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FORT WORTH |
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Yes, Dallas does have something Fort Worth doesn't have - a real
city thirty miles away .
- Amon Carter, publisher, philanthropist, Fort Worthian
FORT WORTH , often dismissed as some kind of poor relation to Dallas, in
fact has a rush and energy largely missing in its more complacent
neighbor thirty miles east. Unlike comparably cosmopolitan Dallas, this
is one of the most "Western" cities in Texas. In the 1870s it was the
last stop on the great cattle drive to Kansas, the Chisholm Trail ; when
the railroads arrived, it became a livestock market in its own right,
with its own packing houses, while remaining a haven for cowboys and
outlaws. The cattle trade is still a major industry, after aviation and
defense, but the city can also pride itself on its thriving cultural
life. Unlike the more anxious Dallas, Fort Worth doesn't feel the need
to brag about its many excellent museums . For a place so wealthy (the
grand Western Hills area claims to have proportionately more
millionaires than any other US locale), it's surprisingly laid-back.
The City
Fort Worth's main attractions fall tidily into a triangle anchored by
downtown with the Cultural District and the Stockyards two miles away to
the west and north respectively. The chief focus of downtown Fort Worth
is Sundance Square , a leafy, redbrick-paved fourteen-block area of
shops, restaurants and bars between First and Sixth streets, ringed by
glittering skyscrapers and pervaded with a genuine enthusiasm for the
town's rich history. It owes its existence to vast injections of cash
from the Bass family; the whole ensemble is dominated by the two
gleaming glass skyscrapers of the Bass-owned City Center Towers , while
the extremely tasteful Nancy Lee & Perry R. Bass Performance Hall (tel
817/212-4325, ) is evidence of its continuing development. Notice the
carvings of longhorn skulls everywhere, and the many trompe l'oeil
murals - especially the Chisholm Trail mural on Fourth Street between
Main and Houston streets. The Sid Richardson Collection of Western Art ,
tucked away at 309 Main St (Tues-Wed 10am-5pm, Thurs-Fri 10am-8pm, Sat
11am-8pm, Sun 1-5pm; free; tel 817/332-6554, ), has a small but
excellent collection of late works by Remington, including some of his
best black-and-white illustrations, and early elegiac cowboyscapes by
Charles Russell.
Naming the square after the Sundance Kid isn't particularly appropriate;
he, and other outlaws such as Bonnie and Clyde, spent their time a few
blocks south, just north of I-30 at the city's original settlement. Even
into the 1950s " Hell's Half Acre " was renowned for bawdy lawlessness;
these days it's much less exciting, although the bubbling fountains and
pools of its central Water Gardens offer refreshing respite.
The Cultural District , two miles west of downtown, is an impressive
area of museums and art galleries. The finest collection is at the small
Kimbell Art Museum , 3333 Camp Bowie Blvd (Tues-Thurs 10am-8pm, Fri noon-8pm,
Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; free, around $5 for special exhibits; tel
817/332-8451, ), a splendid vaulted, naturally lit building designed by
Louis Kahn. Downstairs displays concentrate on pre-Columbian and African
pieces, with some noteworthy Mayan funerary urns, while upstairs, as
well as canvases by Gauguin, Cézanne, Picasso and Monet, you can admire
a seventh-century Khmer figure of a Hindu deity, ancient Chinese bronzes
and a fourteenth-century Japanese polychrome wood statue of En no Gyoja.
The museum café itself is adorned with relief sculptures by Henri
Matisse.
American art in the recently renovated and expanded Amon Carter Museum ,
just up the hill at 3501 Camp Bowie Blvd (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm;
free; tel 817/738-1933, ), includes great photographs of Western
landscapes, as well as a fine assortment of Remingtons and Russells and
works by Winslow Homer and Georgia O'Keeffe. The Modern Art Museum of
Fort Worth , 1309 Montgomery St (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 11am-5pm, Sun
noon-5pm; free; tel 817/738-9215, ), which specializes in twentieth-century
abstract art, is being moved to a larger facility to be unveiled in
2002. South of here, the wide-ranging Fort Worth Museum of Science and
History (Mon-Thurs 9am-5.30pm, Fri-Sat 9am-8pm, Sun noon-5.30pm; $6.50;
tel 817-255-9300, 1-888/255-9300, ) includes a planetarium and an IMAX
theater. The museum's most popular exhibits include ExploraZone - a kid-friendly
area for exploring topics like magnetism, weather, math, etc - and
DinoDig, where amateur paleontologists can dig through an "outdoor
discovery zone" for dinosaur bones.
The lively, interactive Cattle Raiser's Museum is, for now, slightly
farther north at 1301 W Seventh St (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $3) -
it's scheduled to be relocated to the Cultural District by 2004. The
changing economic face of the cattle trade is traced from the days of
the open range, via the great cattle drives, to modern ranching and
latterday cowboys - with displays of spurs, assorted tangles of barbed
wire and some interesting history on the travails of early women
pioneers. After the move, the museum will be adjacent to the National
Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame , set to open in 2002.
However, museums, no matter how good, aren't necessarily what you want
from a cowtown. The ten-block Stockyards Area , with its wooden
sidewalks and old storefronts centered on Exchange Avenue two miles
north of downtown, is a glorious evocation of the days when Fort Worth's
stockyards made this "the richest little city in the world." It's much
more than a cynical creation for cowboy-hungry tourists and even the
daily march down East Exchange Avenue of the fifteen or so Texan
Longhorn cattle (with six-feet horn spans) is done in good, educational
taste. The drives occur, weather permitting, at 11.30am from the corrals
behind the Livestock Exchange Building with the herd arriving back
around 4pm; one of the best views can be found directly in front of the
visitor center.
Along with the restaurants and bars, the stores will have Western-wear
obsessives in heaven. Look out for Fincher's rodeo equipment store and
M.L. Leddy's expansive saddle shop; and check out the Maverick Trading
Post, packed with hip, bright cowgirl regalia, and a bar serving good
cold beers. They encourage you to drink first and buy later; this is not
a good idea. If all the authenticity is too much to bear, there's a
nearby mall with a slightly more tourist-friendly orientation: the shops
and restaurants in the Stockyards Station , a brick-floored enclave in
the old hog pens, are squeaky clean; one of the best is the Ernest Tubb
Record Shop, next to the Stockyards Wedding Chapel. From here the
magnificent Tarantula steam train puffs along to Eighth Avenue downtown
(departs Wed-Sat noon, Sun 3pm; 30min; $10; tel 817/625-RAIL, ).
The Stockyards no longer host live cattle auctions ; instead, images are
beamed by satellite into the huge 1902 Livestock Exchange Building at
131 E Exchange Ave, home of the Stockyards Collections Museum (Mon-Sat
10am-5pm; free), packed with meaty memorabilia. The mission-style
Cowtown Coliseum next door, used for rodeos (tel 817/625-1025, ; ticket
prices vary) and concerts, is fronted with a bust of Bill Pickett, the
black rodeo star who invented the unsavory but effective practice of "bulldogging"
- stunning the bull by biting its lip.
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Vacation Rentals in Fort Worth |
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from $55.00
USD