HOW FORT WORTH BEGAN
Historical Spotlights
drag strips of fort worth
for the rough-racers out there, speed on over to the fwh shop to snag our original forest hill drag strip tee
Drag racing is form of racing that saw a huge boom in popularity in the late 1940s, when an influx of mechanically minded men returned from WWII.When the drag racing bug spread, cities and towns across the country felt the negative effects of street racing.
This pushed folks to find a safer place to race. During the 1950s, many car clubs inspired the construction of drag strips.
The first purpose-built drag strip was in Southern California, and is known as the Santa Ana Drags. It began operation in 1950 on an airstrip. The West Coast ways soon moved across the country, with drag strips popping up everywhere, including Tarrant County.
THE HOLLYWOOD THEATER: built in 1930
Hidden behind locked doors at a downtown W. Seventh Street building lives a Fort Worth Treasure. An ornate vintage auditorium of a 1,800-seat theater
that has been closed for over 40 years.
Original Photos by Fort Worth Historical and Kevin FideS
During the time when the industry was switching from silent movies and musicians to “talking pictures”, The Hollywood Theater opened April 17th, 1930 and was the third and last of Fort Worth’s “Movie Cathedrals” joining the Worth and the Palace. The Hollywood is inside The Electric Building, that built in 1929 by Houston investor Jesse H. Jones for Texas Electric Service Co., (now TXU Energy). Both the theater and the electric building were designed by Wyatt C. Hedrick in then popular art deco style.
The amazing people over at the Historic Electric Building Apartments graciously opened the theater for us for a few hours. Click through to see more photos.
JACKSBORO HIGHWAY: TX HWY 199
The Rocket Club. Cheers to the good (devilish) ole days
our original vintage matchbook advertisement tee
TX Highway 199, better known asknown as the Jackboro Highway.
Running north west out of downtown Fort Worth. Jacksboro Highway’s few miles of roadway stretched from Fort Worth toward Azle, Jacksboro, Wichita Falls and Amarillo.
With its proximity to the Stockyards, the businesses along Jacksboro Highway did a booming business every weekend.
Jacksboro Highway, Fort Worth’s version of Bourbon Street that would definitely live up to the legacy left by Hell’s Half Acre.
Fort Worth's HELL's half acre
Inspired by fort worth's very own red light district own a piece of diabolical history with our original hell's half acre design
Hell's Half Acre was a rough and rowdy precinct of Fort Worth, Texas originating during the early to mid 1870s in the Old Wild West. Basically, Fort Worth’s ‘red light district’. Hell's Half Acre consisted of boarding houses, brothels, gambling parlours, hotels, saloons, and a sparse assortment of mercantile businesses. The twenty-two thousand square foot ward caught the glimpse of such Old West personalities as Bat Masterson, Butch Cassidy, Doc Holliday, Etta Place, Luke Short, Sam Bass, Sundance Kid, and Wyatt Earp
FORT WORTH'S FOUNDING YEAR 1849
Our Iconic signature logo tee sporting the year Fort Worth began. find this vintage inspired design & more in the FWH Shop.
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