Will Rogers Complex Building on Almost 90 Years of Fort Worth Heritage

For going on 90 years, the Will Rogers Memorial Center has been as entertaining, amusing, and lively as its beloved, witty namesake cowboy, who was as witty and charming as he was capable as a trick roper. 

Since 1936, the Will Rogers Memorial Center has sat with the self-assurance of a rugged cowboy on a hill on 120 acres of the old Van Zandt tract just west of downtown, on the other side of the Trinity River. 

It is worthy of veneration. Something a step or two, certainly, below adoration.  

Nothing in town, not even the Tarrant County Courthouse, is as emblematic of the city of Fort Worth and its history as the structures of the Will Rogers Memorial Center, which today are as relevant as they were when they emerged in 1936 from the ground that had most recently been the nurturing home to scrub oaks and wild sunflowers. 

It was built as a memorial to Will Rogers, but also the city’s and West Texas’ place as the center of the livestock industry, as well as a testament to Fort Worth’s growth and modernity.  

As it prepares to host its 81st Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, the complex remains the epicenter of Fort Worth’s cultural hub even with the shiny, hot, new thing on the block that stands just several hundred feet to the south and west. 

The complex has been everything and much more that those earlier city forefathers dreamed it would be as an economic engine generating for the city and her local merchants and those in neighboring counties, as well as a gathering place for out-of-towners while at the same time fostering community right here in the city. 

Even as her younger, better-looking, more sophisticated sibling, Dickies Arena, hosts almost 1 million people annually, Will Rogers Coliseum is more in demand today year-round than it’s ever been, one local insider tells me, as ground zero of the Western equestrian competition world through the National Cutting Horse Association, the National Reined Cow Horse Association, and the American Paint Horse Association.  

Showing in the Will Rogers Coliseum for cutting horse and reined cow horse riders is tantamount to a marathoner running in Boston. 

“Busy as it’s ever been,” he repeats for emphasis. 

Not to mention a full schedule for the Stock Show and Rodeo. 

Its future, therefore, even at this advanced age, is as bright as it’s ever been. 

The City Council approved $8.5 million last year to renovate the Will Rogers Coliseum concourse. A more comprehensive plan for the coliseum is in progress, in addition to early discussions to update the master plan for the complex. 

A multimillion-dollar, four-phase renovation of the original 1948 cattle barns is nearing completion. That renovation included a new fully air-conditioned show arena. The renovations were a 50-50 public-private enterprise between the city and Stock Show.  

Over the years, of course, the city and Stock Show have added substantially to the campus. In 1984, the Amon G. Carter Jr. Exhibits Hall opened. In 1988, the Richardson-Bass Building and Burnett Building, along with a more than 750-space parking garage opened. In 1996, the Charlie and Kit Moncrief Building opened its doors.  

Asked to reminisce about the place, Mayor Mattie Parker says: “As we reflect on its legacy and look to the future, we remain committed to preserving this historic landmark and ensuring it continues to showcase Fort Worth’s unique spirit for generations to come.” 

A unique spirit indeed is this historic landmark, born immediately into history over a spat involving the Texas Centennial of 1936.  

The Legislature in 1934 appointed a committee made up of civic leaders across the state to determine how to mark Texas’ first 100 years, in 1936.  

An exposition representative of all that had happened since then and all its ranching, farming, and oil would be on full display.  

“All good things of Texas, well-larded by educational displays and cultural events” is the way Amon Carter biographer Jerry Flemmons described it.  

The commission secretary Will H. Mayes sent letters of inquiry and proposal forms to the state’s four biggest cities — Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Fort Worth — about bidding for the exposition. In fact, any interested city was welcome to submit bids. A tight deadline and the size of the financial commitment dissuaded many, including one of the state’s biggest cities, from bidding. 

By all appearances to history, according to The Frontier Centennial: Fort Worth & The New West, written by Jacob W. Olmstead, there is no evidence Fort Worth ever put in a bid. Flemmons wrote that Amon Carter, who was on the state centennial commission, never even considered getting involved in a bid, considering Fort Worth didn’t exist in 1836. To Amon, according to Flemmons, Houston or San Antonio were the most logical sites because of their relationship to the events of independence in 1836. 

