Billy Joe Gabriel is the grandson of Bill & Minnie Alice Hoeflein, who gained fame for building "The Glass House," in 1935,  was located on what is now Ohio Garden Rd. It became a famous Fort Worth tourist attraction and even earned fame in the "Robert Ripley Believe It Or Not" files. Billy Joe is the publisher of the Fort Worth Gazette newspaper and has a very interesting story.

The "Glass House" was located at 4309 Ohio Garden Road in the Castleberry School District.

When Wilhelm (Bill) and Minnie Alice Hoeflein bought the property it had a small garage apartment on it. Bill said the property had so much sand and gravel on it he believed he could build them a larger house with it. He started building the house in 1935. It was a continuous process until it's completion in 1938 at a cost of about $600.

In the front of the house was a large iron gate, which was between two massive concrete columns. The front of the property was outlined by a three-foot concrete wall. Bill built a garage, a bird-bath, a dog house, a playhouse, a wine cellar, a wishing well and all sorts of other things. The house was built from 22 forms of at least six different styles of concrete blocks. The shapes included diamonds, hearts, hexagons, ovals, rectangles, squares and other creative shapes. Billy Joe's grandmother thought plain concrete looked too drab. So her husband put a piece of an old English tile in the concrete and Minnie Alice did the same with a piece of blue glass from a broken Milk of Magnesia bottle. She thought it looked pretty and that was the beginning of the "Glass House."

They continued to add glass and other things to all of the blocks. The word got out that they were doing this and people started bringing things from everywhere. They put pieces of mirrors, hubcaps, a bottle with the petrified big toe of a relative, bottles with fossils in it, shells, goat horns, rattlesnakes, false teeth, toothpick holders, pieces of ceramic, a small alligator in a glass container, depression glass, fiesta glass, Minnie Marie's tonsils in a bottle of formaldehyde, and above the fireplace, in a concrete block, was a child's tea set. The Hoefleins had a dog shaped ceramic cream picture. They broke it. Then they embedded over the front door of the house the head of the ceramic dog, and they put the back half of the ceramic dog over the backdoor as you were leaving the house.

The Hoefleins rented the glass house to the Eckols Family in 1942 for about a year. Before they decided to move back Beverly Eckols Hickman said it was a fun place for a 10 year old to live. Beverly shared some of her memories of the house. The entrance to the Glass House was a half of an old pulpit and the porch light was an oil lamp from one of Fort Worth's first horse drawn hearses. There were four cast iron lions from the old Lion Saloon in downtown Fort Worth . The house had seven rooms, a large living room with a beautiful fireplace made out of English tiles in colors of blue, brown, and rose. The Eckols family spent most of their time in the dining room which had pieces of mirrors on the wall. Next to the dinning room was the kitchen and a breakfast nook, Beverly

said they didn't eat in there because it was dark and kind of scary. The back portion of the house was built of solid oak sliding doors which Mrs. Hoeflein purchased for 20 cents each from the old Fort Worth Hotel as it was being torn down.

Sometime between 1937 and 1945 the house was in Ripley's Believe It Or Not.  In 1937 tourist traffic had increased to the point that Minnie Alice gave tours of the house and even had a postcard made of it. The funds that she raised from the tours she donated to catholic charities.

Minnie Marie had a pet alligator that someone had given her, named Alley Oop. During meals, Alley Oop would beg for food just like a dog. This was a pampered alligator. It had it's own concrete pond in Minnie Marie's bedroom but often sleep with her in bed The alligator supposedly had contracted the measles from Minnie Marie and died. When it died she had it stuffed and mounted. The Hoeflein's also had a small alligator preserved in a block of cement behind the pond in the bedroom It is unclear as to which alligator was seen floating away during the flood of 1949. There was stories all around about people seeing an alligator floating in two feet of water down to the river. They sold the house in 1963. It was later condemned by the City of Fort Worth and torn down.