman, and philanthropist, son of John Thompson Bryce and Jane (Gray) Bryce, was born in Libberton, Lanarkshire, Scotland, on February 14, 1861. He was one of twelve children. Around 1868 Bryce’s parents moved their family to St. Marys, Ontario, Canada, where his father continued his career as a masonry contractor. As a young man, Bryce learned his father’s trade. Around 1873 the family moved to Toronto, where Bryce lived until, at about the age of nineteen, he left for Winnipeg, Manitoba, to work as a journeyman bricklayer. Thereafter, Bryce emigrated to Minneapolis. He travelled throughout the Upper Midwest and eventually settled in Chicago around 1881.

In 1883 Bryce arrived in Dallas but found the city “too dull,” so he settled in Fort Worth, where he continued to work as a bricklayer. By 1885 he established his own masonry business, eventually called the Bryce Building Company. His original office was located at his residence on Williams Street. By 1888 Bryce’s business advertised that it could lay up to 25,000 bricks per day. On March 14, 1887, at the Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York, Bryce married Catherine Roberts, an Englishwoman whom he had met in Manitoba. His wife then moved with him to Fort Worth. They had one son, born in 1888, who died in Salem, Indiana, prior to his first birthday. They had no other children together.

Bryce built several notable structures in Fort Worth, such as the brewery of the Texas Brewing Company (1890), the first Worth Hotel (1894), and the Knights of Pythias Castle Hall (1901). In 1902 Bryce helped construct the packing house of Armour and Company and won the bid to gravel 600,000 square feet of roofing for pens in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Credited with building more public buildings in the city than any other builder, he also constructed the historic Livestock Exchange Building (1903) in the Stockyards; the Cobden Building (1909); the Bryce Building (1910), which housed his company’s offices; George C. Clarke Elementary (1914); the Fort Worth Club building (1916); Central High School (1918), now Green B. Trimble Technical High School; and Temple Beth-El (1920). In 1920 Bryce resigned from his position as president of the Bryce Building Company.

Bryce also served as president of the Denton Pressed Brick Company, which was acquired by the Acme Pressed Company, one of the preeminent brick and masonry businesses in the Southwest, in 1912. He served as a vice president of Acme, and from 1935 to 1941 he was president and board chair. Bryce served as president of the Fairmont Land Company and developed the Park Hill Addition and portions of Fort Worth’s Southside and Arlington Heights. He constructed his own Arlington Heights residence, which he named “Fairview.” In 1906 Bryce was an incorporator and director of the Fort Worth Life Insurance Company. In 1909 he became a vice president of the newly-organized Fort Worth State Bank. In 1911, as a director of the Waggoner Bank and Trust Company, Bryce helped effect the consolidation of Waggoner Bank with the First National Bank of Fort Worth, which made the bank “one of the largest financial institutions in the Southwest.” He also served as a director of the Fort Worth National Bank, the Millers Mutual Fire Insurance Company, the Fort Worth Power & Light Company, the Fort Worth Iron and Steel Company, the Texas Rolling Mill Company, and the State Reserve Life Insurance Company and was president of the Hillcrest Land Company, Drumm Seed and Floral Company, and the Southwest Builders Supply Company.

In 1901 plumbers in the city went on strike. The hiring of non-union plumbers during the strike prompted the Fort Worth Building Trades Council to pass a resolution declaring cessation of work on all buildings being constructed with any non-union labor, which halted most construction across the city. In response Bryce helped organize city contractors into the Fort Worth Builders’ Club, which named him president and declared that participating contractors would hire no worker who was a member of a Building Trades Council union. After the two organizations failed to come to an agreement, a board of arbitration was formed, which ruled in favor of the $4 daily wage demanded by the striking plumbers, but required that union workers could not refuse to work alongside non-union workers.

Bryce was active in civic affairs, particularly in the Arlington Heights area, where he launched a fund to regrade and improve Arlington Heights Boulevard (later Camp Bowie Boulevard). In 1889 he served on the general committee for the Texas Spring Palace and, following its destruction, supported efforts to establish a new Spring Palace. In 1910 Bryce joined the board of directors of the Fort Worth Board of Trade (later the Chamber of Commerce). While on the Board of Trade, he served on several committees, including one seeking to establish an interurban railway west to Weatherford and Mineral Wells. In 1911 Bryce was one of a number of businessmen who supported a $1.6 million bond measure to build four bridges over the Trinity River and to construct paved roads throughout the county. During World War I he served as vice chair of the Fort Worth War Service Board and as chair of the board’s committee on religious activities.

