By Eric Miller
Those who enjoy architecture will find the buildings on
Grapevine’s Main Street have considerable appeal. It's one of the oldest and bustling intact
business districts around. While many towns in North Central Texas have tried to create historic charm with more recently built town centers, Main Street in Grapevine looks much as it has for generations.
Of course, it wasn't always this lively. Once serving farmers in the surrounding countryside, by the 1980s, local residents found the street wasn't as busy as it had been. The move was on to revive business, preserve existing buildings and recreate those that were gone. The Art Deco Palace Theater (now the Palace Arts Center) was renovated, and the Wallis Hotel was reconstructed. Slowly downtown Grapevine regained its status as the place to go for a meal out or just to soak in the ambiance on an active business district can provide. For more on the history, click
here.
Anyone who visited Grapevine in the ‘80s will also notice several new additions, including an attractive bank building fronting the North end of Main Street. A mixed-use development has also been built south of the historic train depot. Here visitors will find one of the town’s many
wine-tasting rooms and see a new building rising just to the north of the train depot. When completed, it will be the new home for the Grapevine Convention and Visitors Bureau. It will also include a new home for the Grapevine Historical Museum, housed in a replica of an ice house that once stood nearby.
Soon a clock tower will take shape here too, complementing the tower on Grapevine City Hall to the North and framing the business district with time in architecture. Other buildings of note a the former home of the Grapevine Sun, the Torain Log Cabin and a one-room jailhouse known as the Grapevine Calaboose, where unfortunate lawbreakers were once held.
Surely they would have rather been in your position, on the outside looking in.