Bob Steele wasn't going to let the biting cold or the frailty of his age keep him from watching a piece of Southlake history disappear.

Photos by REX C. CURRY/Special Contributor

From left: Resident Pattie Minder; Pamela Muller, a former City Council member; police Cpl. Mike Bedrich; and Bob Steele, ex-fire chief, watch the Southlake building come down. Was the place haunted, or was it just noisy animal pests?

So on Wednesday he huddled with a group of longtime residents and city employees, watching a bulldozer demolish the old municipal building that had served Southlake's government for more than 50 years.

In its place at 667 N. Carroll Ave., the city will erect a $28 million police and fire headquarters.

While there is universal support for the move, old-timers like Mr. Steele couldn't help but feel nostalgic.

"This is progress, and you can't stop progress," said Mr. Steele, 84, who was the city's first paid fire chief and served in that job for 25 years. "But that building served the city well for many years."

The building was constructed as City Hall in 1956, the same year the city incorporated. It had remained in use until a few months ago, when the Police and Fire departments moved into temporary space ahead of the demolition.

"It will be nice to get a beautiful new building," said Cpl. Jeff Paul, a Southlake police officer for the last 24 years. "This building was just too old and dysfunctional for a modern Police and Fire Department, but it does hold a lot of memories."

Among the building's lore was its haunting by the spirit of a beloved police detective who had died of cancer.

"Police officers would say they would hear stirrings in the building at night," said Pamela Muller, a former City Council member and a member of the Southlake Historical Society, which has been documenting the building's history.

Of course, officers also acknowledge that possums and raccoons would get inside and scavenge around at night.

"But they liked to think it was this man's spirit keeping watch over them," she said.

The low-slung building was expanded and remodeled various times. A brick façade was added to the front, but the heart of the structure was a corrugated metal structure with a couple of double-wide trailers attached to the back.

Employees reportedly tossed old tires onto the roof to keep it in place.

A stone's throw from Southlake Town Square – home to Southlake's new Town Hall – the old building stood in sharp contrast to the upscale image the city has carefully cultivated over the last decade.

"It was time for it to go," Ms. Muller said.

Still, she and several others hoped to grab a few bricks as keepsakes of this bit of history.