Page 183 - Haltom City FY 22 Budget

CITY OF HALTOM CITY ANNUAL BUDGET, FY2022 Supplemental Information

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 The permanent courthouse was never completed
would succeed the temporary persons appointed because in November, 1856, in a highly contested
the preceding December, 1849. The election, on special election, Fort Worth won the county seat
August 5, 1850, was won by Birdville. Tarrant by a margin of three to thirteen votes (the official
County in 1850 had a population of 599 whites count varies). Jubilant Fort Worth citizens took
and 65 slaves, and covered 877 square miles. the county records, equipment, and furniture back
to Fort Worth for deposit in their own temporary
courthouse. All early Tarrant County records were
later lost in a courthouse fire on March 29, 1876.

Birdville, until 1856, had the Monday county court
sessions and the associated commercial benefits.
It also had two newspapers, the Birdville Western
Express, with John J. Courtney as its editor; and
The Birdville Union, with Colonel A. G. Walker as
its editor. Walker killed Courtney in a shoot-out
stemming from disagreements concerning the
elections and states' rights regarding slavery.

Haltom City's population was reported at 107 in
1930 and at 40 with seven businesses in 1936,
just four years after the business district moved
south to the new location. In 1950, the population
rose to 3,000 within an incorporated area of
four-square miles, and in 1960 to 23,000, the
result of continuing growth and annexations.

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.