Everything Azle is known for
Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Azle.
The first recorded settlement at the site of what is now Azle, Texas occurred in 1846 when Dr. James Azle Steward, a young doctor, moved into a log cabin built by a Dutchman named Rumsfeldt. Other settlers soon arrived and established themselves near the local streams. Steward helped establish the first cemetery, Ash Creek. The town's name changed from O'Bar to Azle in 1883 after Steward donated land for a townsite.
In 1846, the first recorded settlement at what is now Azle, Texas, occurred when Dr. James Azle Steward moved into a log cabin built by a Dutchman named Rumsfeldt. Other settlers followed, establishing themselves near local streams. Steward helped establish the first cemetery, Ash Creek. The town's name changed from O'Bar to Azle in 1883 at Steward's request after he donated land for a townsite. Agriculture was the community's main economy, with crops like wheat, corn, peanuts, sorghum, cotton, and various fruits grown. Dairy farming also became important in the early 20th century. Azle's population grew steadily, reaching 150 by 1920, 5,822 by 1980, and 13,369 by 2020.
Azle, Texas was initially named O'Bar in honor of the man who obtained the postal service when the first post office opened in 1881. However, the name was changed to Azle in 1883 at the request of Dr. James Azle Steward, who had been the first recorded settler at the site in 1846 and donated the land for a townsite.
In June 1942, the U.S. Marines established a glider training base on 2,500 acres east of Eagle Mountain Lake, 18 miles northwest of Fort Worth — the first inland glider base in the country. The base trained Marine pilots on Waco gliders inspired by Germany's capture of Crete, then shifted to dive bomber finishing school in 1944. Closed after WWII, the land was purchased by televangelist Kenneth Copeland in 1986. The runway, a cracked ramp, and a Quonset hut are all that remain.
Hoyle Nix, West Texas fiddler, bandleader, and exponent of the Bob Wills sound, was born William Hoyle Nix to Jonah Lafayette Nix and Myrtle May (Brooks) Nix on March 22, 1918, in Azle, Texas. The family moved to Big Spring when Hoyle was one year old. His father was a fiddler and his mother a guitarist, and the couple often performed together at community gatherings. Nix was six years old when he learned his first fiddle tune. In addition to his parents' influence, the music of Bob Wills was also very important to his style. According to Nix, Wills was the finest fiddler he ever heard. Nix and his brother Ben formed the West Texas Cowboys in 1946 and patterned the band after Wills's Texas Playboys. In 1954 the Nix brothers built a small dance hall on the Snyder highway just outside of Big Spring and named it the Stampede . Nix had already established a dance circuit in the area and was making regular appearances in other towns, including Abilene, Lubbock, Midland, Odessa, and San Angelo. The West Texas Cowboys cut their first recordings in 1949 for the Dallas-based Star Talent label. The initial Star Talent release, Nix's "A Big Ball's in Cowtown," a folk-derived rewrite, proved to be an enduring standard. He continued to record for small Texas record companies-Queen, Caprock , Bo-Kay, and Winston -in the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1968 Nix started his own label, Stampede, named after the dance hall. During the late 1950s, the West Texas Cowboys grew to its largest size with nine members. The band at this time included former Texas Playboys Eldon Shamblin, Millard Kelso, and Louis Tierney. Nix had first shared a stage with Bob Wills in 1952 in Colorado City, Texas, and their two bands soon began touring together, splitting the playing time at each dance. After Wills disbanded the Texas Playboys in the early 1960s, he continued to appear with Nix on a fairly regular basis until his first stroke in 1969. The respect that Wills had for Nix was evidenced when he invited Nix and his son Jody to participate in what turned out to be Wills's final recording session, For the Last Time , in 1973. Nix's last recordings were made in 1977 and released on Oil Patch. He was inducted into the Nebraska Country Music Hall of Fame in 1984, the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985, the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1991, the Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Northwest Western Swing Music Society Hall of Fame in 2013. He died after a short illness on August 21, 1985, in Big Spring, Texas. Nix married five times and had four children, Larry (1940), Jody (1952), Hoylene (1957), and Robin (1959). Larry joined his father's band in 1957 and played bass. When Jody signed on in 1960 as drummer and fiddler, the two siblings became the rhythm section of the West Texas Cowboys, a position they held for the next twenty-five years. Jody Nix took over leadership of the band as his father wanted, and with the younger Nix carrying on the show, Texans were assured of dancing to the music of a Nix fiddle well into the twenty-first century.
William M. Rice first came to Texas in 1834 and settled in what is now Nacogdoches County, where he was involved in frontier defense and served as an Alcalde in the Mexican Government. He served in the Texas Revolution and was wounded in the Battle at San Jacinto. He and his wife, Mariah, later lived in Harris County, in Kansas, and in Dallas County, where he was a farmer and merchant. During the Civil War, he was active on the home front, making soldiers' hats and hauling supplies. About 1874, Rice moved to Tarrant County, where he lived until his death.
