FORT WORTH, Tex., city and county seat of Tarrant County, 175 miles northeast of Austin, on the Trinity River, and Texas and Pacific, Santa Fe, Frisco, Trinity and Brazos Valley, Rock Island, Cotton Belt, Houston and Texas Central, Fort Worth and Denver City, International and Great Northern, Missouri, Oklahoma and Gulf and Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroads. Fort Worth is an important railroad centre and handles more than five times the number of freight cars yearly than any other city of North Texas. During 1915, 1,136,201 freight cars were inspected through the local yards and a large proportion of these stopped to receive and discharge freight. At the present time there' are approximately 4,000 railroad men who receive their pay in Fort Worth. With an average of four to a family this would give about 16,000 people dependent on the railroads for support. Its importance as a railroad centre has been recognized by 11 large grain companies who have built ele vators there, having a daily capacity of 1,198, 000 bushels, and a storage capacity of bulk grain of 2,120,000 bushels. There are also eight warehouses with a capacity of 275,000 sacks. Seventy-five per cent of the traffic of Texas passes through Fort Worth, and each day 174 package cars leave the city to supply quick and efficient service to the out of town merchants.
Fort Worth is also an important banking centre and seems likely to become the greatest west of the Mississippi and south of Kansas City for the reason that it is located in the heart of a great farming and stock raising country. It is the live-stock market for the Southwest. Stockmen realize $250,000 in Fort Worth daily. It is also a fruit and produce centre, and has the asset of good roads and Tarrant County is building more. These roads connect with avenues of traffic leading into surrounding counties. It received more than $5,000,000 for horses and mules sold in the live stock market to the warring nations in the first six months of 1916. Its building permits have increased substantially in the same period. An extensive trade is carried on in hogs, sheep and cattle, cotton oil, grain, fruit and produce. The industrial establishments include stock yards whose daily capacity is about 27,500 head, large packing-houses, grain elevators, flour, cornmeal and stock-feed mills, breweries, roll ing mills, railroad repair shops, foundries and machine shops, cotton and oil mills, tin silo plants and manufactories of clothing, furniture, chemicals, ,candy, wagons and carriages, etc.
The United States census of manufactures for 1914 showed within the city limits 180 industrial establishments of factory grade, employing 3,044 persons: 2,308 being wage-earners, re ceiving annually a total of $1,542,000 in wages. The capital invested aggregated $8,595,000, and the year's output was valued at $9,974,000; of this $4,142,000 was the value added by manu facture. The deposits for .the largest banks and financial institutions as shown by the last report, compared with those of 1914, are in total as follows: 1914, $16,142,998; 1915, $25,395,000. The business transacted through the • clearing house averages about $1,250,000 a day. The•an nual bank clearings of Fort Worth clearly indi cate the high volume of the Manufacturing, and jobbing business conducted in this city. In 1915 the bank clearings totaled' $435;299,425.17.
The schools and Colleges of Fort Worth are among the best in the Southwest. One univer sity, two colleges, nine private and preparatory schools and four business colleges augment the public school system. Aside from 18 buildings used for public school students, Fort Worth has two high schools for whites and one for negroes. The scholastic census for 1915 was almost 14,000. In the denominational institu tions are represented Christian, Methodist, Bap tist, Catholic and Episcopal. These schools have been progressive in recent years and their at tendance is increasing. It contains a Carnegie library, Court of Civil Appeals Law library and the Medical College medical library. Fort Worth has 31 parks consisting of 433 acres, 216 miles of paved streets, and Tarrant County has 650 miles of improved roads. Fort Worth has a large and modern electric power plant with a capital of $3,680,000 supplying current to neighboring towns and cities to the extent of 100 miles, and owns a large' reservoir with a capacity of 30,000,000,000 gallons, , covering an area of 6,000 acres, offering cheap water for all purposes. Founded as a military post by Maj. R. D. Arnold in 1849, Fort Worth became the county-seat in 1860 and was first incorporated in 1873. The commission form of government was adopted in 1907. Pop. (1880) (1910) 73,312; (1916) 100,000.
G. G. Secretary, Chamber of Commerce.