Tarrant County College Northeast Campus/ Heritage Room to The Portal to Texas History
Out-of-towners, North Texas citizens, and those qualifying as dignitaries are all marking the jubilee 50th anniversary of the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in 2024. The occasion merits a season of celebration.
DFW has been the most consequential economic development project in Fort Worth’s history, and, really, the entire region.
The airport supports an annual payroll of $38 billion across more than 630,000 jobs, according to the data the airport collects. Visitors to Fort Worth and Dallas and the surrounding region generate $24 billion in economic activity each year. That results in $3 billion in state taxes and $2 billion that goes into the local collection basket.
Seventy-three million passengers pass through DFW’s 171 gates and five terminals each year, second-most in the world.
Following in the wake of that landmark birthday was the annual report Hillwood delivers on the economic impact of AllianceTexas. That number is $120 billion over 35 years, including $10 billion just last year.
The catalyst for the Alliance development is Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport, the only nonpassenger airport ranked in the Top 20 U.S cargo airports, moving 2.5 billion pounds of cargo.
Aviation has been a good friend to Fort Worth. It is no stretch to say that Fort Worth’s evolution would have been stunted if not for the foresight of the possibilities of the air age, beginning with Cal Rodgers’ and Roland Garros’ separate appearances here in 1911. The heroes of the industry could always count on a warm meal and place to stay in Fort Worth, from Rickenbacker to Lindbergh to Earhart.
Three World War I-era flying fields were established in Fort Worth as training sites for army aviators. The first airmail service in Texas originated here in 1925. In 1928, the first airline passenger to ever fly out of Texas on a scheduled airline flight departed from Meacham Field, headed for Oklahoma City.
Carswell Air Force Base, the bombers and fighters, including F-16, of Convair, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin, and the machines of Bell Flight have all been consequential.
Many of these events, programs, and institutions were prompted by the agitation of Amon Carter, who was said to have felt about aviation the way Willie Nelson feels about the hot stick.
That is, “inseparable,” as author Jerry Flemmons wrote in his Carter biography Amon. Perhaps no one recognized better the economic value that aviation would bring to Fort Worth.
The history of the contention and finally construction of DFW airport is a fascinating one.
Discussions between Dallas and Fort Worth to build a shared airport go all the way back to the 1920s. For the better part of 10 years, Amon tried to interest Dallas in a joint airport enterprise.In the 1940s, it almost happened, so close in fact that an agreement and plan were set in place for an airport halfway between the cities. However, an engineering firm suggested that the rear of the terminal would face Dallas, sending, it was said, Dallas Mayor Woodall Rogers into a rage.
Amon chastised Rogers, noting in an opinion piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that the “rear-door feature may not be as important as you think.”
As Flemmons noted in Amon, the actual reason Dallas dissolved any ideas and agreements for a shared airport was Amon Carter.
Flemmons wrote: “Dallas leaders feared he would do with the shared airport as he did with Fort Worth, as he damned well pleased. Dallas had no plans to build Amon an airport.”
With the evolution of larger and faster airplanes, Meacham Field’s apparent limitations grew more obvious. Meanwhile in Dallas, Love Field was busier and larger. Moreover, Fort Worthians had to go there, for the most part, for air travel … much to “to Amon’s consternation.”
So, Amon, the largest stockholder of American Airlines, and the city of Fort Worth set out to build their own airport.
Dallas didn’t want that either, certainly not where it was planned, on 1,800 acres near Arlington that the city of Fort Worth annexed. Dallas hired out a hitman in U.S. Rep. Joseph Wilson, who managed to take a scalpel to an appropriations bill, cutting out federal money for Fort Worth’s airport.
That sent Amon into a rage of his own. Editorialists at the Star-Telegram, likely Amon himself, wrote:
“So over in Big D now there is great rejoicing. … The folks over there should know by now that Fort Worth is not easily thwarted. The Greater Fort Worth International Airport is going to be built. Make no mistake about that. What happened in Washington on Friday will not balk or appreciably delay its construction.”
It was around this time that Amon said he’d never eat lunch over there.
Ultimately, Amon got his way. Fort Worth’s federal airport money was reestablished. The city — and Amon Carter — built an airport as grand and splendid as any anywhere.
The Greater Fort Worth International Airport was open to traffic in 1953. Amon said he hoped the occasion would mark a new era in relations between the two, adding that he hoped “the hatchet is buried for good.”
Fort Worth and Dallas were growing together, he declared. “One day you won’t know when you leave one and enter the other.”
For his part in all of it, the city gave it a second name, Amon Carter Field.
American Airlines CEO C.R. Smith said he and Amon had a “modest” falling out over him accepting the honor, which Smith suspected only affirmed Dallas’ distrust, not to mention doubts that a shared facility was possible.
American Airlines Flight No. 605 arrived on time, the first scheduled flight at the airport.
The first four passengers to deplane were all from Dallas.
Irony.
The Greater Fort Worth International Airport was a failure. Fort Worth never generated enough passengers for the airlines to make a profit. Slowly but surely, service was diverted from Fort Worth and moved to Love Field.
Finally, in the 1960s, the federal government forced the two cities to get along and build a shared airport facility. It’s site: only a few miles north of the Greater Fort Worth International Airport.
And for 50 years, DFW International Airport has been everything those early Fort Worth city visionaries dreamed it would be when they argued for it 100 years ago.