Trinity River & the Railroad Age

Fort Worth almost died young. When the Texas & Pacific Railroad stalled short of town during the Panic of 1873, citizens famously pushed to lay the last miles themselves, and when the rails finally arrived in 1876 the frontier fort on the bluff above the Trinity was reborn as a shipping center — the place where cattle drives met the train and the West truly began. This driving tour follows the iron age that made the city: the great Art Deco terminal and the Beaux Arts depot that handled presidents and pioneers, the passenger stations and bridges that crossed the Trinity, the cattle-trail marker on the old route to Kansas, and — out east toward Lake Arlington — the power plant and interurban line that carried Fort Worth into the electric era. It's a long loop; let the rails lead you from downtown to the river to the edge of the county.