Hell's Half Acre

This area stood at the edge of cowtown's notorious Hell's Half Acre, a district where saloons, dance halls, gambling parlors, and bordellos thrived in the late 1800s. Lawmen, gamblers, cowboys, trainmen, buffalo hunters, teamsters, madams, and prostitutes frequented its dance halls, gambling parlors, and brothels. On November 29, 1878, the Fort Worth Democrat characterized the dance hall clientele as "...lewd women of all ages 16 to 40... the most respectable of citizens, the experienced thief, the ordinary murderer, the average cowboy and the ordinary young man of the town." The scandalous activities of Hell's Half Acre and the businesses that supported them continued to ebb and flow throughout the early 1900s, and the district finally ceased to exist when the area was cleared to build the Tarrant County Convention Center in the 1960s.

Fort Worth, Texas · United States