In 1924 Fort Worth civic leaders formed the Citizens’ Association for Civic Advancement to advocate the adoption of a new city charter to effect a council-manager form of government. In April 1924 Bryce was one of thirty-five Fort Worth residents elected to the commission tasked with writing the new charter, which was approved by voters in December. In the first municipal election under the new charter, Bryce, along with eight other candidates, ran for city council on the Citizens’ Association ticket. On April 7, 1925, all nine were elected and chose Henry C. Meacham as mayor. During his first term in office, Bryce advanced infrastructural developments for Fort Worth, including the improvement and paving of streets and the construction of a belt line railway around Fort Worth. In the 1927 election L. B. Rogan challenged Bryce for the Place 5 seat, but Bryce, along with the rest of the city council won reelection. However, Mayor Meacham resigned from his position due to ill health shortly after the election, and the council elected Bryce as the new mayor on April 12, 1927. He was reelected mayor in 1929, 1931, and 1933.

During his six-year tenure as mayor, Bryce devoted himself to the economic development of the city through new construction, street improvement, and other infrastructure projects. One of his principal goals, achieved in his first mayoral term, was the creation of a comprehensive city plan (see BARTHOLOMEW PLAN (FORT WORTH)). Major projects included the creation of the Royal Street Bridge (now the Henderson Street Bridge), Meacham Field, and a new fire station and alarm signal station (Central Fire Station No. 2), all completed in 1930, as well as grade separations for railroad crossings and new Texas and Pacific passenger and freight stations (both finished in 1931). Bryce also supported creating a city-owned and managed hospital to relieve congestion at the City-Country Hospital. The site of the proposed hospital was a tract of land donated to the city for hospital uses by John Peter Smith. This new facility (now the John Peter Smith Hospital) was finally opened in 1939.

In one of the most contentious issues of Bryce’s mayoralty, the city fought with Lone Star Gas (see ENSERCH CORPORATION) and its subsidiary the Fort Worth Gas Company over increased gas rates. In January 1931 Fort Worth residents voted for municipal ownership of the gas system. In May Bryce signed a contract with a new gas supplier, the Shamrock Natural Gas Company, despite his and a majority of the city council’s opposition to both municipal ownership and the Shamrock contract. The contract was ultimately cancelled due to the city’s failure to acquire Lone Star’s gas properties in Fort Worth.

In the 1933 city council race, two other candidates, Travis V. Daniel and S. B. Edwards, ran against Bryce for his council seat. Gaining an endorsement from the Good Government League, Bryce won the race with 4,828 votes; defeating Daniel (4,001) and Edwards (1,252). He was reelected mayor by the city council. During his brief fourth term as mayor, Bryce and Dallas mayor Charles E. Turner urged cooperation between their cities to construct a Trinity River canal linking Fort Worth and Dallas to the Gulf of Mexico (see TRINITY RIVER NAVIGATION PROJECTS). In July 1933 Bryce and his wife were seriously injured in an automotive accident. On December 20, 1933, he resigned as mayor due to his own ill health caused by the accident and the deteriorating health of his wife, who died in 1934.

Bryce had a long career in philanthropic and charity work in Fort Worth. In 1904 he helped found the Texas Children’s Home and Aid Society (now the Gladney Center for Adoption) and served as the organization’s president. He served as treasurer in the Fort Worth Relief Association. In 1936 and 1937 he was elected president of the Fort Worth Community Chest.

An avid golfer, Bryce was a founder and president of the Fort Worth Country Club. In 1909, during his presidency, the club sponsored a golf tournament for the William Bryce Cup. In 1910 Bryce helped found the River Crest Country Club, and in 1911 the organization built an eighteen-hole golf course, the oldest such course in Fort Worth, in Arlington Heights. Bryce was an active member in several fraternal organizations throughout his life. He was a founder of the Julian Field Lodge No. 908 and was a trustee of the Masonic Temple Building Association. He was also a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks, the Knights of Pythias, the Sons of Caledonia, and was president of the British-American Association. He was a trustee, founding member, and longtime congregant of the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth.

On September 29, 1944, William Bryce, at the age of eighty-three, died of pneumonia at All Saints Hospital in Fort Worth. He was buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth. In 1984 the Bryce Building and Bryce’s home in Arlington Heights were added to the National Register of Historic Places. The street on which his home was located is named Bryce Avenue after the businessman.