The A. J. Wright Building was unusual for the time, a two-story mixed-use project that extended the full depth of its lot along E. James Street (now closed to form Wright Plaza) from S. Main to S. Caddo Street, with fully developed facades at each end. Part of the ground floor functioned as the waiting room of the Fort Worth Traction Co., which from 1912 until 1931 operated an interurban railroad linking Cleburne and Fort Worth. While the Wright Building’s walls are plain, without pilasters, a continuous cornice of specially molded brick extends around the entire building, with a parapet that steps up in the center of each of three facades, where a stone tablet is inscribed with “Wright.” In 2009, Cleburne-based western muralist Stylle Read painted the blank side walls of the buildings across Wright Plaza with scenes framed in false brick arches from Cleburne’s history, titled Wild Frontier, Trail Dust, and Rails.
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Wright Plaza (A. J. Wright Building)
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