Dallas, however, was awarded the exposition with a bid weighted by millions in seed money to throw the party. The city’s patrons literally outbid the rest, an important advantage in the depths of the Depression. “Mr. Dallas,” R.L. Thornton, then president of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, pledged that he would raise at least $8 million upfront for the exposition.  

When Carter heard of Dallas’ selection, though, he was said, according to Flemmons, to have “set a record for consecutive gawddamns.” To him Dallas had as much claim to the exposition as Fort Worth. 

Despite his reported agitation, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Carter’s newspaper, published an editorial in the days following the announcement showing no consternation over Dallas’ selection.  

The editorial made a case that Dallas “fairly earned the distinction of being the Texas Centennial City,” and “Fort Worth is happy to bask in reflected glory.” 

Moreover, the vice president of the Tarrant County Advisory Board to the Texas Centennial, a Mrs. C.C. Peters, according to Jacob Olmstead, encouraged Texas cities to “stand behind the chosen city and make the celebration as big as the state.” As far Peters was concerned, the proximity of the Dallas exposition was an economic victory for Fort Worth.  

“Everyone who visits the exposition will come to Fort Worth, and the Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show likely will draw many.” 

Amon Carter, however, was anything but content, according to Flemmons. Rather, he was huffing and puffing about all of this.  

According to Flemmons, Carter “gathered his close friends to scheme on a plan of retribution in which Fort Worth would show Dallas ‘how the cow ate the cabbage.’” 

The idea of Fort Worth holding its own centennial exposition, according to Carter, belonged initially to William Monnig, the city councilman and proprietor of Monnig’s Department Store. Monnig was born in Missouri but spent his early years living in a German community, leaving him, it was said, with an accent that he took to his grave.  

“I pity anyone who forgets he is a common man,” Monnig was renowned for saying.  

Though the idea might have been Monnig’s, only one guy dared try it — Amon Carter, who had a chief accomplice, Van Zandt Jarvis, then both the mayor and president of the Stock Show. 

Our “Frontier Centennial” would celebrate the contributions of the livestock industry, its center being Fort Worth, Texas.  

Carter ginned up support by insisting that if Fort Worth didn’t do this, the annual Stock Show in the Stockyards, since 1896, was in jeopardy to the rascals out east. And they had better do it in “grand fashion.” 

“Our friends across the river, with their new buildings, costing from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000,” Carter explained, according to Olmstead, “could and possibly would absorb our great Stock Show.” 

So, off to Austin went a Fort Worth contingent, led by Carter, Jarvis, state Sen. Frank Rawlings, and John B. Davis, Stock Show general manager, seeking a piece of the $3 million the Legislature had appropriated for the centennial. They were seeking $250,000 of the $575,000 appropriated for historical markers and memorials.  

An advisory board of historians — the more things change, the more government stays the same — was created to advise the State Centennial Commission of Control on how and where to spend the $3 million.  

The proposal, according to Olmstead, focused on the fundamental importance of the livestock industry to the economic and cultural history of the state. Livestock, the contingent argued, “represented the first industry in the state even before its formation as a republic, and since that time Texas functioned primarily as a ‘cattle state.’ Furthermore, Fort Worth already hosted the largest, most significant livestock show in all of the Southwest.” 

Clearly, given that logic, the livestock industry, in conjunction with the great ranchers of West Texas, required its own celebration. 

Olmstead, the author of The Frontier Centennial, noted that in “defining Fort Worth as inseparable from the Texas livestock heritage, the proposal implied that Fort Worth also lay claim to a Western heritage based on its historical relationship to the Texas livestock hinterland: West Texas.” 

The proposal employed descriptive terms often associated with the livestock industry and its Western identity, including pioneers, cowboys, ranches, horsemanship, and the West. 

It wasn’t, therefore, Fort Worth’s specific heritage — U.S. Army forts, for example — that centennial planners intended to celebrate. Rather, they hoped to “give adequate recognition of the livestock industry [and] the development of West Texas from cattle to an agricultural empire.” 

This was a celebration of West Texas and Fort Worth as the place “Where the West Begins.” 

To host an exposition worthy of the Texas livestock industry, the delegation said, it would construct “an entirely new livestock exhibition plant,” which was something Carter had already mentioned to Harold Ickes, Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior, who was responsible for dishing out federal funds from the Public Works Administration.  