On September 9, 1871, the Rev. J.C. Powers led 48 charter members in organizing Ash Creek Missionary Baptist Church. Guarding against Indians, Rev. Powers preached with a gun beside his Bible and men kept rifles on their knees. A meeting house was erected at this site in 1891 under the Rev. T.H. Sturges. In summers, brush arbors were built and prayer meetings held on the grounds. The women sold all eggs laid on Sundays to buy Sunday school literature. In 1965 a new auditorium was built and the original structure used for a Fellowship Hall. (1979)
In April 1867 a band of about sixty Kiowa Indians, led by Chiefs Satank and Satanta, raided the home of William Hamleton on Walnut Creek. Hamleton was away when the Kiowas killed his wife, Sally, and captured two children, Lavina and Mary. Lavina was released from captivity after six months, but Mary was given to an Indian family and grew to adulthood among the Kiowas. Called To-Goam-Gat-Ty, she became an accepted tribal member and married another captive, Calisay. The site of the 1867 Kiowa Raid is now under the waters of Eagle Mountain Reservior (1.4 mi. E) (1983)
May the 4th be with you — and with the Wookiee. Peter Mayhew the seven-foot-three British actor who brought Chewbacca to life in every Star Wars film from 1977…
In 1942 the United States Marines bought 2931 acres of ranchland on Eagle Mountain Lake for a purpose that sounds almost unbelievable now — training pilots to…
Starting in November 2013 the ground beneath Azle started shaking and it did not stop for 84 days. Twenty-seven earthquakes rattled windows cracked foundations…
The seven-foot-three British actor who played Chewbacca in every Star Wars film from 1977 to The Force Awakens is buried right here at Azleland Memorial Park.…
A family went out hunting arrowheads along Walnut Creek in 2017 and found something about 110 million years older than they expected. Pressed into the creekbed…
Billy Bob's opened in 1981 in an old cattle barn in the Fort Worth Stockyards and at one hundred twenty-seven thousand square feet it is the largest honky-tonk…
Daily cattle drives down the street. Honky-tonks and rodeos in the old West.
Joe T opened his little family restaurant behind the packing plant in the Fort Worth Stockyards in 1935. There was no menu. His wife Jessie served whatever she…
1184 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.
The first recorded settlement at the site of what is now Azle, Texas occurred in 1846 when Dr. James Azle Steward, a young doctor, moved into a log cabin built by a Dutchman named Rumsfeldt. Other settlers soon arrived…
The first settler in Azle who wanted a proper plank home instead of a log cabin faced a simple problem — the nearest lumber was in Houston 280 miles away. So…
When the first settlers arrived in 1846 they planted themselves right on the contested line between Parker and Tarrant Counties — which also happened to be the…
In 1942 the United States Marines bought 2931 acres of ranchland on Eagle Mountain Lake for a purpose that sounds almost unbelievable now — training pilots to…
Starting in November 2013 the ground beneath Azle started shaking and it did not stop for 84 days. Twenty-seven earthquakes rattled windows cracked foundations…
In 1846 a doctor from Tennessee named James Azle Steward rode into a clearing and found a log cabin built by a Dutchman named Rumsfeldt. He liked what he saw…
This town could not make up its mind what to call itself. First it was Elizabeth Town and that did not stick. Then the store owner got it renamed Mooresville…
For nearly a century the people of Azle lived by candlelight and kerosene lamps while Fort Worth glowed with electric light just 23 miles down the road. Think…
On May 24 2011 the sky above Eagle Mountain Lake started spinning. An EF0 tornado formed directly over the water — a waterspout in the middle of North Texas —…
For a stretch of weeks late in 2013, the ground under Azle would not hold still. Starting in early November, residents felt the floor jolt, dishes rattle, and pictures tilt as a swarm of small earthquakes rolled through…
When Azle started shaking in 2013, scientists turned the town into a natural laboratory for induced seismicity, earthquakes triggered by human activity. A team led by Southern Methodist University geophysicists Matthew…
On the western edge of town lies the oldest piece of organized Azle there is. In 1871 two early settlers, town namesake Dr. James Azle Steward and John Giles Reynolds, each donated an acre of land to create Ash Creek…
Before it was a lake town or a bedroom suburb, Azle was farm country, and the soil between these creeks decided what people grew. Through its first decades the community lived on wheat, corn, peanuts, sorghum, and…
At 124 West Main Street stands a sturdy two-story rock building that has quietly held nearly every role a small town needs. James and Eula Nation built it in 1936, living upstairs while running a general store and gas…
You're driving past Azle, where the story of education began in the 1850s. Local legend says J.G. Reynolds started the very first school, holding classes in log cabins and even the Ash Creek Baptist Church. Imagine…
You're driving through Azle, Texas, a town named after the very man who helped build it. James Azle Steward, a physician from Tennessee, arrived here before 1860. He and his wife were early settlers in this region.…
