The first high rise in Wichita Falls was built by J. A. Kemp and Frank Kell to house their growing enterprises, especially their railroads (AQ5). The building also housed the City National Bank. Hubbell and Greene of Dallas designed a Beaux-Arts scheme of five stories with brown brick walls accented by buff limestone stringcourses. The property was sold in 1926 to George Holt and H. S. Ford, who added two floors and a second-floor mezzanine and converted it into a hotel. The Holt served the city’s hotel needs during the oil boom and also served as the social center of Wichita Falls. By 1978 the Holt was vacant. It was repurposed and rehabilitated in 2007 with forty-one loft-style apartments and ground-floor retail.
The Holt marks the east end of the 8th Street corridor, a street of significant buildings that was known as the “gateway to the city.” It is still Wichita Falls’s most urban street, with several tall buildings. However, most of them had their original facades (similar to the Holt) sheathed in modern curtain walls. Notable is the former First Wichita Building (1920, E. Stanley Field and Jesse F. Lauck) at 711 Scott Avenue, which was refaced with a 1961 tritoned blue porcelain enameled curtain wall by George L. Dahl of Dallas.