Linwood

HISTORY

Linwood, VanZandt Place, Factory Place and Sunset Heights are grouped together here because they share some history, even though they are spread out along the Clear Fork of the Trinity River, reaching almost to the Central Business District of Fort Worth. Included in parts of seven original surveys, largely all done in 1855, these neighborhoods vary widely in ages of homes built.

Linwood, sometimes spelled Lynwood, is a mixed neighborhood of commercial and residential areas just north of West 7th Street. VanZandt Place is south of West 7th and is no longer residential.

Two trappers, Ed. S. Terrell and John P. Lusk, were said to be the first white men in the area in 1843. Indians captured them near a lagoon, our present day Botanic Garden, and held them for a year. In about 1868, Major K.M. VanZandt, one of the original settlers in Fort Worth, owned a cotton gin in that same location. Since home spun clothes were all that was available then, the material it produced was very popular. The VanZandt cottage is preserved today just south of Farrington Field. The VanZandt Land Co. platted some of the first development in 1903.

Farrington Field, the Fort Worth Independent School District's football and track stadium, was built in 1938.

West 7th Street was a major thoroughfare, as it continues to be today. In 1906, a family would rent a surrey for the afternoon and take a ride out West 7th Street to Arlington Heights Blvd., later named Camp Bowie Blvd. Real estate men were frequent patrons of the livery stable and were given special rates.

Factory Place and part of Sunset Heights share history with Linwood and VanZandt Place, in that all are in low lying areas near the Trinity River, and often had trouble with floods. In the 1922 flood, three levees broke at 6:30 a.m. No warning was given and residents were awakened by roaring waters. Railroad tracks along Vickery were washed away. Sixteen lost their lives and the west side of Fort Worth cut off from the city. Relief centers opened up in schools. Rumors abounded that the break in the levee at West 7th Street was caused by dynamiting by the city to save the water works, but the city denied it. The river reached 37 feet, and much of VanZandt Place was washed away, never to be rebuilt.

In Linwood, Montgomery Wards opened its new store on West 7th in 1928 with 500,000 square feet and 900 employees. Elmer Wooldridge platted the Linwood Addition near there in 1943, only to be set back again during the flood of 1949, where the waters of the Trinity reached nearly to the 5th floor of Montgomery Wards. Factory Place, largely built up in the 1940's also was affected by that flood.

The lower part of Sunset Heights was flooded recently when the city closed off part of a drainage ditch causing water to back up into homes. New levees and lakes have now solved the flooding problems.

NEIGHBORHOOD DESCRIPTION

The descriptions of these neighborhoods vary. Most of the homes in Linwood and Factory Place are one story frame homes with some brick trim. In Sunset Heights many of the homes are on a hillside and are split level with more brick and masonry construction. Linwood shares some of its area with commercial buildings, but Factory Place and Sunset Heights are all residential. There are apartment complexes in all the areas.

NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS

Sunset Heights South Neighborhood Association is the only one listed for these areas.

SCHOOLS

Elementary
North Hi Mount, 3801 W 7th St., 377-7280
South Hi Mount, 4101 Birchman, 377-7380

Middle
W.C. Stripling, 2100 Clover Lane, 377-7230

High School
Arlington Heights, 4501 W. Rosedale, 377-7200

OTHER INFORMATION

Nearest Fire Stations: 1901 Carlton, 205 University Dr., emergencies 911
Nearest Medical Facilities: Osteopathic Medical Center of TX, 1000 Montgomery, 735-3100
Nearest Post Office: 3301 Darcy, 336-7732
Nearest Grocery Shopping: Camp Bowie Blvd.
City Council District Number: 7
School District Number: 5
Voting Precincts Numbers: 4064, 4015, 4345, depending on location of house.

WILLIAMS TREW

FORT WORTH REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE

Williams Trew is a Fort Worth real estate brokerage specializing in residential real estate and offering some commercial real estate properties throughout Tarrant, Parker and Johnson Counties and serving the following cities: Aledo, Azle, Arlington, Benbrook, Burleson, Crowley, Fort Worth, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Haltom City, Keller, Kennedale, Mansfield, Mid-Cities, North Richland Hills and Watauga.