Page 174 - Haltom City FY19 Annual Budget

River Counties were sent into the frontier by General Sam Houston. Their mission was to
establish a fort, make the area safe for settlement, and guard the area from Indian attacks
to the north and west. Bird's Fort was situated about twelve miles southeast of Birdville
and six miles north of Arlington on the north bank of the Trinity where Calloway's Lake is
located. In 1841, General Edward H. Tarrant led a successful militia force against an
Indian encampment at present-day Arlington in the Battle of Village Creek. Such action
served notice to hostile tribes along the frontier that
a peace treaty was advisable. General Houston,
Indian Commissioners and several early settlers
and trappers signed and witnessed a treaty at Bird's
Fort on September 29, 1843, with the chiefs of nine
tribes. Soon after this, the fort was abandoned.
Settlements gravitated around a few homesteads,
water sources and trading posts. On June 6, 1849,
Camp Worth was established by General Ripley A.
Arnold and his troops nine miles west of Birdville on
a bluff overlooking the confluence of the West Fork
and the Clear Fork of the Trinity River. Named to
honor Brigadier General William Jennings Worth,
the new outpost offered welcome protection to fledgling settlements around Birdville and
Denton until 1853, when the troops were sent to Fort Belknap. Birdville in 1849 had an
estimated fifty people in town surrounded by scattered farms and ranches. Roads
radiated out to Johnson Station, Dunneville (now Grapevine), Dallas and new settlements
springing up on the prairie around Fort Worth.

In an effort to obtain self-government, some one hundred area residents petitioned the
State Legislature for a new county and elected temporary county officials. On December
20, 1849, the Texas Legislature created the new county, and called it Tarrant in honor of
General E. H. Tarrant. Tarrant County consisted of parts of Navarro County and Peter's
Colony. Birdville area resident Ed Terrell offered his log cabin for an election polling site
to choose the new county seat and to elect officers who would succeed the temporary
persons appointed the preceding December, 1849. The election, on August 5, 1850, was
won by Birdville. Tarrant County in 1850 had a population of 599 whites and 65 slaves,
and covered 877 square miles.

The First Tarrant County Courthouse was a wood-frame structure located in the vicinity
of the present-day W.G. Thomas Coliseum.
An eighty-acre tract, bounded by Walker,
Carson and Broadway Streets, was donated
by George Akers and William Norris in
August, 1851, for the erection of county
buildings. A plat of the new town drawn the
same year depicts 12 city blocks, including a
public square. Bonds valued at $17,000 were
issued to insure completion of the
construction work by W. S. Suggs and
others. Bricks were collected and a

Page 155