EARLY DAYS
IN
FORT WORTH
Much of Which I saw and Part of Which I Was
By
B. B. Paddock
Fort Worth’s First Bank Building
This 2010 facsimile of the rare first edition is limited to 300 copies.B.B. Paddock created this work just after 1900, perhaps 1905 or 1906.It provides early Fort Worth history and is a necessity for a Fort Worthcollection.
Albert L. Peters
Bookseller
P.O. Box 136814
Fort Worth, TX 76136
E-Mail: petersfortworth@aol.com
I purpose writing a brief history of Fort Worth from the timeof its selection as a military post down to the time within the memoryof men now living, who may be interested in the struggles andsacrifices made by those who laid the foundation of the City. Ipurpose giving somewhat in detail the work of these patriotic, public-spiritedmen to whom the present citizenship of the City owe so much.
I am inspired to do this for the reason that so much credit isgiven by the uninformed to men to whom no credit is due and somuch is withheld from those who bore the burden and heat of theday in times that tried men’s souls, and to whom no sacrifice wastoo great, no demand upon their time or purse too much, if it couldbe shown that Fort Worth was to derive a benefit from the expenditureof time or money. The good that men do should live afterthem. But men should not have the credit for deeds done in the bodywhen the deeds were never performed. Obituary notices are usefulas examples to the living, but to be useful they should be true.Men should not be given credit, even though it may make pleasantreading to the families of the deceased, for things they did not doand perhaps had not the means of doing, no matter how willingthey may have been.
In the early days of this city there was among its citizenship acoterie of men, the like of which were never found in any other community.Their first and only thought was for the upbuilding of thecity. Some of these men are still living, but most of them havegone to their reward. It is greatly to be regretted that all couldnot have lived to see the culmination of their efforts and to participatein the prosperity which they helped to bring to the city.
In what follows there shall be found “nothing extenuate, noraught set down in malice.” It will be “an o’er true tale” as I saw itI do not hope that this little volume will be complete but that it mayserve as a foundation for some future historian to erect a structureas voluminous and veracious as Gibbon’s Rome or Hume and Smollett’sEngland. As far as it goes it may be regarded more authenticand reliable than Knickerbocker’s History of New York.
FIRST SETTLEMENT OF FORT WORTH.
At the close of the war with Mexico, General Winfield Scottsent a troop of the Second Dragoons in command of Major RipleyA. Arnold to North Texas to establish a post to protect the thensparsely settled territory from the forays of the Indians whichthen inhabited this section.
Major Arnold selected this as the most central point for thispurpose.
The post was first called Camp Worth in honor of Briga