|
1929
from "A Ranger of Commerce"
by Howard W. Peak
"It has grown customary for most modern cities to be given an appelation based on their location or the scene of
some notable events or accomplishment."
"Fort Worth is named the "Panther City", from the tradition that a panther laid down in one of it's streets."
"The origin of this rather confusing term seems to bother some minds, so I will describe how the term happened to
be applied, I having been a witness to it's parentage."
"At the time, Fort Worth had but a few designated streets, and the one known as the "Weatherford Road",
now Weatherford street. As a boy, my father's horse and cow lot were about fifty feet south of this road, the residence facing
the "Dallas Road" now known as Houston street."
"One spring morning while I was in the lot feeding the horses and milking the cows, I was called for by an old Baptist
preacher, named Fitzgerald, who occupied the second story of a building located on the corner adjoining our residence."
"'Howard, come here quick, I want to show you something'. I alertly responded, and was shown by this man of highly
imaginative mind, the outlines of what he imagined was a 'panther' described in the dusty roadway. He even traced the indenture
of the cat's claws."
"There resided in Fort Worth at the time a young lawyer, Bob Cowart by name, and as he made but a precarious living
by law, he was, in addition, a correspondent for the Weekly Herald, published in Dallas.
Being informed of the parson's find, Cowart wrote the incident up in a very graphic manner, which, being duly published,
and derisively commented on by that weekly, the name 'Panther City' resulted and stuck."
|