You're driving past Azle, Texas, where a post office served as more than just a place to mail letters. Originally called O'Bar, the post office opened way back in 1881. It moved to this Main Street location in 1916 and…
You're driving through Azle, a town named for Dr. Azle Stewart, who donated the land for this church. Back in the 1880s, services were held under a brush arbor. The congregation officially organized in 1890 and built…
You're driving through Azle, and right here is the site of the First Methodist Church. It all started back in 1895 when Reverend Will A. Stephens and fifteen members got together to form this congregation. They quickly…
Hoyle Nix, West Texas fiddler, bandleader, and exponent of the Bob Wills sound, was born William Hoyle Nix to Jonah Lafayette Nix and Myrtle May (Brooks) Nix on March 22, 1918, in Azle, Texas. The family moved to Big…
You're driving near Azle, Texas, and this town owes its name to a young doctor. In 1846, Dr. James Azle Steward moved into a cabin here. When the post office was established in 1881, the town was first named O'Bar. But…
William M. Rice first came to Texas in 1834 and settled in what is now Nacogdoches County, where he was involved in frontier defense and served as an Alcalde in the Mexican Government. He served in the Texas Revolution…
On September 9, 1871, the Rev. J.C. Powers led 48 charter members in organizing Ash Creek Missionary Baptist Church. Guarding against Indians, Rev. Powers preached with a gun beside his Bible and men kept rifles on…
Before Azle had a post office before it even had its final name a group of settlers gathered in 1872 and organized a church. Ash Creek Baptist Church became…
You're driving past Ash Creek Cemetery, the final resting place for many of Azle's earliest residents. Look for the graves of Dave Morrison and W. P. Gregg, both dying tragically in <say-as interpret-as="date"…
If you were in Azle between 2013 and 2015, you might have felt the ground shake. Not from a big California-style earthquake, but from a series of small, unsettling tremors. The town experienced a 'swarm' of hundreds of…
The swarm of earthquakes that shook Azle from 2013 to 2015 wasn't just a strange event; it was a real-world lesson in geology and physics. Scientists from Southern Methodist University investigated and linked the quakes…
In 1846, the first recorded settlement at what is now Azle, Texas, began when Dr. James Azle Steward moved into a log cabin built by a Dutchman named Rumsfeldt. Other settlers followed, establishing themselves near…
Look towards the water of Eagle Mountain Lake, and you’re looking at the single biggest thing that shaped modern Azle. Before 1932, this was just the valley of the West Fork of the Trinity River. Azle was a small,…
Azle carries a doctor's middle name, and he more or less paid for the honor. Dr. James Azle Steward, a Tennessee-born physician, settled in this area in the 1840s. When the community needed a townsite, Steward donated…
One of the great underdog stories in golf came out of Azle. Robert Landers was a cattle and dairy farmer with no professional background who, at around fifty years old, qualified for the Senior PGA Tour. He had…
You're driving past the Hoggard-Reynolds Cemetery, a final resting place that tells the story of early Azle. Oral history says pioneer Sarah Hoggard donated this land after the Civil War for an African American child…
When the first church in Azle was organized in 1872, this was still the dangerous edge of the frontier. As local history tells it, the early preacher kept a six-shooter on each side of his Bible while he delivered the…
The throwing rings at Azle High School launched a genuine Olympian. Shelbi Vaughan, born August 24, 1994, grew up here and competed for the Azle Hornets, where in 2010 she won the Texas Class 4A state discus title with…
You're driving past the site of the Smith Farmstead, a glimpse into 19th-century Texas life. Settlers began arriving in this area around 1849, with James and Sarah Hoggard among them. Their daughter, Nancy Jane, married…
You're driving past the Smith-Frazier Cemetery, a place that began as a burial ground for Azle's black community. In 1886, businessman J.J. Jarvis deeded this land for that purpose, though some graves were already here.…
The enduring rivalry between Azle High School and Springtown High consistently ignites passions in this corner of Tarrant County. More than just a game, the annual football clash embodies the spirit of these Cross…
In April 1867 a band of about sixty Kiowa Indians, led by Chiefs Satank and Satanta, raided the home of William Hamleton on Walnut Creek. Hamleton was away when the Kiowas killed his wife, Sally, and captured two…
If you hear a deafening roar overhead out here on Eagle Mountain Lake, don't be alarmed. You're hearing what locals call the sound of freedom. Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth sits a dozen-odd miles…
The very ground Pelican Bay is built on owes its existence to a monumental feat of 1930s engineering: the Eagle Mountain Dam. Before this, you would have been in the valley of the West Fork of the Trinity River. To…
In 1970 a man named Olen Yandell looked at his struggling dairy farm on the shore of Eagle Mountain Lake — the Circle-Y, a hundred and fifty head of cattle grazing the ground you're driving over — and saw something else…
Founded by Olen Yandell on his struggling dairy farm in 1970, Pelican Bay incorporated in 1981. Yandell had aspirations to create a new Sausalito, California, but Pelican Bay remains a modest enclave today.
