Basically the cleavage between the two cities is of the simplest: Dallas is where the east ends, and Fort Worth is notoriously “where the west begins.” Dallas is a baby Manhattan; Fort Worth is a cattle annex. Dallas has the suave and glittering clothes of Neiman Marcus; Fort Worth has dust and stockyards. For this a perfectly good historical reason exists. The Texas and Pacific Railway, reaching Dallas from the east in 1872, stopped there; the line was not pushed the few miles westward to Fort Worth till 1876. And in the intervening years dozens of big eastern firms—mercantile establishments, distributors, and the like—got nicely settled in Dallas, and have stayed there ever since. Dallas was the end of the line.
ATTRIBUTION:
John Gunther (1901–1970), U.S. author. Inside U.S.A, ch. 47, Harper (1947).
