Page 164 - Haltom City FY20 Approved Budget

City of Haltom City Annual Budget, FY 2020 Supplemental Information

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
foundation excavated. The first annual jury list
drawn up at Birdville's temporary courthouse in 1855 by District Clerk William Quayle showed 280
men qualified to serve.

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