Pelican Bay feels like a place that's been here forever, but it only became an official city in 1981. It started in 1970, when Olen Yandell began selling lots off his dairy farm on the Eagle Mountain Lake shoreline.…
In June 1942, the U.S. Marines established a glider training base on 2,500 acres east of Eagle Mountain Lake, 18 miles northwest of Fort Worth — the first inland glider base in the country. The base trained Marine…
Fort Worth, named for a war hero, emerged on the edge of the Cross Timbers, where prairie grasses meet the post oak woods of North Texas. The city’s identity was forged by the cattle drives that thundered up the…
Fort Worth, a city where the spirit of the Old West meets modern ambition, has seen its landscape transformed in recent years. The city’s growth, fueled by its position in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and its…
The seven-foot-three British actor who played Chewbacca in every Star Wars film from 1977 to The Force Awakens is buried right here at Azleland Memorial Park.…
May the 4th be with you — and with the Wookiee. Peter Mayhew the seven-foot-three British actor who brought Chewbacca to life in every Star Wars film from 1977…
Reno does not have a documented century-old restaurant, but it does have a solid present-day favorite in Pop Pop Burgers, a family-run roadside spot out on Highway 199. The menu is exactly what you want from a Texas…
You're driving past the Nelson Cemetery, originally donated by Hugh Nelson in the mid-1800s. The earliest dated stone marks his infant son, Hugh, who died in 1864. Many children's graves here date from a dysentery…
Reno's most colorful documented resident may be a barber named E.R. Bird Harris. In 1995, Harris was ninety-one years old and held what was reported to be the oldest barber's license still in active use anywhere in…
Starting in November 2013, people around Reno and nearby Azle felt something North Texas almost never feels: earthquakes. This part of the state had recorded very little felt seismic activity in its history, so a sudden…
A Reno post office opened back in 1884, but the place stayed tiny for most of the next century, a farm community held together by its church, its school, and a few small businesses. Reno did not formally incorporate as…
A few miles southwest of Reno, a small cemetery is the last clear physical reminder of a community that no longer exists, a place once called Sabathany. James and Margaret Clark settled there in 1865 and took in an…
The big water just east of town wasn't always here, and making it cost a few small communities their existence. Construction of the dam on the West Fork of the Trinity River began on January 23, 1930, finished on…
For decades Azle was just another quiet crossroads where not much happened and nobody was in a hurry. Then in 1932 they started building a dam on the West Fork…
Before Reno was a city, it was Parker's Shop, a scattering of farms gathered around a log cabin that served as both church and school. The settlement grew up along Walnut Creek, and Walnut Creek Baptist Church was…
The earthquakes beneath Reno did not require the ground to be torn apart. Changing the pressure of water inside ancient rock was enough to loosen faults that had stayed quiet for millions of years. Reno sits in the Fort…
Here is a problem you do not think about until it bites you: Texas has two incorporated cities legally named Reno. One is this one, in Parker and Tarrant counties. The other sits clear across the state in Lamar County,…
Reno has spent the last few decades transforming from a sleepy farming settlement into one of the faster-growing corners of Parker County. The population, just a few hundred into the 1960s, passed 2,800 by the 2020…
You're driving past the site of Walnut Creek Baptist Church, a congregation that's been serving this community for generations. It all started way back in 1867, with worship services held in a simple log cabin. By the…
Just northeast of Azle sits Eagle Mountain Lake, and the way it was built is a quietly clever piece of engineering. The dam went up on the West Fork of the Trinity River in the early 1930s, and rather than spanning the…
Tarrant County's story begins with the rolling hills and wooded terrain of the Cross Timbers. This North Texas region, with its mix of prairie and forest, drew early settlers seeking fertile land. Farming and ranching…
You're driving past the site of the Silver Creek United Methodist Church. Organized way back in November of 1900, the congregation finished this very sanctuary just a year later. Farmers Steele and Clayton donated the…
You're driving past the site of the old Jay Bird Union School, Church, and Cemetery. This route, Jay Bird Lane, has been used since the 1860s. In 1883, local landowners donated land for a school building that also…
John Townes Van Zandt (1944–1997) — the Fort Worth-born songwriter behind 'Pancho and Lefty' and 'To Live Is to Fly' — is buried in the Van Zandt family plot at Dido Cemetery, northwest of Fort Worth. The Van Zandts…
Dido, sixteen miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern shore of Eagle Mountain Lake, is a true ghost town: founded in 1848 and named for the mythological queen of Carthage, it thrived with a post office and stores…
Dido was one of the first communities in Tarrant County: by 1848, settlers homesteaded this part of the Peters Colony along the stage route from Fort Worth to Decatur. The Dido School organized in 1854, with A.C.…
You're driving through Avondale, near where the Dido community first took root. Settlers homesteaded here in 1848, along a stage route from Fort Worth to Decatur. By 1854, they'd organized Dido School, with a teacher…
You're driving past the Dido Cemetery, a final resting place for many of Tarrant County's earliest settlers. The oldest marked grave here belongs to Amanda Thurmond, who died way back in 1879. Her grandfather, Dave…
You're driving past the site of what was once Confederate Park, a massive 373-acre refuge created right here for Confederate soldiers and their families. It all started in 1889 when businessman Khleber Van Zandt…
Right near here, in the summer of 1969, something strange was happening. It started with a couple parked by Lake Worth who reported being attacked by a terrifying creature—something they described as part-man,…
As you cruise along the lake, try to imagine this shoreline lit up with thousands of lights, a huge wooden roller coaster towering over the water, and the sound of a big band drifting through the night air. Casino Park…
