Fort Worth was founded in May, 1849 by Major Ripley Allen Arnold, shown here in an 1852 daguerreotype along with his wife Catherine Bryant. Arnold graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1838 and fought in the Seminole Indian War and in the War with Mexico. He served as Major under General William J. Worth and participated in the capture of Mexico City. In 1849 Major Arnold founded Camp Worth overlooking the Trinity River, naming it in honor of the recently deceased General Worth; later that year it was designated as Fort Worth, the nucleus of the present city. He was killed by Doctor Josephus M. Steiner in a duel in Fort Graham in Hill County, Texas, when he went to arrest the doctor for drunkenness or disturbing the peace. Originally buried at Fort Graham, Arnold's remains were brought back to Fort Worth for a second burial in Pioneers Rest Cemetery.
When Arnold's company of 42 dragoons first camped below Cold Springs on the Trinity they thought they had a nice place for a fort, but a July flood sent them scrambling up the hill in search of higher ground. They found a piece of land on which a man named Press Farmer was living in a tent with his family ---- and promptly dispossessed him of it. The post that they built consisted of 20 buildings (including stables) but all were leaky and of poor construction. And there was another problem: Lt. W.H.C. Whiting, an engineer, complained in an official report that the stables were "much too near the quarters and cannot help but be offensive in summer."
Major Arnold was quite aristocratic and he brought Catherine and their five children to his new fort in 1850. It's said that Catherine brought her piano with her. But that summer was a sad one for he and Catherine as two of their children died. Fort Worth saw little military activity because the Native Americans had already moved further west. It was abandoned in September, 1853. The fort was located on land which lies immediately west of the Tarrant County Courthouse today, between Bluff, Weatherford, Houston, and Throckmorton Streets.
When Arnold's company of 42 dragoons first camped below Cold Springs on the Trinity they thought they had a nice place for a fort, but a July flood sent them scrambling up the hill in search of higher ground. They found a piece of land on which a man named Press Farmer was living in a tent with his family ---- and promptly dispossessed him of it. The post that they built consisted of 20 buildings (including stables) but all were leaky and of poor construction. And there was another problem: Lt. W.H.C. Whiting, an engineer, complained in an official report that the stables were "much too near the quarters and cannot help but be offensive in summer."
Major Arnold was quite aristocratic and he brought Catherine and their five children to his new fort in 1850. It's said that Catherine brought her piano with her. But that summer was a sad one for he and Catherine as two of their children died. Fort Worth saw little military activity because the Native Americans had already moved further west. It was abandoned in September, 1853. The fort was located on land which lies immediately west of the Tarrant County Courthouse today, between Bluff, Weatherford, Houston, and Throckmorton Streets.
Fort Worth was founded in May, 1849 by Major Ripley Allen Arnold, shown here in an 1852 daguerreotype along with his wife Catherine Bryant. Arnold graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1838 and fought in the Seminole Indian War and in the War with Mexico. He served as Major under General William J. Worth and participated in the capture of Mexico City. In 1849 Major Arnold founded Camp Worth overlooking the Trinity River, naming it in honor of the recently deceased General Worth; later that year it was designated as Fort Worth, the nucleus of the present city. He was killed by Doctor Josephus M. Steiner in a duel in Fort Graham in Hill County, Texas, when he went to arrest the doctor for drunkenness or disturbing the peace. Originally buried at Fort Graham, Arnold's remains were brought back to Fort Worth for a second burial in Pioneers Rest Cemetery.
When Arnold's company of 42 dragoons first camped below Cold Springs on the Trinity they thought they had a nice place for a fort, but a July flood sent them scrambling up the hill in search of higher ground. They found a piece of land on which a man named Press Farmer was living in a tent with his family ---- and promptly dispossessed him of it. The post that they built consisted of 20 buildings (including stables) but all were leaky and of poor construction. And there was another problem: Lt. W.H.C. Whiting, an engineer, complained in an official report that the stables were "much too near the quarters and cannot help but be offensive in summer."
Major Arnold was quite aristocratic and he brought Catherine and their five children to his new fort in 1850. It's said that Catherine brought her piano with her. But that summer was a sad one for he and Catherine as two of their children died. Fort Worth saw little military activity because the Native Americans had already moved further west. It was abandoned in September, 1853. The fort was located on land which lies immediately west of the Tarrant County Courthouse today, between Bluff, Weatherford, Houston, and Throckmorton Streets.
When Arnold's company of 42 dragoons first camped below Cold Springs on the Trinity they thought they had a nice place for a fort, but a July flood sent them scrambling up the hill in search of higher ground. They found a piece of land on which a man named Press Farmer was living in a tent with his family ---- and promptly dispossessed him of it. The post that they built consisted of 20 buildings (including stables) but all were leaky and of poor construction. And there was another problem: Lt. W.H.C. Whiting, an engineer, complained in an official report that the stables were "much too near the quarters and cannot help but be offensive in summer."
Major Arnold was quite aristocratic and he brought Catherine and their five children to his new fort in 1850. It's said that Catherine brought her piano with her. But that summer was a sad one for he and Catherine as two of their children died. Fort Worth saw little military activity because the Native Americans had already moved further west. It was abandoned in September, 1853. The fort was located on land which lies immediately west of the Tarrant County Courthouse today, between Bluff, Weatherford, Houston, and Throckmorton Streets.
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