The state funds, the delegation testified, would be combined with a larger PWA loan the Fort Worth people said was already under negotiation. In fact, Ickes had thrown cold water on Carter’s idea to spend federal money in the Depression on such an expense. 

But the delegation said it had in mind about 140 acres near the central city for a 6,000-seat arena, an auditorium, and exhibition building, an arena for auction sales, and a number of buildings devoted to housing various breeds of livestock.  

The advisory group appeared inclined to turn them down. 

However, the Fort Worth group also made a presentation in front of the State Centennial Commission of Control, hoping to directly persuade those who regulated the distribution of the centennial’s discretionary funds. That is, go over the head of the advisory board.  

Rawlings’ speech before the commission was said to be riveting. So much so that Coke Stevenson, he of Lyndon Johnson-U.S. Senate lore, then the Texas Speaker of the House and commission vice chairman, said he would vote to allocate the funds “right now.” 

Fort Worth and West Texas pay taxes, too, he said.  

This proposal, Rawlings insisted, also would be more than merely a show of the Texas Centennial celebration. It will be of permanent benefit.  

Eventually, the funds were allocated, but with a stipulation. The city was required to raise $1.25 million to match the state allocation. If the feds appropriated money to support the Texas State Centennial, including the Fort Worth earmark of $250,000, the commission would take back its offer.  

Insiders in Austin accused the Fort Worth group of backroom deal making, noting that Fort Worth received $250,000 while two other locations of historical significance only received $50,000. One critic argued that $250,000 put Fort Worth “on parity with San Antonio and its Alamo, and Houston where was fought the Battle of San Jacinto.” 

However, with the assistance of Fort Worth Congressman Fritz Lanham, the issue became moot. The federal government chipped in $250,000 through the United States Texas Centennial Commission, chaired by Vice President John Nance Garner, a friend of Carter’s. 

That left a more than $1 million city bond election and the PWA loan to see that the future Will Rogers Memorial Center was constructed in time for Fort Worth’s Texas Centennial festival. 

The bond wasn’t only for the centennial project. The program included a library, hospital, tuberculosis sanitorium, and what became the 1938 Moderne-style City Hall-Jail complex. It served that purpose until the 1971 City Hall was constructed. Today, it is home to the municipal court.  

Monnig was put in charge of making the case to voters. His arguments focused the benefit of putting hundreds of Fort Worth laborers to work and immediately off federal relief rolls; losing $1 million in federal and state grants and thereby unable to host a centennial celebration; and, thirdly, Fort Worth might lose the Stock Show to, gasp, Dallas.  

There is no better way to get Fort Worth voters off the couch and voting “yes” than the scare tactic of Dallas. 

The ramrodded bond program passed despite concerns from the North Side that it would come at their detriment. The North Side might permanently lose the Stock Show.  

One councilman said he would “bend over backward in favor of the North Side” as a potential site for the new facilities.  

“No site has been selected, and the cards are stacked in favor of the North Side because that section of the city has many advantages.” 

Nonetheless, the City Council would not name the location before the election or place the issue as part of the bond. The Van Zandt track, as it was called — it was once owned by K.M. Van Zandt — clearly was the preferred location. 

Carter and other city leaders wanted a complex closer to the city center that could display the history and message of the West while promoting Fort Worth’s advances and modernity.  

In fact, it would not be until 1944, some eight years after the construction of Will Rogers, that the Stock Show would move, a testament to the political power, not so much of the North Side, but the legendary packing plants.  

“I think Will Rogers really just allowed us to grow,” said Stock Show general manager Matt Carter. “It gave us a home where we could expand and grow and that whole seed stock industry that is the bedrock foundation of the genetics that do a tremendous job of putting food on everybody’s plate.” 

The Houston Livestock Show and San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo weren’t nearly of the scale they are today. For people in livestock, this was the place to exhibit and sell livestock. 

Said Matt Brockman, Stock Show communications director, and clearly an able historian: “God bless Van Zandt Jarvis and Amon G. Carter because the move was long overdue. Bear in mind that in 1936 and even in 1944, the Stockyards itself, that complex was at probably its peak relative to the number of animals that were sold and harvested and product that left there on a daily and weekly basis. You had a livestock industrial complex over there, and you’re trying to have a stock show and a rodeo in the midst of all of that?” 