The very ground Lakeside is built on exists as a town because of a massive civil engineering project finished in 1914. Before then, this was just a river valley. But Fort Worth was growing, and it needed water. The…
The name Fort Worth originates from the city's establishment as an army outpost. In 1849, Major Ripley A. Arnold, advised by Middleton Tate Johnson, established a camp on the bank of the Trinity River and named it Camp…
You're driving through Fort Worth, and just a little ways from here, a story from the Texas frontier unfolds. It's September of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1865</say-as>. Tensions are high between settlers…
Nestled in Parker, Tarrant, and Wise counties, Briar is a picturesque community near the west side of Eagle Mountain Lake. The area spans 21.9 square miles, with 20.5 square miles of land and 1.5 square miles of water,…
In the summer of nineteen-sixty-nine, northwest Fort Worth had its own monster. Starting the night of July ninth, couples parked above the bluffs of Greer Island on Lake Worth reported a creature — seven feet tall,…
Greer Island sits in Lake Worth within the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. Through the summer of 1969 the bluffs around the island were the focus of repeated sightings of the creature the Star-Telegram dubbed the…
You're driving past the Tucker House in Weatherford. Moses Tucker and his twin brother Aaron arrived in Texas from Kentucky back in 1853, initially building a log cabin on this land. After serving in the Civil War,…
You're driving past the historic New Hope Cemetery and Church. Back in 1875, pioneer settler Joseph Wren donated five acres right here for a community cemetery. That same year, the New Hope Baptist Church moved to this…
In 1884, the same year Springtown officially incorporated, this small frontier community did something ambitious: it opened a school of its own. The Springtown Male and Female Institute took in students from across the…
The road you're likely driving on right now, State Highway 199, is the single most important piece of engineering in modern Springtown. For decades, this was just a two-lane country road connecting Fort Worth to…
Springtown's history began with Joseph Ward, an early settler who named the community Littleton's Springs. In the mid-1870s, the name was changed to Springtown. The town's post office opened in 1875, and Springtown was…
You're driving through Fort Worth, heading towards the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw school district. Back in 1883, this area saw the founding of Wayside School, thanks to a donation of land from W.E. Boswell. The school moved…
Tarrant County lies within the Cross Timbers, a region defined by its mix of prairie grasses and woodlands. This transitional zone features rolling hills and diverse vegetation, a contrast to the flatter plains further…
You're driving through Newark, Wise County, and right here is the site of the very first post office in the county, established way back on September 8th, 1855. The first postmaster was Benjamin B. Haney, who was also…
You're driving through Veal's Station, a community that got its start back in 1852. But the real heart of this place, for over fifty years, was a schoolhouse established in 1858 by William G. Veal. He was a driving…
Settlement in what is now Newark began in the mid-1850s, with the area known as Caddo Village due to remnants of the Caddo Indian culture along the West Fork of the Trinity River. The town's fortunes changed with the…
You're driving past the site where William and Elisabeth Woody built their home, a true hub for the early Veal's Station community. Born in Tennessee, William Woody, along with his wife Elisabeth and their infant son,…
You're driving past Fort Worth, and it's July 4th, 1869. A group of eleven Native Americans rode north after gathering horses, pursued by a Tarrant County posse. Along the way, they raided homes and attacked travelers.…
The hills above River Oaks are the remains of an ancient seafloor, cut open by the Trinity River. Just northwest of the city, at Marion Sansom Park, pale limestone bluffs rise over the West Fork of the Trinity and Lake…
In the summer of 1969, something strange was happening in Lake Worth. It started with a couple parked by the lake who reported a terrifying creature attacking their car. They described it as part-man, part-goat, covered…
Imagine it's the 1930s. You've escaped the Fort Worth heat for a night at the lake, and your destination is the Casino Ballroom. It was never a gambling house, just the anchor of an enormous amusement park that opened…
The lake that gives this city its name is no accident of nature. By 1911 Fort Worth was booming and its artesian wells were failing, so the city went looking for a river. The plan, drawn up by consulting engineer John…
Lake Worth sits at a gentle rise, just over six hundred feet above sea level. It's not mountains, of course, but enough to give you a sense of the land rolling westward toward the plains. This slightly elevated perch, a…
If you hear a thunderous roar overhead, it's not a storm. It's the sound of Lake Worth's most powerful neighbor: the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. The base's runways sit just across the water, and its…
A family went out hunting arrowheads along Walnut Creek in 2017 and found something about 110 million years older than they expected. Pressed into the creekbed…
You're driving past the site of the Tannahill Homestead, a testament to early Texas grit. In 1853, Scottish immigrant Robert Tannahill and his wife Mary arrived from Mississippi. By 1856, Tannahill had claimed this…
You're driving through Newark, a town with a name that might sound familiar, but its origins here in Wise County are anything but ordinary. It started in the mid-1850s, first known as Caddo Village, then Odessa. Later,…
You're driving past Lake Worth, a man-made reservoir on the northwestern edge of Fort Worth. <break time="400ms"/> This lake didn't exist before <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1914</say-as>, when a dam was…
Lake Worth is picked sixth in District six, four-A Division Two. Like Gainesville, the preview has them in the middle of a rebuilding effort, in a district that Krum is favored to win again. The full District six…
You're driving past Springtown Cemetery, a resting place that's been here longer than the town itself. This ground was first used by pioneer settlers even before Springtown was officially founded. The earliest stone you…
Brewer (Fort Worth, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: David Ellington (3 HR).
