Fort Worth affectionately known as Panther City

Fort Worth Panther

Panther City Fountain

Fort Worth has been affectionately known as Pantherville, then Panther City, since the 1800s. In 1875, a former attorney turned newspaper columnist for the Dallas Herald named Robert E. Cowart, after visiting neighboring Ft Worth, wrote that things were so relaxed (dull) there that he had seen a panther sleeping on Main Street in mid-day.  Although the nickname was meant to be derogatory, it stuck, and the panther became the symbol of the proud City Where the West Begins. It is the source of many monikers, from the revived Ft Worth Cats baseball team to the famous old Panther Hall, to the ultra-modern projected Panther Island (see my Urban Trinity River article under ‘Downtown’).

There are at least two panther statues in downtown Fort Worth. One lies lazily but nobly atop an 18’ fountain just across from the Ft Worth Municipal Courthouse, and was donated to the city in the year 2002. Water flows continuously under it into a pool at 201 W 9th St. Another is an eight foot bronze sculpture snoozing on the lawn of the Tarrant Co. Administration Building at 300 W Weatherford St.

So, from a frontier army post town where the T&P railroad tracks were stopped 26 miles short of town, to being part of the now fastest growing metropolitan area in the USA, the spirit of the people of Fort Worth, who built the remainder of the line themselves (as The Panther Club) endures.