In 1936 as Texas prepared to celebrate its centennial--100 years after the Battle of San Jacinto--Dallas was chosen as the site of the official exhibition. Plans were under way for a modest Frontier Days Celebration in Fort Worth--until "Star-Telegram" publisher and civic booster Amon G. Carter stepped in. Carter considered the naming of Dallas as the official site a gross miscarriage of justice and was determined to get even by mounting a show that would directly rival the official event--and pull tourist dollars into Fort Worth. To put his celebration together Carter hired flamboyant...

In 1936 as Texas prepared to celebrate its centennial--100 years after the Battle of San Jacinto--Dallas was chosen as the site of the official exhibition. Plans were under way for a modest Frontier Days Celebration in Fort Worth--until Star-Telegram publisher and civic booster Amon G. Carter stepped in. Carter considered the naming of Dallas as the official site a gross miscarriage of justice and was determined to get even by mounting a show that would directly rival the official event--and pull tourist dollars into Fort Worth. To put his celebration together Carter hired flamboyant Broadway...

Jan Jones' second volume on Fort Worth's theatrical heritage presents for the first time a richly illustrated, comprehensive history of the showmen, performers, theaters, and events that shaped the city's theatrical fortunes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jones chronicles the early amateur theatricals of the 1870s, the development of Hell's Half Acre with its many variety theaters and honky tonks, and the opening of Evans Hall, the town's first legitimate theater. By 1883 far-sighted civic leaders had completed the Fort Worth Opera House, and by 1886 the city had joined the...