Woody Creek BBQ started as a family food operation on private property beside the actual Woody Creek, on the stretch between Springtown and Weatherford. It moved into a permanent building on the Springtown square in…
For twenty years the settlers of Springtown slept with one eye open. The Comanche considered this land theirs and they were not subtle about making the point.…
When the Civil War called the Texas Rangers east to fight for the Confederacy they left behind an unguarded frontier. The Comanche knew it immediately. They…
The county Springtown calls home carries a name tangled up in one of the most dramatic stories in Texas history. Parker County was named for Isaac Parker whose…
For one strange glorious decade a tiny frontier town became the smartest place in Northwest Texas. Starting in 1884 the Springtown Male and Female Institute…
You're driving through Springtown, and right here on the Square is a place that's been the heart of this community since the 1930s: the Springtown Tabernacle. It started with a building in 1906 that housed city hall and…
You're driving past Springtown, a place born from water. Captain Joseph Ward settled here in 1856, drawn by abundant springs. He laid out the town square in 1859, initially naming it Littleton's Springs. The town got…
You're driving through Springtown, Texas, a place named for the many springs that first drew Joseph Ward to this spot back in 1856. He settled here on a creek, and three years later, he designed the town square. He…
Picture a man from New Jersey standing at the edge of a creek in 1856 watching water bubble up from dozens of natural springs. Captain Joseph Ward had found…
In the depths of the Great Depression when most towns could barely keep the lights on Springtown got a gift that would outlast generations. In 1936 young men…
Nobody expected what came bubbling out of the ground beneath Springtown's school district. When oil was discovered on school land the money changed everything…
Every third Saturday in September for more than 35 years the town square in Springtown transforms into something straight out of 1885. A parade rolls down the…
By 1877 Springtown had a hotel two general stores two blacksmith shops and three cotton gins — not bad for a settlement in the middle of Comanche country. The…
You're cruising past the Eureka Masonic Lodge in Springtown, a building that's been a cornerstone of this town since 1897. Imagine this: the Masons met upstairs, while downstairs, this very building housed all sorts of…
You're driving through Fort Worth, a city that, like many across Texas, was shaped by the lingering presence of the Civil War. From 1865 until World War I, Confederate veterans weren't just living in Texas; they were…
Springtown had no railroad in 1877. No rail connection, no shipping depot, none of the infrastructure that usually built Texas towns in this era. And yet by that year it had a hotel, a school, two general stores, two…
You're driving past the home of Dr. George and Ruth Jones, built in 1915. Dr. Jones, a respected physician, and Ruth, a dedicated teacher and missionary, were pillars of the Springtown community. Their two-story house,…
Springtown began where a settler found reliable water. Joseph Ward settled beside a spring-fed creek in 1856, and when he laid out the town square in 1859, the settlement was called Littleton's Springs, for the springs…
In 1884, the same year Springtown incorporated as a town, it opened a college-level school. The Springtown Male and Female Institute, also known as College Hill Institute, served the educational needs of northern Parker…
Springtown was not named by a railroad company or a land developer. It grew where roughly two dozen natural springs brought hidden groundwater to the surface, and the science behind those springs is hydrogeology, the…
The Springtown Sentinel began publication in 1881, just a few years after the community had established itself as a trade center. On the Texas frontier, a local newspaper was more than a convenience. It was a signal…
On Springtown's town square there was once a building with no walls. Just a roof and open sides, called a tabernacle, and it served as the community's main gathering space in the early twentieth century. Church…
Howell's is a long-running local favorite in Springtown, the kind of place Parker County regulars know and visitors discover. A reliable stop for a sit-down meal in a small town with limited restaurant options.
Early settlers reportedly found about twenty-five active springs in and around the Springtown area, grouped into three main clusters. That density of natural water sources was unusual enough to define the place…
In Weatherford's Greenwood Cemetery lies a man whose life inspired one of the greatest characters in American fiction. His name was Bose Ikard. Born into slavery in Mississippi, Ikard was brought to Texas as a boy.…
You can't miss the building that defines Weatherford's skyline: the Parker County Courthouse. Completed in 1886, this masterpiece of Second Empire architecture is the town's crown jewel. Built from locally quarried…
Have you ever wondered why Weatherford became the 'Peach Capital of Texas'? The answer is literally in the dirt. The town is located in the Cross Timbers region, which is defined by a specific soil type: a sandy loam…
In 1969 dozens of witnesses reported a half-man half-goat creature prowling the shores of Lake Worth. Police investigated. The monster was never caught.
In 1854, Methodist minister Pleasant Tackett led 15 pioneer families into a land they called 'Goshen,' which would later become part of Parker County. The following year, Parker County was created through the efforts of…
Pull off Las Vegas Trail and you'll find La Pasadita at 600 North Las Vegas Trail, a family-run Mexican spot that locals treat as a White Settlement institution. The building has a backstory of its own: the owners took…
On the west side of Fort Worth sits Air Force Plant 4, a government-owned factory stretched out about a mile long. The plant is run by Lockheed Martin, and inside it the F-35 stealth fighter is assembled today. For…
Stealth is one of the strangest ideas in engineering: hiding something the size of a fighter jet. It starts with how radar works. A radar sends out radio waves, those waves hit an object, and a faint echo bounces back.…
Springtown (Springtown, TX) placed on the 4A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Layton Murrell (4 HR); Isaac Gonzalez (2 HR).
