Fort Worth History
Originally settled in 1849 as an army outpost on the banks of the Trinity River, Fort Worth was one of
eight forts assigned to protect settlers from Indian attacks on the advancing frontier. The cattle industry
was king for a generation of people working the Fort Worth leg of the historic Chisholm Trail, in play from
the 1860s to the 1870s. Cowboys played in Hell’s Half Acre, located where downtown’s Sundance Square
stands today, before driving their cattle on to Kansas.
Fort Worth Fun Facts
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The Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth is the oldest museum in Texas and is the second-largest
museum gallery space for modern art in America, next to MoMA New York.
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Fort Worth hosts the world’s only twice-daily cattle drive in the Stockyards National Historic
District.
By the early 1870s, Fort Worth’s collection of saloons, gaming houses and brothels had located
on the south end of downtown in an area that came to be known as Hell’s Half Acre. This red
light district was legendary on the Chisholm Trail, drawing some of the West’s most notorious
criminals and bandits, among them Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Wild Bunch gang
and Sam Bass.
Bonnie and Clyde hid out from the law in Fort Worth’s Stockyards Hotel.
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Visit www.FortWorth.com for more information!