What would you change if you owned Fort Worth? Here are some answers from 118 years ago

Yahoo

22-02-2025

In 1907, the Telegram (predecessor of the Star-Telegram) ran an unusual and never-since-repeated contest asking its readers what changes they would institute if they owned Fort Worth.
It was an intriguing challenge to civic-minded Fort Worthers, but the newspaper did not appeal to civic-mindedness alone. The winner, picked by the editorial staff, would receive a prize of $5 cash ($167 in today's dollars). There would be no runners-up, just one winner who would get to see his/her name and entry printed in the newspaper. Readers were encouraged to send their entries in letter form to the newspaper.
The contest was announced on Sunday, Aug. 4, during the dog days of summer. Readers were given a week to submit their entries, which could either be mailed in or dropped off at the newspaper's offices on Eighth Street, with the winner to be announced in the Sunday newspaper on Aug. 11.
The editors could not have expected the outpouring of responses they got in the form of both letters and telephone calls. Apparently, the challenge struck a nerve. In the Thursday and Friday editions, the newspaper summarized some of the responses. At the top of everybody's list was a 'pure' water supply. This was a time when Fort Worth was still drawing part of its municipal water supply from the Trinity River mixing that with artesian well water.
Some notable responses called for what amounted to radical urban changes for the time, such as public housing for the poor, free public transportation, and confining the city's saloons to a 'well-regulated district.' These were things being promoted by progressives and socialists of the time. Fort Worth was far from being a progressive bastion, though it did adopt commission government in 1907, throwing out the old ward-based city council form of government.
The winner was D.S. Landis, head of the U.S. weather bureau station in Fort Worth since 1902. Landis was the first 'duly appointed' (trained) meteorologist in Texas, but his real passion was poetry. He turned out verses 'in prodigious numbers' for many years, leading to his nomination in 1931 to be Poet Laureate of Texas. (He didn't get it.) He was a close observer of things, a requirement of his profession, so no surprise the contest inspired him to submit a nine-page, typewritten entry covering a multitude of things he believed should be improved.
Like other letter writers, he led off with the 'water problem' before going on to propose a 'milk and fruit inspector' (at the time Fort Worth only had a meat inspector), and a roundup of all 'loafers and vagrants' on city streets. He favored public parks ('the playgrounds of the cities'), a legalized red-light district (to address the 'social evil'), viaducts over all railroad crossings (paid for jointly by the city and the railroads), and a five-year program to bury all 'telegraph and trolley wires' underground. These were arguably workable civic improvements.
Other proposals were more whimsical, such as a tax on all owners of dogs and cats, a penalty on owners of phonographs who played their machines too loudly, and a prohibition against 'ticket scalpers' who jacked up the prices on popular train routes. Some of his proposals were curiously quaint, such as an ordinance against expectorating ('spitting') on public streets and sidewalks.
Others were actually far-seeing, like a requirement that all city buildings have 'modern plumbing,' that all teachers be state certified, and that there be a curfew for youth. (He did not specify what ages it would cover.) And some of his proposals were the products of an idealistic, romantically inclined mind, such as prohibiting physicians from collecting a fee if a patient in their care died, and abolishing capital punishment in Fort Worth.
Landis' proposals were impressive in the sweeping range of topics covered. Fortunately for him, he was not obliged to explain how his improvements might be paid for or whether they would stand up to legal challenge. His letter was a flight of imagination suiting a contest that asked, 'What would you do to improve Fort Worth if you owned it.'
Looking back from more than 100 years later, the responses to the Telegram's contest give us an up-close-and-personal snapshot of Fort Worth in 1907. Things like the lack of public sidewalks and paved streets, the unsanitary public water supply, and better public transportation (which meant streetcars) all jump out. The entries tell us that the contest engaged the city's upper class, those who were newspaper readers and articulate enough to write a cogent letter.
The entries did not offer any proposed improvements that would primarily affect the lives of residents among minority groups. The only letter that even touched on racial issues was Landis calling for strict segregation in city and county lockups. Finally, the responses were a not-so-subtle slam of municipal government, since all the improvements being called for came under the purview of city fathers.
It is interesting to speculate what kind of response the Star-Telegram would get today if it posed the same question to readers. Do you think any present concerns would match up with the concerns of a century ago?
Author-historian Richard Selcer is a Fort Worth native and proud graduate of Paschal High and TCU.