Here is a fact that surprises people: a modern fighter jet is partly made of woven cloth. About a third of the F-35's structure is carbon-fiber composite rather than metal. Carbon fiber starts as incredibly thin threads…
People call the F-35 a flying computer, and they mean it almost literally. A modern fighter carries a whole crowd of sensors at once: radar, infrared cameras that see heat, and electronic sensors that pick up radio…
You're driving through Pleasant Grove, home to one of three communities with that name in Wise County. This spot has been a center of life since the late 1870s, when the earliest graves were marked here. In 1879, a…
The road you may be driving on now, Jacksboro Highway, was once one of the most infamous strips in Texas. From the 1940s into the 1950s this was the playground for Carswell Air Force Base and the bomber plant next door.…
Look southwest of Sansom Park, over on the east side of Lake Worth, and you'll find the reason this city exists: a massive aircraft factory that has been the region's economic heart for more than eighty years. In 1942…
The community of Sansom Park grew up in the shadow of one of the world's great engineering marvels: Air Force Plant 4. This factory solved incredible technical problems to build America's strategic aircraft. Consider…
Sansom Park, just west of Fort Worth, might seem like a sleepy little place if you just drive through on Highway 199. It's true, things are generally quiet here, a nice contrast to the bustle of the bigger city. But…
You're driving past Weatherford, Texas, the county seat of Parker County. Ever wonder how a county gets its name? Well, you're looking at the history of Isaac Parker. Born in Georgia in 1793, Parker arrived in Texas in…
Saginaw leaned right into its train-and-grain heritage when the city opened The Switchyard Food Truck Park in 2020. The name is a railroad term: a switchyard is where rail cars are sorted and coupled into new trains,…
You're driving through Aurora, and just off the road is the Teague Cemetery. It's named for John Teague, who came here from Missouri in 1858 with his family. He fought in the War with Mexico and served on the frontier…
You're driving past Clark Cemetery, a burial ground for early settlers dating back to the 1830s. Reverend John William Godfrey and his wife Anzaline arrived here in 1853. Anzaline, who passed away in 1859, has the…
The aircraft plant beside River Oaks is a living timeline of American aerospace, all on one patch of ground. Picked in 1941 to mass-produce the four-engine B-24 Liberator, the factory rolled out its first bomber in…
In a small cemetery on Veal Station Road a single headstone glows an eerie green after dark. It belongs to William E. Wright and the glow made local news and…
In 2010 the White Settlement Public Library adopted a gray tabby from a local shelter to chase mice, and named him Browser. He became a fixture, lounging on the shelves and greeting kids at story time, until a…
The name 'White Settlement' is impossible to ignore, and the town itself has debated it. The name goes back to the 1840s and '50s, when this was a scatter of Anglo farms west of Fort Worth among Native American…
Look to the east, and you'll see the massive complex of Lockheed Martin. That factory is the reason White Settlement exists in its modern form. In 1941, this was just a quiet farming area. Then the U.S. government built…
The massive factory you can see from Loop 820 isn't just a building; it's one of America's most important centers for aerospace engineering. For over 80 years, this facility, known as Air Force Plant 4, has been at the…
For a hundred years White Settlement was a sleepy farming spot. World War II changed that almost overnight. In 1941 the government chose the open land just west of Fort Worth for an enormous Consolidated Vultee factory…
On the night of September 1, 1952, a violent storm, recorded with winds over 90 miles an hour at the control tower, tore across the flight line at Carswell, the air base partly inside White Settlement. Lined up wingtip…
Plenty of towns quietly rebrand. White Settlement did the opposite, and put it to a vote. In 2005, city leaders argued the blunt, century-old name was scaring off businesses and developers who didn't want that word on…
In the 1840s, White Settlement was a lone outpost of white colonists amidst Native American villages in the Fort Worth area. Settlers began arriving from states like Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee,…
The mile-long assembly building next to this town has turned out warplanes for 80 years, but its most radical idea was a piece of engineering you can't see. In the 1970s, General Dynamics engineers at Air Force Plant 4…
The blunt name on the sign is the oldest fact about this place. In the 1840s and 1850s, the open country west of where Fort Worth would rise was dotted with Native American villages, and the handful of pioneer farms…
If you want the town's whole story in one stop, the White Settlement Historical Museum at 8320 Hanon Drive holds it. The small museum lays out the community's past in a few packed rooms: one given to local White…
If you want to touch the very beginning of this town's story, you can find it inside Veterans Park. There you'll see an authentic 19th-century log house, built in 1864 by William Terry Allen and his wife Sarah Fannie…
You're driving past the site where William Terry Allen built this cabin back in 1857, just six miles west of downtown Fort Worth. Young William arrived in Tarrant County with his family in 1854, and by 1857, they'd…
You're driving past Saginaw Cemetery, a final resting place with a story of community and tragedy. In the late 1890s, John Allebaugh Bowman led his family and 18 others on a long journey from Missouri to Tarrant County.…
You're driving past the site of the original Saginaw School. It opened in 1892 as a tuition school, becoming public the next year. A teachers strike in 1910, protesting child labor, led to the formation of a local PTA.…
You're driving through Saginaw, a city with roots stretching back to before the Civil War. Originally known as Dido, this community got a new name in 1882. That's when J. J. Green, a local landowner, renamed it Saginaw,…
You're driving past the Keeter Cemetery, serving this community for over a hundred years, starting in 1882. The oldest grave is Ida Mae Ryan, who lived from 1881 to 1882. Albert Lafayette Keeter, the namesake of the…
This airfield exists because of a handshake between a aircraft company and the U.S. Army. In 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor, Consolidated Aircraft proposed building a massive bomber plant on the flat prairie west…
As you drive down Saginaw Boulevard, you can't help but be struck by the colossal structures rising beside the railroad tracks. These aren't just buildings; they're Saginaw's concrete cathedrals. The Burrus Mill and…