Someone more powerful than all the competing parties eventually got involved. A devastating flood on the North Side and Stockyards in November 1942 forced the cancellation of the 1943 Stock Show and Rodeo.  

On the West Side the Stock Show would find a permanent home.  

To generations now, the Stock Show and Rodeo is synonymous with the Will Rogers Memorial Center. It wasn’t always that way. The original Stock Show was held in the Stockyards for almost 50 years.  

Cowtown Coliseum was the site of the world’s first indoor rodeo, and where else would be adequate enough to host a livestock sale than in the heart of the world’s packing industry? 

Fort Worth’s Centennial Building Site Committee received at least 23 recommendations. Though only two were considered. And, in reality, only one.  

Building the centennial grounds in or near the Stockyards wasn’t viable simply because of the challenge of passing large crowds across North Main Street, according to the architects on the project, Wyatt Hedrick and Elmer Withers, both hired by the city.  

That alone was enough for four councilmembers to declare that the Van Zandt tract was the most reasonable place. Eventually, the city purchased the property for $150,000. The city had also previously purchased the Stock Show property and facilities from the Fort Worth Stockyards Company for $100,000, though $50,000 less than the Stockyards Company’s original offer.  

“We have made every effort to locate the Centennial stock show and auditorium on the site now occupied by the Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show,” said one member.  

It didn’t matter quite yet anyway until the PWA came through with a loan.  

Amon Carter, of course, had inroads there with the vice president and Franklin Roosevelt, an intimate.  

Yet, Carter’s pleas with Interior and Public Works Administrator Harry Hopkins were getting nowhere fast. In fact, he was meeting resistance and rejection. 

The application for a PWA loan for “Amon’s Cowshed,” as it had become known in Washington, was turned down by Hopkins and, ultimately, Ickes. 

Ickes pointed out that he had approved a school building and a tuberculosis sanitarium for Fort Worth, both of which “clearly outranked a livestock pavilion as socially desirable projects,” Flemmons quoted Ickes as saying. 

“You have knocked us in the creek for good,” Carter wired back. 

Carter, not one to take no for an answer, went to the very top in Washington. If Ickes won’t help us, the White House would, he believed. Carter went to Postmaster General James Farley, another Carter associate, who had proven adept during FDR’s first term at mediating disputes exactly like this.  

Farley, according to Jerry Flemmons, wasn’t going to do it without having some fun at Carter’s expense.  

Farley took the matter directly to FDR. He had Carter wait outside the room in the White House but purposely left the door ajar, so Carter could hear the conversation. 

According to Flemmons, Farley spoke loudly to the president. 

“Amon wants to build a cowshed,” Farley said. “A cowshed!” the president exclaimed. 

Eavesdropping outside, Carter rushed in, Flemmons wrote, shouting “Now gawddammit, it’s not a cowshed!” 

Farley and the president proceeded to convulse with laughter, Flemmons wrote. 

In November 1935, after the proposal was resubmitted, Fort Worth received its funds through the determined effort of Amon Carter. 

“Your cowshed has been approved by the administration,” wrote Jesse Jones, director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and a Houstonian, by the way. 

Carter had always wanted the complex to be a memorial to Will Rogers, who died in a plane crash in 1935 in Alaska. The two were close friends.  

Carter had even traveled to Washington after the crash to chaperone Rogers’ body back to Oklahoma.  

“Your going to Seattle was the … most comforting thing of all the loving things that were done for him,” Rogers’ wife Betty wrote Amon Carter only weeks after Rogers’ death. “No one but you could have thought of this, and how I love you for it. All those long hours my thoughts were with you. I do want you to know how deeply touched we were and how each one of us appreciate your warm affection and sincere friendship for him. 

“He loved you.” 

Time would erase the debate over the location of the new livestock memorial and the centrality of the Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show to Fort Worth’s centennial celebration. As discussed, the show proved integral to both the shaping of Fort Worth’s Western identity and the origin of Fort Worth’s Frontier Centennial. 

The Will Roger Memorial Center became just as its founders dreamed. In the ensuing years, it emerged as a cultural hub featuring world-class museums and performance spaces that have elevated Fort Worth into an international destination for arts, history, and innovation. 

It will still be a thriving economic engine at Texas’ 200th birthday in just 11 years and well beyond.