Where the West Begins

he deadline was the hour of adjournment of the 1876 Texas legislative session. The Texas and Pacific Railroad was on the edge of losing a fifteen-million-dollar land grant if it failed to complete the track to Fort Worth on time. For the struggling frontier town, the stakes were higher – its very future was on the line.

Known as a prairie oasis, Fort Worth had grown into a bustling town during the time when cowboys moving their herds north to market stopped for supplies an da little entertai...