Saginaw's whole identity got poured in concrete in 1936, when the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company dedicated its giant new flour mill and grain elevator here. Brothers J. Perry Burrus and Jack Burrus built it, and on…
Saginaw's flour built one of the most important bands in American music, even if the microphone sat down in Fort Worth. In 1931 the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company, the outfit whose flagship plant now defines Saginaw,…
Just up the road at the old Dido Cemetery lies one of the most revered songwriters Texas ever produced. Townes Van Zandt, who wrote Pancho and Lefty and If I Needed You, was born in Fort Worth in 1944 into a family…
Those giant grain elevators you see aren't just big bins; they are marvels of industrial engineering. Most were built using a technique called slip-form construction, where concrete is poured into a continuously moving…
The ground you're crossing was first farmed by a settlement called Dido, taking root around 1848 in what was then frontier Tarrant County. When the railroads came surveying in the 1880s, they laid their lines a little…
Saginaw raised a major champion. Angela Stanford was born in 1977 and grew up right here, sharpening her game on North Texas courses before graduating from Boswell High School in 1996 and heading to TCU in nearby Fort…
In the dark early hours of March 18, 1989, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 freighter came down in a pasture near Saginaw, and the cause was a door. Evergreen International Airlines Flight 17 was a military cargo run, hauling…
Saginaw's official identity is just two words, train and grain, and standing anywhere near the elevators you understand why. The town grew up on a railroad crossing once governed by an interlocking control point known…
Those concrete towers over Saginaw hold a hidden hazard that drives an entire branch of engineering: grain dust. It seems harmless, but finely ground flour and grain dust suspended in air is genuinely explosive. The…
Because a homesick Michigander named the place in 1882, Saginaw, Texas has spent its whole life as the little Lone Star twin of Saginaw, Michigan, more than a thousand miles north. The kinship became official in 1982,…
You're driving past Saginaw, where a Methodist Church was organized in 1914 by ten people. Services were first held in a school auditorium, with a dedicated church building constructed in 1923. The congregation grew and…
You're driving past where America's arsenal for the air took shape during World War II. Back in 1940, the U.S. needed to ramp up military aircraft production, and Texas wasn't a major player yet. But Fort Worth went all…
You're driving through White Settlement, Texas, just west of Fort Worth. Back in the early 1850s, this area was a scattering of isolated farms and trading posts, a frontier outpost reaching toward Parker County, right…
You're driving through Parker County, heading past the town named for the man we're talking about: Isaac Parker. Born in Georgia way back in 1793, Parker arrived in Texas in 1833, just in time to serve in the fight for…
You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of White Settlement. It all started back in 1868, with just six members who called themselves the New Prospect Baptist Church. They met in a one-room log cabin…
In April 1897, the Dallas Morning News ran an astonishing story out of Aurora. A local writer reported that a mystery airship had sailed over town at dawn, clipped a judge's windmill, and exploded in his yard. The…
To understand the culture of Willow Park, you have to understand its connection to the Aledo Bearcats. Though the high school is in the neighboring town of Aledo, Willow Park is a key part of the Aledo Independent…
Interstate 20 shaped Willow Park, but it did not invent it. There were farms out here in the 1850s, and by the late 1800s a small place called Willow Springs. The name you know came after 1940, when U.S. Highway 80 was…
Long before the airship story, Aurora got its name from something hopeful. Settlers arrived in the late 1850s, and the man credited with naming the place chose Aurora, after the Roman goddess of the dawn, by one account…
If you want barbecue with some roots in modern Saginaw, Texas Pit Bar-B-Q at 324 South Saginaw Boulevard has been smoking meat for the town since 2002. It's a family-owned and operated joint, the kind of place that grew…
Willow Park sits just west of Fort Worth, where the land begins to roll and the air feels a little lighter at its 932-foot elevation. You can almost feel the ancient seabed beneath your feet, a reminder that this part…
The real reason Aurora faded has nothing to do with spacemen. Two ordinary disasters did it. First, around 1888, a spotted-fever epidemic, now thought to have been a form of meningitis, swept the town, and so many…
You're driving past the site of Cartersville, a town that thrived for decades right here in Parker County. Founded in 1866 by Judge Carter and friends, it grew into a bustling community with two main streets, stores,…
You're driving past the Aurora Cemetery, a place with more stories than you might expect. The oldest graves here go back to the 1860s, belonging to the Randall and Rowlett families. But this 3-acre plot was officially…
You're driving through Aurora, and right here, you're passing the final resting place of George Lawton Bledsoe. Born in Georgia in 1805, Bledsoe came to Texas in 1834, just in time to fight for its independence. He was…
You're driving past the site of the old Wright Community, near Weatherford. In 1874, L.F. Wright donated land here for a Union Church and School. This cemetery is one of the last traces of that community. While L.F.…
Willow Park owes its name to a picnic stop. Around 1940, when U.S. Highway 80 was finished across eastern Parker County, road crews built a scenic roadside park for weary travelers and Sunday picnickers, planting native…
You're driving through Wise County, near Aurora. Back in 1897, this quiet town became the center of a bizarre statewide sensation. A local cotton buyer, S. E. Haydon, wrote a story for the Dallas Morning News about a…
The Aurora Cemetery is a real, still-used graveyard with graves dating back to the 1860s, on land a settler donated to the local Masonic lodge in 1877. It would be a quiet country cemetery like a thousand others in…
Aurora's airship legend turns out to be a neat little case study in how science tests an extraordinary claim. Over the years, investigators have come at it with real tools. They swept the cemetery with metal detectors,…
On the evening of March twenty-eighth, two thousand, a violent F-three tornado came down right through this part of west Fort Worth. The funnel was about a quarter mile wide at its peak and stayed on the ground for…