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Images Of Rail Rails Around Fort Worth By Ian Taylor Soft Cover
Images Of Rail Rails Around Fort Worth By Ian Taylor
Softcover 127 pages
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1.The Arrival of the Railroad
2.Becoming a City
3.Prairie to Powerhouse
4.Beyond Cattle
5.Merging into the "Metroplex"
INTRODUCTION
Americans have long had an interest in the railroad and the role it played in the story of the Old West. From the moment the first transpacific line was complete to now, locomotives have traveled across the immense plains of the American West, bringing people and freight across the landscape. Each city sought and jockeyed for railroad connections, and the city of Fort Worth fought hard for the Texas & Pacific to come to town.
Few places in America could have gathered a coalition of city leaders, workers, and politicians to come out to ensure the laying of a track to connect the small town. When the Texas & Pacific Railroad connected to Fort Worth in 1876, little of what was to come to the city could have been envisioned. Just as in other frontier towns, the railroad was like a river coming to quench the thirst of townspeople wanting a taste of the markets and goods that traveled across the tracks.
The city of Fort Worth has always taken great pride in being known as the "Gateway to the West," and the railroads made that possible. Rail lines coming from the East connected in Fort Worth before moving across the wide plains of Texas and on to California. Some of the most famous railroads in history ran through the city and carried what was probably the most coveted good that the city had to offer, livestock. From the famous Fort Worth Stockyards came cattle that were shuttled northward to Kansas City and Chicago. Later, when oil was discovered, Fort Worth became a transit point for oil found in West Texas and carried to energy-hungry markets across the country.
Just as Fort Worth contributed to the growing appetites of the young American nation, so it also reaped the rewards that the railroad brought. The Texas & Pacific Railroad established its headquarters in the city and constructed a station that the city counted as one of its finest landmarks. The city needed all the clothes, goods, food, and amenities that the trains hauled into Fort Worth and filled the stocks and shelves of drugstores, hardware stores, and department stores.
Yet there are also plenty of other dimensions to the story of the railroad in Fort Worth. The interurban railroad connected Fort Worth with its rival, Dallas, in the east. It allowed the people of Fort Worth to travel across town and visit the parks and recreational areas. The story of the interurban is the city's first form of public transportation as it changed from a mule-driven cart to electrification in the first decades of the 20th century. This early precursor to the modern local passenger train was a custom sight in the city in its early years.
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