The Tarrant County Historical Journal
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EDITION #TWO
Editor and photographer ,
Les Crocker;
General manager,
Neva Crocker
The following is just a sample of the pictures and articles in the
20 pages of issue #2.
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The Tarrant County Historical Journal P.O. Box 311, Springtown, TX 76082
Neva.. at the circus in Azle, Texas.‘
FIRE STATION #5 - built in 1911, 503 Bryan Avenue. It is a two story brick and similar in appearance to Station #10 on Lipscomb Street. The station was sold by the city in 1982. When I drove by in January 1997, it looked like work was being done on it.
THIS IS BESSIE? The picture was taken in 1952. I found this picture at a flea market and don’t know if it was in Fort Worth or not. Check out those prices.
It seems there was this guy from out of town stopped in Fort Worth to gas up his truck. He accidentally spilt gasoline all over his arm. After paying for his gas and buying some cigarettes, he got into his pickup and lit up a cigarette. Before he knew it his arm was on fire. He stuck his arm out the window and waved it frantically to put out the blaze. Just moments later the police pulled up and arrested the man. The charge: waving a fire arm in the city limits.
AYRES CEMETERY AT 2000 N. BEACH ST. is an old family cemetery in the Plaza Hotel parking lot. The first
burial was in 1862, the last in 1955. It has a wrought iron fence.
| From about 1750 - 1850 the covered wagon was the main means of transportation for the pioneers. |
PIONEERS REST CEMETERY
626 Samuels Avenue, established in 1850. First burials were two of Major Arnold’s children, Sophie and Willis,
in 1850. The well landscaped grounds are enclosed by an iron fence and granite portals in front. Pioneers Rest
Cemetery is Fort Worth’s oldest burial ground. Some famous pioneers buried here are: General Edward H. Tarrant,
Major Ripley Arnold, Ephraim M. Daggett, Carrol M. Peak, and about 75 Civil War Veterans.
HELL'S HALF ACRE
The geographic center of Hell’s Half Acre was 12th and Rusk Street. It was
located on land legally known as the Daggett Addition. The unofficial boundaries of the Acre were Ninth Street
east to Jones Street, south to Front
Street (Front Street is now Lancaster
Avenue.), Front Street west to Throckmorton, Throckmorton north to Ninth Street.
In 1911 Fort Worth changed the name of Rusk Street to Commerce. Rusk Street
suffered
from a notorious reputation from the Hell’s
Half Acre days and Rusk was an honored
name of a Texas Hero.
| Two drunk cowboys, in Fort Worth for the first time, were walking down- town. One goes down into the Tandy Subway by mistake. He comes back up and his friend is waiting for him. His cowboy friend says, “Where were you?” The other one says, “I was in some guy’s basement. Man!!, has he got a set of trains.” |
THE WHITE ELEPHANT SALOON was located uptown at 308 and 310 Main Street. Luke Short bought into the White Elephant around 1886 with John and William Ward. By 1900 the White Elephant was considered to be among the finest saloons and restaurants in the city. It was two stories with a large upstairs. The White Elephant boasted of a solid mahogany filigree bar forty feet long with a mirrored back and cut glass chandeliers. After Luke Short’s death in 1893, the mirrored back bar made the rounds of saloons in San Antonio and Del Rio, an ice cream parlor in Marfa, and O. L. Shipman’s Candy Shop in El Paso.
| WEEK OLD BEARD SO MASKED HIS FACE HIS BULLDOG CHASED HIM OFF THE PLACE BURMA SHAVE |
Knights of Pythia’s Hall, 900 E. Second St. was
constructed in 1925 by the Key West Lodge of the Lodge
of the Knights of Pythias. The auditorium was upstairs while the downstairs was rented to various businesses.
The Hall closed around 1947 and as of this date is vacant.
THROUGHOUT FT. WORTH many streets have the mosaic tile street signs on the curbs. Around 1935
- 1939 the W.P.A. funded a $1,000,000 Street Improvement Program. It is hard to find them in the downtown area
today. There are a few remains scattered here and there. I figure most of them were destroyed when the city put
in the handicap ramps on almost every corner downtown.
Flatiron building. Side view from
parking lot where the public library used to be.
GENERAL WILLIAM JENKINS WORTH - Hero of
the War of 1812, the Seminole Campaign, the Mexican
War, the first Com- mandant of Cadets at West Point is buried at the corner of Broadway and 5th Avenue in New York
beneath a fifty-one foot granite obelisk. General
Worth’s tomb is located across the street from Madison
General Worth never visited Fort Worth. He died of
cholera in San Antonio just about the time Fort Worth
was established. An unusual fact is that General
Worth’s fifty-one foot tombstone may be the tallest
tombstone in the U.S. It was completed in 1857.
COLORFUL SAYINGS HEARD AROUND TARRANT COUNTY
That’s close enough for government work…… He’d
argue with a wooden Indian….. He’s too poor to pay attention….. Hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk….
So hot the hens are laying hard boiled eggs….. This
is hog killing weather….. I feel so low I couldn’t jump
off a dime…. It’s so dry my ducks don’t know how to swim…. So dry the birds are building their nests out of barbed
wire…. If you lie down with dogs, you get up
with fleas…. I was so poor that I had a tumbleweed as a pet….. She’s one brick shy of a load.
| I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they don’t want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then, when somebody comes up, act like they just woke up and go “WHAT WAS THAT?” |
OLD STEPPING STONE for carriages somewhere
on Ft. Worth’s South Side.
|
TWOULD BE |
Lamp Post at side of Fort Worth’s Main Post Office Bldg. - The Fort Worth Post Office was
established in 1856 with pioneer settler Julian Field serving as Postmaster. The central offices were moved here
in 1933
| IF YOU MUST SAMPLE HER “PUCKER PAINT” BETTER DRIVE WHERE TRAFFIC AINT BURMA SHAVE |
| HE'S THE BOY THE GALS FORGOT HIS LINE WAS SMOOTH HIS CHIN WAS NOT BURMA SHAVE |
| TRAIN APPROACHING WHISTLE SQUEALING PAUSE AVOID THAT RUNDOWN FEELING BURMA SHAVE |