TCU & the University District

Fort Worth's South Side grew up around schools and steeples. The Clark family started a small academy here in 1869, eventually founding the college that became Texas Christian University — which, after fire and wandering between Thorp Springs and Waco, came home to Fort Worth in 1910 when the city offered land and money to bring it back. Around the campus rose a belt of churches and seminaries: Methodist and Baptist congregations that renamed themselves to sit closer to the university, and the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest in the world. This route ties the university district together, from TCU's purple-and-white heart through the neighborhood's great congregations to Log Cabin Village, where pioneer cabins — including the last home of Cynthia Ann Parker — preserve the frontier the colleges replaced. It's a walk through learning and faith on ground that, within living memory, was open prairie.