Fort Worth and North Side History
When looking at pictures of Fort Worth on the web, one of cities’ most photographed and visited sites is the Stockyards. Featuring a red-gray brick road on North Main Street, several old red brick buildings with wooden fronts, and a daily cattle drive, the Stockyards is the image of “Cowtown.” To the west of the Stockyards is the North Side neighborhood. Many of the houses are small, a little run down, and most of the neighborhood is Mexican (American and born).
Fort Worth was first settled in 1849, four years after the United States annexed Texas and the year after the Mexican American War had ended, after Major Ripley A. Arnold established a camp on a bluff overlooking a fork in the Trinity. Today, the site of the camp is now Heritage Park and the Tarrant County Court (Cuéllar 1). “Major Arnold named the camp after General William Jenkins Worth under whom he had served in the Mexican War” (Pate 2). The army left in 1853 (Pate 6) and in 1873, the city was incorporated (Fort Worth).
The city became a stop for cowboys who took cattle north to Kansas (Cuéllar 2). Around these years, Fort Worth got its nickname “Cowtown”, and after cracking down on crime in Hell’s Half Acre – an area in downtown Fort Worth that was known “around the state for its lawlessness,” – it got the nickname “Panther City” for being uneventful (Cuéllar 2). In 1876, The Texas and Pacific Railroad arrived in Fort Worth, effectively changing the city from a stop on the cattle drive to its end, and the stockyards opened in 1889 (Pate 17). In the mid to late 19th century, the inhabitants of the North Side were farmers, cattle traders, and businessmen (Pate 2).
The labor demographics changed when the Armour and Swift meat packing companies opened plants in 1903 (Pate 24), Fort Worth’s population increased from 26,688 in 1900 to 73,312 in 1910 (Rich 173). Because of steamships, railroads, and the jobs at the packing companies, many central and eastern European immigrants slowly moved west to Fort Worth (Pate 54). Many of these European immigrants competed with the older residents for factory jobs (Pate 93). Armour and Swift would begin declining after 1945 (Pate 31) and close in 1962 and 1971 (Pate 32), respectively, and the North Side would be known for its unemployment and housing decay (Pate 146). The city redeveloped the Stockyards for tourism in the 1970s (Pate 153).
City of Fort Worth. “Fort Worth Becomes the County Seat.” Fort Worth History. https://www.fortworthtexas.gov/about/history
Cuéllar, Carlos Eliseo. Stories from the Barrio: A History of Mexican Fort Worth. Fort Worth: TCU Press, 2003.
Pate, J'Nell L. North of the River: A Brief History of North Fort Worth. Fort Worth: TCU Press, 1994.