Tarrant County Historic Resources Survey Selected Tarrant County Communities

Of the settlers who journeyed to North Texas 165 years ago, 12 families from Missouri traveled in oxen-drawn wagons to the Eastern Cross Timbers. These families laid claim to land in Peters Colony that was promised by the Republic of Texass first empresario. The hardscrabble colonists built log cabins and the Lonesome Dove Church, the first church in Tarrant County. Their village came to be called Dove. Later settlements included Whites Chapel, Old Union, and Jellico. The Depression hit local farmers and cattlemen hard, and newspaper accounts tell of small-time outlaws passing through, including members of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde gang who shot and killed two state troopers near Texas Highway 114. In 1956, a handful of neighbors voted to incorporate, and the town of Southlake was born. A decade later, city leaders from nearby Dallas and Fort Worth agreed to the construction of a regional airport east of Southlake, and the DallasFort Worth Airport brought many families and prosperity to an area that flourishes today.

Presents black-and-white photos and text profiles of nearly eighty architecturally and historically significant buildings in Fort Worth, Texas, all built before 1945.

Named after Mexican War general William Jenkins Worth, Fort Worth began as a military post in 1849. More than a century and a half later, the defense industry remains Fort Worth’s major strength with Lockheed Martin’s F-35s and Bell Helicopter’s Ospreys flying the skies over the city. Arsenal of Defense: Fort Worth’s Military Legacy covers the entire military history of Fort Worth from the 1840s with tiny Bird’s Fort to the massive defense plants of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Although the city is popularly known as “Cowtown” for its iconic cattle drives and stockyards, soldiers, pilots, and military installations have been just as important—and more enduring—in Fort Worth’s legacy. Although Bird’s Fort provided defense for early North Texas settlers in the mid nineteenth century, it was the major world conflicts of the twentieth century that developed Fort Worth’s military presence into what it is today. America’s buildup for World War I brought three pilot training fields and the army post Camp. During World War II, headquarters for the entire nation’s Army Air Forces Flying Training Command came to Fort Worth. The military history of Fort Worth has been largely an aviation story—one that went beyond pilot training to the construction of military aircraft. Beginning with Globe Aircraft in 1940, Consolidated in 1942, and Bell Helicopter in 1950, the city has produced many thousands of military aircraft for the defense of the nation. Lockheed Martin, the descendant of Consolidated, represents an assembly plant that has been in continuous existence for over seven decades. With Lockheed Martin the nation’s largest defense contractor, Bell the largest helicopter producer, and the Fort Worth Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Federal Medical Center Carswell the reservist’s training pattern for the nation, Fort Worth’s military defense legacy remains strong. Arsenal of Defense won first place in the Press Women of Texas Communications Contest (2012).

A reference guide to the history of Texas, including biographical sketches of notable individuals, histories of events, themes, counties, cities, and towns, and descriptions of physical features, with attention to the roles of women and minority groups.

Tucked in a bend of the Trinity River a few minutes from downtown Fort Worth, the Garden of Eden neighborhood has endured for well over a century as a homeplace for freed African American slaves and their descendants. Among the earliest inhabitants in the Garden, Major and Malinda Cheney assembled over 200 acres of productive farmland on which they raised crops and cattle, built a substantial home for their children, and weathered a series of family crises that ranged from a false accusation of rape and attempted lynching to the murder of their eldest son. Major and Malinda Cheney’s great-great-grandson, Drew Sanders, recounts engaging tales of the family’s life against the backdrop of Fort Worth and Tarrant County history—among them stories about the famous family Sunday dinners (recipes included). Though some family members, including writer Bob Ray Sanders and transplant specialist Dollie Gentry, no longer live in this special place, life in the Garden of Eden still shapes the family’s character and binds them to the homeplace.