The History of Fort Worth, Texas

In 1849 the U.S. Army planted a frontier post on a bluff above the West Fork of the Trinity and named it for General William Jenkins Worth, who'd just died. It was the far edge of settlement — Comanche country started roughly where the fort ended. The soldiers left within a few years as the frontier pushed west, and settlers moved into the abandoned buildings. For a while Fort Worth was so slow that a Dallas lawyer joked a panther had been seen sleeping undisturbed on Main Street. Instead of taking offense, Fort Worth adopted the panther as its mascot and started calling itself Panther City. That tells you most of what you need to know about the place.

The cattle drives made Fort Worth. Herds bound for Kansas railheads came up the Chisholm Trail and stopped here for the last supplies before the long dry push north — Fort Worth was the final real town, "where the West begins." When the railroad finally arrived in 1876, the town became the shipping point itself, and money poured in. It also grew a wild side: a district south of downtown called Hell's Half Acre filled with saloons, gambling halls, and worse, and outlaws passed through — Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid famously posed for a photo here with their gang. Fort Worth was rough, profitable, and entirely unbothered by its reputation.

In 1902 and 1903 the two giants of American meatpacking, Armour and Swift, built massive plants on the north side, and Fort Worth became one of the biggest livestock markets in the country. The Stockyards district that grew up around them — pens, exchange building, saloons, the whole cattle economy in one place — is now a preserved National Historic District where a longhorn herd is still driven down the brick street twice a day for visitors. Then came oil. Fort Worth didn't sit on a field, but West Texas oil money banked here, and boosters like the publisher Amon Carter turned the city's fortunes into museums, an airport, and relentless promotion. Carter more or less willed modern Fort Worth into being.

World War II brought aviation, and it stuck. The bomber plant on the west side became Convair, then General Dynamics, then Lockheed Martin — and it's where the F-16 was built and the F-35 is built now, making Fort Worth a genuine capital of American military aviation. Bell built helicopters just up the road. Oil money and civic pride also bought culture: the Kimbell Art Museum, designed by Louis Kahn, is considered one of the finest small museums in the world, anchoring a cultural district that punches far above the city's size. Fort Worth kept growing until it passed a million people, and it did it all without ever pretending to be Dallas.