Fort Worth
City in northeastern Texas, USA, on the Trinity River, 48 km/30 mi west of Dallas; seat of Tarrant County; population (2000 est) 534,700. It is a grain and railway centre serving the southern USA; manufactured products include aerospace equipment, motor vehicles, computers, and refined petroleum.
History
Fort Worth developed from an army post in 1849 and was a stop on the Chisholm cattle trail; it was incorporated as a city in 1873. The arrival of the railroad in 1876 helped foster economic development; this was furthered by the discovery of oil nearby in 1920. It was an important livestock market and its 55 entries on the national register of historic places includes the old stockyards; Fort Worth is also the site of the National Cowgirl Museum.
| The existence of two major cities – Fort Worth and Dallas – in such close proximity is unusual, but is partly accounted for by the fact that they stand on the borderline between the humid plains to the east and the dry plains to the west, and divide between them the service functions for the two regions. The two cities share a regional airport, which lies northeast of Fort Worth. |
| Fort Worth is the seat of Texas Christian University (1873), Texas Wesleyan University (1891), Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1908), and Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (1970). Carswell Air Force Base and the Kimbell Art Museum are also here, and the Modern Art Museum (2002) is the second-largest in the USA. |
