A Quick Look Around Fort Worth Texas

Following our tour of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, we still had a little bit of time to look around before we met our friends (and high school classmate) for dinner…

Note: Please excuse the inconsistencies in the print size and spacing.  My hard drive crashed and I'm learning to post photos...a 3 step process at the moment...and write my verbiage using different formats and systems.   

This is the Will Rogers Memorial Tower…also known as the Fort Worth Pioneer Tower.  At 208 feet in height it’s the tallest structure outside of the downtown area of the city.  The Tower is part of the Will Rogers Memorial Center…a 100 acre public entertainment, sports and livestock complex.  

The Memorial Center was designed in the Moderne (Art Deco) Style and it was completed in 1936.  The facility is the home of the annual Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.  Many specialized livestock shows are also held here, including the annual World Exposition of the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America, the annual World Championship Paint Horse Show, plus 3 major events are held each year by the National Cutting Horse Association. 

For any ‘youngsters’ out there as well as for readers who aren’t from the USA, William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers was a stage and motion picture actor, vaudeville performer, American cowboy, humorist, newspaper columnist and social commentator.  He was born to a prominent Cherokee Nation family in what is now the State of Oklahoma.  He traveled around the world 3 times, made 71 movies, and wrote more than 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns.  By the mid-1930’s, the American public adored Rogers.  He was the leading political wit of his time and was Hollywood’s highest paid movie star.  Rogers died in 1935, along with aviator Wiley Post, when their small airplane crashed in northern Alaska.

I am very familiar with this big structure.  It was Montgomery Ward Store’s Distribution Center in Fort Worth.  I spent quite a bit of time visiting this facility prior to the company going out of business in 2001.  

My last memories weren’t the most positive.  The building was hit by a tornado in March of 2000.  There was a long lower section at the rear of this large structure and the roof was literally shifted off the rafters.  A number of parked trucks were overturned with one employee killed when a flying truck fell on him as he headed for shelter.  Another person was killed after being struck by a collapsing brick wall.  These 2 fatalities were the only deaths associated with the overall tornado outbreak.  My regional asset protection staff were having a meeting nearby and they responded to the scene to help with disaster control and recovery. 

The current use of this building, as well as the adjacent property that Montgomery Ward used to occupy, is a huge and impressive change from the past!

Originally this was the largest building in Texas.  The original Montgomery Ward Store and Catalog Building was completed in 1928.  This nationally recognized architectural icon was designed in the Mission Revival Style.  Built with quality craftsmanship and 12-inch solid concrete walls that would be impossible to economically duplicate today, it not only withstood the 2000 tornado but it also survived an historic flood in 1949.

In 2004 the building was purchased and transformed into a new luxury residential community which has been named Montgomery Plaza.  The original character of the building was preserved and the façade was enhanced to promote Montgomery Plaza’s M-shaped profile.  A six-story opening was added in the center of the building, creating a central 80-foot promenade that would form the hub of the retail center at Montgomery Plaza. Floors 3 through 8 were converted into 240 luxury condominiums.  Outside, the third floor deck was converted into Fort Worth's largest outdoor amenity deck, featuring a pool, spa, cabanas, fire pits, lush landscaping and outdoor dining areas.

The rest of the property has been converted to serve as a regional shopping complex with large chain stores and locally owned shops.  Tenants include a Super Target, Marshall's, Ross Stores, Famous Footwear, Office Depot, PetSmart, Pier 1 Imports, Wells Fargo, Subway, GNC, Starbucks and Pei Wei. The developers have done a fine job of repurposing the property and especially the core portion of the old Montgomery Ward Building.

The Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth was built by a Chicago firm from 1893–1895.  This Renaissance Revival Style pink Texas granite building closely resembles the Texas State Capitol in Austin Texas with the exception of the clock tower.  At the time that it was built the cost of this courthouse was $408,840!  Citizens considered it a public extravagance!  In comparison, the rebuilt clock tower was rededicated in 2012 after a 14-month, $4,500,000 makeover…costing about 10 times more expensive than the original building.

Factoids:

Tarrant County Texas was named for Edward H. Tarrant.  General Tarrant led forces against the native/Indian population after a series of raids against local settlements.  Tarrant later became a prominent politician.

The Tarrant County Courthouse was often seen in the TV series ‘Walker, Texas Ranger.  As an aside, a portion of the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco Texas is devoted to the depiction of the Rangers in pop culture and this popular TV series is prominently featured.

Musician T-Bone Burnett, actress Kate Capshaw, singer-song writer Kelly Clarkson, pianist Van Cliburn, singer-song writer and actor John Denver, actor Larry Hagman (TV’s “Dallas”), Presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, plus actors Fess Parker, Bill Paxton and Ginger Rogers are among the many famous folks from Fort Worth.

  

I just really liked this photo!  The angel’s positioning between the buildings just grabbed my attention.  However, when I started to write this post for my blog, I didn’t have a clue what building that ‘angel’ was on… Fortunately, I knew someone in Fort Worth and I sent the photo to him for identification.

 As it turns out, that trumpeting angel is one of two on the façade of the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort Worth.  I’ve borrowed daytime and nighttime photos from the Internet to better show off this attention getting and attractive building. 

The hall isn’t very old.  I was surprised to learn that this impressive limestone structure was completed in 1998.  This venue was first suggested to philanthropist Nancy Lee Bass and her husband Perry Richardson Bass (Texas oilman) by pianist Van Cliburn.   The two 48-foot-tall angels on the 'Grand Façade' were sculpted from Texas limestone.  They are spectacular!

The Bass Performance Hall seats 2,056 people.  As a multi-purpose facility, it is able house symphony, ballet, opera, stage, musicals, and rock concerts.  It is also the permanent home to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Texas Ballet Theater, Fort Worth Opera, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and more… Performing Arts Fort Worth, which manages the Hall, also hosts its own performances here.  They include national touring Broadway productions and a family series.

As the time for our dinner engagement approached, we headed for our restaurant in Fort Worth’s historic 98-acre Stockyards District.  This is a view of the Stockyards District looking down the hill along East Exchange Street…the main street in the Stockyards area.  A livestock market operated here under

a variety of owners dating back to 1866.  

   

Factoids:

A cattle drive is held twice each day in the Stockyard District, complete with long horn cattle and cowboys on horseback.  One can also see the bulls and broncos vs. the cowboys at the weekly Stockyards Championship Rodeo, take in a concert and two-step the night away at Billy Bob’s Texas, the world’s largest honky-tonk, or step into the past at the Stockyards Museum and the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame.

This is a view back up East Exchange Street toward the shops and restaurants in the Stockyard District.  The stockyards grew by leaps and bounds after their founding.  By 1907, the Stockyards were selling a million cattle per year.  The stockyards was an organized place where cattle, sheep, and hogs could be bought, sold and slaughtered.  Fort Worth remained an important part of the cattle industry until the 1950s.  By then, the tendency to hold livestock auctions closer to where the cattle were caused the business here to suffer and fail.    

This is the Stockyards Hotel on East Exchange Street.  This hotel has been welcoming guests since it first opened 110 years ago.  It projects that old west ambience that visitors expect in the historic district.  The Stockyards Hotel with its 52 rooms and suites is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  A complete restoration of this property was completed in the spring of 1984 and it was further updated after a change of ownership in 1996. 

Many famous folks have stayed at the Stockyards Hotel.  They include: Tanya Tucker, George Strait, Randy Travis, Vince Gil, Garth Brooks, Chuck Norris, Willie Nelson, Nolan Ryan, the group Alabama, Trisha Yearwood, Brooks and Dunn, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, Nick Nolte, Davy Jones, Tim Mcgraw as well as notorious bank robbers/killers Bonnie and Clyde. (The Bonnie and Clyde Suite is Room #305)

For information about staying at the Stockyards Hotel, go to http://www.stockyardshotel.com/.

As we walked along the sidewalks of the Stockyard District, we noted a number of stars embedded in the sidewalk.  These stars are call the "Texas Trail of Fame".  Pictured above are the stars for John Wayne and Chief Joseph. 

The Trail of Fame is a chronological history of Western Heritage in the United States, Texas, and in the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District.  A “Bronze Star” is ceremonially placed in the District’s walkways for those men, women and groups who made a significant contribution to the preservation of the history and grandeur of the Western way of life.   

The design of the Bronze Stars represents an old fashion Marshall’s badge.  There are 116 bronze markers honoring inductees such as: John Wayne, Will Rogers, Zane Grey, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Juan Sequin, Bill Pickett, Frederic Remington, Cabeza De Vaca, the Five Civilized Tribes (Indian Confederation), Chief Joseph, Gene Autry, the American Buffalo, James Bowie, Comanche Code Talkers, “Lady Bird” Johnson and Quanah Parker.  For a complete list, you can go to http://ttof.georgewestby.com/our-inductees/inductees-a-z/.  Each name on the list is linked to information about that inductee.

That’s about all for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave