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Martial Fort Wroth: Protecting the Interests of the City and Nation, 1945-61
Tom Hill-Ailello
Roger Lotchin, in his Fortress California, 1910-1961(New York, 1992) makes the same point concerning the major cities of California, especially Los Angeles and San Diego. Lotchin argues that the city leaders in California consistently used federal military resources to help create urban empires. He also discusses the dual perception of urban culture. Cities are portrayed one the one hand as centers of dynamic change and culture. Conversely, cities are often portrayed as victims of outside forces beyond their control. Lotchin refutes the argument for cities as victims, contending that the martial cities of California determined their own development. He argues that these cities controlled, or at least had a large say in, the impact of military spending on their areas. The leaders of San Diego staked the city's future growth on accommodating the needs of the United States Navy. The city leaders of Fort Worth engaged in a similar process with the United States Air Force and the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation.
During the Cold War, Fort Worth's civic leaders sought to continue the economic benefits that Convair, the Air Force and federal defense dollars brought to the area in World War II. In the process these leaders faced a number of problems caused by the growth of the base-plant complex. This study examines how city leaders dealt with some of these problems, the economic impact that the growth of the military-industrial complex had on Fort Worth's postwar urbanization, and if Fort Worth fits Roger Lotchin's model for a martial metropolis.
For several years prior to 1939, Fort Worth's boosters, led by newspaper publisher Amon Carter, sought to bring aircraft manufacturing to the city without notable success. World events, especially the growing threat of war in the late 1930s and America's need to re-arm in response to this threat, caused aircraft manufacturers to seek sites for new production plants.
On August 12, 1939 the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce sent a telegram to Major R. H. Fleet, president of Consolidated Aircraft Corporation in San Diego. The message from the Chamber reflected the enthusiasm of the city's business leaders for the acquisition of such a plant, "If you contemplate additional manufacturing facilities, Fort Worth offers unusual opportunities. This city will go far to cooperate with you."1
Harold Foster, manager of the Chamber's industrial division, prepared an impressive brochure for aircraft manufacturers, designed to answer, "every question a prospective aircraft manufacturer could ask."2 The Chamber also hired an engineering firm to select a site for a plant. The firm selected a 438-acre site near Lake Worth. Several other North Texas cities, including Fort Worth's hated rival, Dallas, competed with the city for the expected flood of federal defense dollars that would result from aircraft manufacturing. Dallas won the first round, acquiring the North American Aviation Corporation plant that began construction in Grand Prairie in September 1940. Fort Worth, however, with the aid of the War Department, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and Amon Carter, did not lose out.
Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, initiated a propaganda campaign unparalleled in the city's history in an effort to bring aircraft manufacturing to Fort Worth.3 Carter maintained almost daily contact with civilian and military officials in his effort to secure an aircraft manufacturing plant. When it was officially announced that Tulsa, Oklahoma had been chosen as the site of the Convair bomber plant, Carter led a delegation of Fort Worth business and government leaders to Washington. This sojourn was described as, "Fort Worthians moving in on Washington like wolves on a stray yearling."4 A few days later President Franklin Roosevelt announced that the new plant was to be located in Fort Worth. The turn around was credited to Carter:
If you ask the man on the street how this was accomplished he will grin slyly and jerk his thumb toward Taylor and Seventh streets, on which corner is located the Carter Publications, Inc."5
Almost as important as Carter's efforts were those of Jess Jones. No non-elected Texan ever amassed more political power than Jones, whom President Franklin Roosevelt referred to as 'Jesus H. Jones.'6 From 1932 to 1945 Jones, a Houston banker and publisher, headed the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In 1940 he added the title of Secretary of Commerce to his portfolio. Jones over saw federal loans to help rebuild Depression-ravaged American industry and later directed the financing of the country's military buildup during World War II. He administered over $50 billion in loans to industry, $647 million of which helped start the Texas defense industry.7 This amount was more than received by New York and twice as much provided to California industry. Jones was instrumental in gaining War Department approval of the Lake Worth site for the Convair plant.
Late in 1940 the War Department asked Consolidated Aircraft to supervise the construction of a $10 million bomber plant, to be built at government expense, at the Lake Worth site. Upon the completion of the plant, the facility would be leased to Convair. Fort Worth issued $3 million in municipal bonds for the purchase of the land and associated road construction. Lloyd L. Turner, a Convair vice president, ascribed the city's success in landing the plant to four factors:
* The need to decentralize warplane production as a defensive measure.
* Ideal flying weather.
* Wide-open spaces for the plant and runways.
* An excellent labor supply.8
Turner might have added that there were a number of other cities in the middle of the country that also met these criteria. These cities, however, did not have someone with the persistence of Amon Carter or the influence and power of Jess Jones.
The Convair plant, completed in less than nine months, produced its first B-24 Liberator bomber on April 17, 1942. By the end of the war over 3000 aircraft, the vast majority of them B-24s, rolled off of the production line in Fort Worth.9 Adolph Hitler often referred to Nazi-occupied Europe as Festung Europa, or Fortress Europe. To his cost, and to that of the German people, the B-24s produced in Fort Worth showed Hitler that Europe was a fortress without a roof.
At the time of the plant's completion it was thought by city leaders and Convair officials that employment at the plant might eventually reach the then unheard of figure of 16,000.10 William Holden, executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, saw the need for workers from outside the area to staff the new facility, "It is unlikely that there are more than 4,000 unemployed men in Fort Worth who could qualify for employment at the plant. We may expect, therefore, that at least 8,000 workers must be brought in."11 Peak wartime employment at the plant actually reached the staggering total of 32,000 in early 1944.12
On August 16, 1945, only one week after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, the Fort Worth City Council directed the city attorney to draw up an ordinance calling an election on the issuance of $20.5 million in bonds. The money was for a ten-year program of municipal improvements designed to lay the foundation for full postwar employment.13 This action by the city council, done at the urging of Galen H. McKinney, head of the Chamber's postwar plans committee, had the full backing of that organization. A key part of the Chamber's postwar plans was the city's prime employer, the Carswell-Convair military-industrial complex.
The end of the war, in 1945, brought with it the cancellation of almost $1.2 billion in arms contracts. By 1948, however, Convair had a production backlog of $329 million, almost all of it attributable to orders for the B-36 bomber. This outcome did not happen by accident. William Holden of the Chamber attributed it to the foresight of local leaders:
During the war, the question was frequently asked, "What will happen to all the folks working in the war plants when the war is over?" Those who asked did not realize that Fort Worth had made a special effort to secure war establishments with a view to the future.14
Fort Worth's leaders undoubtedly viewed the Convair plant and Carswell Air Force Base as the foundation upon which to sustain the postwar growth of the city's manufacturing sector. At the Chamber's annual dinner in 1947 Holden, executive vice president and general manager of the Chamber, listed a number of economic accomplishments in the city. The two most prominent were the delivery by Convair of the first B-36 intercontinental bomber to the Air Force as part of a contract employing 12000 workers and a permanent housing project, costing $1, 109,000, at Fort Worth Air Field (soon to be renamed Carswell Air Force Base).15 The Chamber's report on industry, in 1948, featured a picture of the Convair plant on the cover. Page five of the publication was topped with a picture of the massive B-36 along with a caption that pointed with pride to Convair and the Air Force:
Aircraft and allied industries and installations in Fort Worth now provide employment for about 20,000. Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Corporation, maker of the B-36, the largest bomber in the world, operates the tremendous manufacturing plant photographs of which appear on the covers. Carswell Air Force Base, headquarters of the 8th Air Force, is in Fort Worth.16
The list of those allied industries and installations is a long one. Just in Fort Worth were Aero Optics, the Almosol Corporation, Howell Instruments, Menasco Incorporated, and Mosites Rubber Company. and Williams Instruments Inc. Fort Worth also acquired four National Guard armories and the General Depot, another large defense facility, during the war or in its immediate aftermath. In other Tarrant County cities, Arlington was home to Doskocil Manufacturing Company, Hutson Corporation, and LFC Industries. Located in Hurst, eventual home to the huge Bell Helicopter manufacturing plant, were Anchor Metals and International Controls Corporation. All of these companies, in turn, employed dozens of subcontractors, further enhancing the effect of defense dollars upon Fort Worth and Tarrant County.
An additional measure of the success enjoyed by Fort Worth's boosters in retain wartime gains was the rise of Carswell AFB's payroll to number two in the city. By 1947 the base employed over 5000 military and civilian personnel.17 The base's payroll, along with the number of people employed, ranked second only to the Convair plant among the city's employers.18 The growth of the base-plant complex in the immediate postwar years was directly tied to the success of Convair's largest postwar program, namely the B-36 bomber.
Convair flight-tested the first B-36 on August 8, 1946. The Air Force considered this plane, the first bomber with truly intercontinental range, vital to its ability to deliver nuclear weapons to their targets in the event that the Cold War turned hot. Until the entry into service of the all-jet powered Boeing B-52 in the mid-1950s, the B-36 remained the only strategic bomber in the Air Force inventory. Powered by both piston engines and jets, the B-36 represented a transitional technological stage between World War II and the Jet Age. As such, the city of Fort Worth benefited from a lucky happenstance that the B-36 rose in importance to the Air Force and the nation while more advanced aircraft were being developed.
Convair delivered the first combat ready B-36 to the Air Force on June 26, 1948 at Carswell AFB. Affixed to the aircraft's nose was a plaque with the fitting name 'The City of Fort Worth.' Amon Carter, also fittingly, attached the plaque and gave a short speech dedicating the plane to the Air Force.19 Carter, along with Mayor Roscoe Carnike, and the members of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, had lobbied hard for the basing of the planes in Fort Worth. They were assisted in Washington by Congressman Wingate Lucas (D-Grapevine) whose Twelfth Congressional District encompassed the base-plant complex. In this case the needs of the nation-state coincided with those of the city. Since the production facility was already located in Fort Worth and the plane was vastly more complicated than the wartime bombers, it made sense to the Air Force to have the plane based near the contractor for maintenance and technical support.
Production of the B-36 lasted until 1954 when the last of 385 aircraft rolled off of the production line. This number pales in comparison to the over 3000 aircraft produced by the plant during the war. The vast increase in complexity in postwar aircraft like the B-36 and the concomitant increase in cost, however, helped the payroll at the plant grow from $20 million in 1946 to $90 million in 1954.20
One of the most contentious issues faced by city leaders as a result of Convair's postwar success was that of traffic. Traffic congestion near the base-plant complex increased in lockstep with the plant production increase engendered by the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. Employment at the plant soared from 12,000 in 1947 to 23,000 at the beginning of 1951.
In January 1951 Convair management instituted staggered shifts at the plant in an attempt to alleviate the traffic problem. In addition, the company called a meeting of municipal and state officials to address the traffic issue. August C. Esenwein, head of Convair Fort Worth, suggested a number of solutions, all of which involved major road construction. Roscoe Carnike, the city's former mayor, responded to Esenwien's proposals in his own inimitable Texas style that, "Your problem is not tough. All you need is another highway."21 A search for a long-term solution to the traffic woes produced plans for a six-lane highway to the plant. On January 16, 1951 Curby Mirike, mayor of White Settlement, a small town immediately adjacent to the plant, revealed the existence of those plans to the public.22
The new road, to be named the Convair Highway, called for the highway to extend from Grant's Lane and White Settlement Road to the intersection of Calmont and Winthrop in the Ridgelea neighborhood. The money for the proposed road to come out of federal civil defense funds. Fort Worth, through the use of eminent domain, was to provide the land for the route.
In April of 1951, Local 776 of the International Association of Machinists, the union that represented the bulk of the production workers at Convair, threw its support behind the construction of the new road. P. V. Petty, treasurer of the Local, asked the Tarrant County Commissioner's Court to help ease congestion near the plant by supporting construction.23
By October 1951 a $45 million bill under congressional consideration included funds to implement access road improvements around defense installations and military bases around the country. The bill contained funding for the proposed Convair Highway. The reasoning behind support for the bill changed, however, on its way to Washington. Alleviating traffic congestion now took a back seat to facilitating the evacuation of the base-plant complex in the event of a nuclear attack. Such an eventuality would have given new meaning to the term 'rush-hour.' The Tarrant County Court Commissioners called for the passage of the bill so that federal dollars could be used to construct the new road and thereby free up county funds to be spent elsewhere.24 The successful passage of the bill, in late October 1951, did not solve the traffic issue.
Related to the proposed road was the new East-West inter-regional freeway to be put through Fort Worth, then in the planning stages. The extension of the runways at Carswell AFB resulted in the closure of part of White Settlement Road, further exacerbating the traffic congestion. As a result the new Convair Highway would now be planned so as to connect with the new East-West Highway through Calmont and Malvey Streets. This would provide a new entrance to the complex when the White Settlement Rd. entrance shut down.
Beginning in March 1952 the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce called a series of meetings so that all affected parties could discuss the new road plans. Calmont and Malvey Streets were scheduled to be widened and converted into one-way thoroughfares for a stretch of five blocks in order to facilitate the flow of Convair traffic on and off of the new highways. Residents of the Calmont and Malvey neighborhoods, the two areas most directly affected, protested vociferously against the project. They contended that it would lower their property values and create traffic hazards.25 J. B. Cooper Jr., who resided at 5824 Malvey, said of the plan that:
People out here are mostly wage earners who bought their homes in good faith. Now it looks as if we're going to have to take a big loss. We don't want to stand in the way of national defense, but we want some consideration of our position.26
That consideration involved, according to Cooper and other residents, a buyout of their properties by the federal government. It seems that the citizens of Fort Worth had learned a thing or two from their local elected officials when it came to dealing with the federal government.
The controversy continued into 1953, with the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, Convair, the city, and the state trying to address the concerns of the affected neighborhoods. Repeated attempts by local officials, who went to Washington seeking federal money for a road extension that bypassed the Calmont-Malvey area, fell on deaf ears. Since the federal government was already footing the entire cost for the construction as originally planned, federal officials pleaded they lacked funds for any proposed changes. The needs of the nation-state now intervened to the benefit of local residents.
In 1953 the Army Corps of Engineers requested a 420-acre tract of city owned land for an ammunition storage facility at Carswell AFB. The Fort Worth City Council rejected the request, instructing the city attorney to negotiate with the Corps of Engineers based on the actual value of the land. The issue over the bypass was now finally resolved in favor of the city and its residents. In a quid pro quo, federal money suddenly appeared for changes to the Convair Highway that included a bypass of the Calmont-Malvey area in exchange for the city donating the land for the base ammunition dump. In this case city leaders proved more than equal to the challenge of protecting Fort Worth's interests while exploiting the needs of the nation-state to their advantage.
Co-located across the runways from Convair, Carswell AFB became the natural choice for flight-testing, training and stationing of the B-36 force and its crews. The increased tempo of training and operations at the base confronted city leaders with a number of problems, not the least of which was housing the large influx of Air Force personnel. City leaders, in this case, accommodated the needs of the nation-state.
When the Air Force proposed 800-unit base housing project, in 1950, the city council voted to set the water and sewer rates for the project at the same level as those paid by city residents. This despite the council's ability to set such rates at twice the rate paid by residents. The decision was based on the recommendation of City Manager W. O. Jones, who advised the council that, "the utility bill has to do with the number of units they (the Air Force) can build."27
In September 1950 the city council voted to waive $8000 in building, inspection, and plumbing fees assessed on the Buccoo Corporation's housing project. Raymond Buck, president of Buccoo, had protested payment of the fees based on his understanding that the city's agreement to supply water and sewer facilities for his project did not include a requirement for fees.28 Although the council proved accommodating by passing the waiver motion, it retained future freedom of action by stipulating that it was not binding on future contracts with the city.
In an effort to recoup some of the costs associated with the base the city council, in November 1950, applied with the federal government to assume ownership of the Liberator Village War Housing project. The housing project developed out of the need to house the vast influx of plant workers to Fort Worth during the war. City Manager Jones asserted that the housing, which generated over $400,000 in annual rents, should be passed on to the city at no cost because the base-plant complex that had necessitated the construction of the housing in the first place, was located on land purchased by Fort Worth.29 Conveniently left unsaid by the city manager was the massive economic benefit that the city derived from the existence of Carswell-Convair. The eventual successful bid by the city to obtain the wartime housing illustrates the continued skill of city leaders in squeezing dollars out of the federal defense connection. They did not have to squeeze very hard.
Civilian employment and construction at the base injected large amounts of money into the local economy throughout the 1950s. Darrell K. Glenn, director of civilian personnel at the base, ranked the facility among the city's top civilian employers. In December 1950 he stated that, "the 525 civil service employees at Carswell represent a nucleus of skilled technicians serving the Air Force in highly specialized jobs."30 Some of these specialized, high- skill, high-paying jobs included aircraft mechanics, aircraft maintenance, and electronic specialists. The average pay for these positions, at $1.54 per hour, was 35% above the national average.31 The annual civilian-military payroll at the base in 1950 amounted to $1.5 million. When combined with the $3 million spent by the base on sundries like office supplies, medical supplies, food, fuel and the $50 million payroll at Convair in 1950, the base-plant complex can be seen as the engine driving the city's economy in the early 1950s.
From 1948 forward the base became home to three wings, over eighty total aircraft, of B-36s. Runways were extended or constantly under repair. Training and maintenance facilities were under constant construction or upgrade. Although the B-36s gave way to a smaller number of B-52s, in 1956, the cost of new construction and repairs at the base increased throughout most of the 1950s.
Congress allocated $1.3 million for base construction in 1952, $2.4 million in 1956, and $3.4 million in 1957, bringing the total spent on updating the base since its inception to $41.5 million.32 The figure dropped to $2.7 million in 1958 as a result of the loss of the B-52s to another base. In that year funds were allocated for the construction of a taxiway, operation and training facilities, along with officer and airmen quarters.33 As a result of the support infrastructure needed by the new B-58 bomber, Congress voted $9.4 million for base construction in 1959. The short list of local construction firms in Fort Worth who benefited from all of this money includes R. W. Gibbins Company, Holden Construction, W. F. Lytle Sr. General Contractors, and Hardee Construction. At least as many firms from Dallas also took part in base construction.
While the end of B-36 production, in 1954, may have given city leaders some sleepless nights, officials at Convair were no doubt sanguine concerning the companies prospects. As early as 1952, in a briefing to the Chamber of Commerce by J. V. Naish, executive vice president of Convair, the future replacement for the B-36 was being hinted at:
We feel a great source of pride and joy in the production record of the B-36, but I can assure you that projects that we can't talk about will be just as big and just as dramatic. They will be built to protect the one thing that Americans in general and Texans in Particular will never give up- the inalienable right to democracy.34
Nash might have added that Texans, especially those in Fort Worth, would never willingly give up the economic benefits that federal defense spending brought to the area. The projects that Nash hinted at were those that would carry his company's fortunes into the 1960s- the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, to be made in Pomona, California; the atomic-powered bomber and the B-58 bomber, both scheduled for construction in Fort Worth.
In August 1954 Esenwein, head of Convair Fort Worth, revealed that the Convair plant was operating a nuclear reactor, the first such device to be operated in Texas, as part of the development program for an atomic-powered aircraft.35 Esenwein assured residents that instruments continually monitored the radiation levels and that long before they reached an unsafe level automatic controls would shut down the reactor.
By 1956 Convair was conducting flight tests with an operating reactor onboard a modified B-36. The powerplant remained unconnected to the engines. The tests were designed to determine how flight conditions affected the reactor's operation and to measure the effectiveness of the lead shielding added to protect the crew. Unnamed law enforcement officials confirmed that in the event of a crash they had been instructed to keep crowds at least a quarter mile away from the crash site.36 Convair officials offered no comment. The flights were apparently planned from Fort Worth to a point over New Mexico. The Albuquerque Journal, in January 1956, quoted an unidentified police officer to the effect that flight plans called for the plane to swing out over Roswell, New Mexico and then return to Fort Worth.37
The atom-plane, as the project came to be known, was a bad idea that refused to die. It threatened an ecological disaster in the event of a crash, especially one located near an urban area. Development, begun in 1951, received new impetus when the Air Force awarded Convair, in 1956, an airframe development contract.38 Aviation experts estimated that the new contract would run, "into the millions."39 Temporarily shelved in 1957, the Air Force awarded a production contract to Convair for an airframe in 1959. Local Congressman Jim Wright (D-Weatherford) announced at a news conference called to discuss the contract that although only $5 million was allocated in the current budget for the plane, the Air Force had another $75 million available for production, if necessary.40 The Kennedy Administration, in 1961, finally killed the project, over the protests of Wright and the Texas congressional delegation. While no plane reached the production stage, the project pumped tens of millions of dollars into the local economy. The atom-plane helped Convair and Fort Worth bridge the production gap between the B-36 and the B-58.
The B-58 Hustler was the first 'weapons system' to be developed by the Air Force. The most complex aircraft of its time, it cost a lot to make, maintain, and fly. The Air Force considered the aircraft a vital stopgap until the much bigger and vastly more expensive B-70 Valkyrie reached services in the late 1960s. Executives at Convair, Fort Worth Mayor Tom McCann, and other city leaders also considered the success of the B-58 vital to the city's economic well being. These leaders viewed with alarm the fall in plant employment to 17,000 in early 1956.41 Nevertheless, gross sales at the plant reached $249 million in that year, the highest level since 1952. Sales were expected to climb when the B-58 came on line in 1957-58.42
Prototypes of the B-58 starting testing at Fort Worth in 1956. Congressman Wright, a World War II veteran and officer in the Air Force Reserve, emerged as the most vocal booster of the new supersonic bomber. In 1959, when the Bureau of the Budget trimmed the Air Force request from 40 to 32 B-58s Wright reacted sharply:
Congress is every bit as interested in a balanced budget as is the administration. Most of us in Congress are not really competent to second-guess the military on the matter of minimum defense needs, but then, neither are a group of accountants in the Budget Bureau.43
Wright went on to call the B-58 the, "most advanced weapons system in our arsenal," and called the plane a deterrent to war because, "the safeguard to peace is having the very best weapons available now, and in aircraft there can be little doubt that this is the B-58."44 There is also little doubt that having the plane produced in his district influenced the congressman's views concerning the efficacy of this new weapons system.
Production of the B-58 brought employment at the plant back up to 20,000 in 1958 with a payroll of $133 million. In the realization that a new enemy, the ICBM confronted the B-58, Esenwein, head of the plant, initiated a cost cutting drive. He urged the workers that:
It is our duty, as well as in our own self-interest, to keep costs as low as possible. During 1959 I am asking every employee to help cut costs in every practical way.45
When, in November 1960, the Air Force reportedly decided to scale back production of the B-58, Congressman Wright flew to Washington from Fort Worth to confer with Secretary of Defense James H. Douglas. After the meeting Wright averred that he was:
Shocked by these reports. The Hustler has had the most amazing acceptance by the Air Force. I have asked for appointments with those who will be firming up decisions between now and December with a view to getting a request for substantial B-58 buyback purchases into the proposed budget for fiscal 1962.46
If hyperbole could have won the day then Wright would have been credited with a victory. Ironically, what limited production of the B-58 to 112 planes was not another plane, but another Convair product, the Atlas ICBM. The Hustler was the first, but not the last victim of the new Missile Age.
In 1940 the population of Fort Worth stood at 177,662. Approximately $356 million in bank clearings, a key indicator of economic activity, took place in that same year.47 By 1950 the city's population had grown to 277,047 with almost $1.5 billion in bank clearings.48 Although this tremendous increase in population and economic activity cannot be entirely attributed to the growth of the Carswell-Convair complex, it was, according to Anice Mays, research director for the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, "a bigger factor than all the other factors put together."49 By 1957 the city had grown to approximately 370,000 inhabitants with an estimated $2 billion in bank clearings.50 In addition over 600 subcontractors, many of them in the Fort Worth area, did work for Convair.
Conclusions
While Fort Worth's population grew by 151% in the period 1940-1957, the city's manufacturing sector grew by 284% in the same period. The growth of the base-plant complex was a key factor in the postwar growth of the manufacturing sector. Robert H. Talbert, a sociologist at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, pointed out that the major factor in the city's postwar growth was the development of its manufacturing sector and the major industrial addition to the city during the period was aircraft manufacture.51 This growth, part of a wider trend in the emerging Sunbelt, occurred as a result of the mutually related trends of industrialization and urbanization. According to a study prepared by the Fort Worth National Bank, in 1958, without this new and expanding sector of the city's economy Fort Worth would have experienced little increase in size or numbers in the postwar period.52
Convair, now a division of the General Dynamics, still topped the list of major manufacturers in the Fort Worth area prepared by the Chamber of Commerce in 1962.53 Of the 39,192 workers employed by the companies on the list, Convair still employed about half of them. In addition, five of the twelve top companies on the list performed defense-related work- Convair (1), Bell Helicopter (3), American Manufacturing Company of Texas (7), Texas Steel (10), and Menasco Manufacturing (12). In the same publication, the Chamber still touted Fort Worth to prospective industries as a city where, "government understands and is sympathetic toward the problem of industry."54 This had certainly been the case in relations between local government and the Carswell-Convair complex.
Fort Worth's leaders did not, however, roll over for the needs of the Air Force and Convair. They demonstrated in the case of the construction of the Convair Highway the ability to protect the interests of the city's residents, extract the maximum benefit from the local-federal relationship, while at the same time meeting the needs of the nation-state. When it came to housing base personnel, city leaders exhibited flexibility in cooperating with the needs of the Air Force while at the same time extracting benefits, like the Liberator Village War Housing. In this regard, Fort Worth differs from historian Roger Lotchin's ideal martial metropolis, namely San Diego.
While leaders in both cities were driven by the same three primary influences to create a close relationship between war and urban society- the needs of the nation-state, the reality of the city, and city boosterism- their stories diverge both temporally and in the particulars. San Diego created its urban empire based on its relationship with the Navy during the period between the world wars. The city's leaders were far more accommodating to first the Navy, and then, the aircraft industry, than were those of Fort Worth.
The actions of Fort Worth's leaders certainly support Lotchin's argument that the leaders of martial cities had a large say in the impact of federal military spending on their areas. The city's leaders avidly pursued federal defense installations in the period immediately prior to, and after, World War II. The city reaped great economic rewards from the growth of Convair during the war and the postwar growth of the Carswell-Convair complex. Fort Worth's experience, while unlike that of San Diego, indicates that during the period in question, 1945-1961, the city was something of a martial metropolis, one whose leaders exploited the needs of the nation-state for the benefit of their own city while helping to meet those needs.
Endnotes
1 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 15 April 1951.
2 Ibid.
3 Roger Bilstein and Jay Miller, Aviation in North Texas(Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1985), 95.
4 Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, "A History of the Air Force and Convair," A Special Report, 2, 1944. Texas Christian University Special Collections, Amon Carter Papers.
5 Ibid., 3.
6 Texas Monthly, December 1999, (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1999), 137.
7 Ibid.
8 E. C. Barksdale, The Genesis of the Aviation Industry in North Texas(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958), 9.
9 General Dynamics Corporation, Dynamic America: A History of General Dynamics Corporation and its Predecessor Companies, (New York: General Dynamics Corporation and Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1960), 274.
10 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 15 April 1951.
11 Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Annual Report, 1940, 2. Texas Christian University Special Collections, Amon Carter Papers.
12 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 15 April 1951.
13 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 16 August 1945.
14 William Holden, "Highlights of the Annual Report-1947," 17 December 1947, 1. Texas Christian University Special Collections, Amon Carter Papers.
15 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 17 December 1947.
16 Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Annual Report, 1948.
17 Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Annual Report, 1947, 20.
18 Ibid.
19 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 27 June 1948.
20 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 30 April 1961.
21 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 6 January 1951.
22 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 16 January 1951.
23 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 6 April 1951.
24 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 16 October 1951.
25 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5 March 1952.
26 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12 March 1952.
27 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 8 March 1950.
28 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 14 September 1950.
29 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 23 November 1950.
30 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 December 1950.
31 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 16 September 1950.
32 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 20 March 1952; 7 March 1956; 7 August 1957.
33 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 15 January 1958.
34 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 16 December 1952.
35 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 20 August 1954.
36 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 8 January 1956.
37 Albuquerque Journal, 5 January 1956.
38 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 10 April 1956.
39 Ibid.
40 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 21 March 1959.
41 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 26 March 1956.
42 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 26 August 1956.
43 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 29 August 1959.
44 Ibid.
45 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1 January 1959.
46 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 7 November 1960.
47 Fort Worth National Bank and TESCO, Population Trends and Growth in the Fort Worth Metroplex, 1850-2000 (Fort Worth: Fort Worth National Bank and TESCO, 1958), 7.
48 Ibid.
49 Barksdale, The Genesis of the Aviation Industry in North Texas, 12.
50 Fort Worth National Bank, Population Trends and Growth in the Fort Worth Metroplex, 8.
51 Robert H. Talbert, Cowtown Metropolis: Case Study of a City's Growth and Structure (Fort Worth: Leo Potishman Foundation, 1956) 132.
52 Fort Worth National Bank, Population Trends and Growth in the Fort Worth Metroplex, 8.
53 Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Annual Report, 1962,20.
54 Ibid., 2.
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14 September 1950.
16 September 1950.
23 November 1950.
11 December 1950.
6 January 1951.
16 January 1951.
6 April 1951.
16 October 1951.
5 March 1952.
12 March 1952.
20 March 1952.
16 December 1952.
20 August 1954.
8 January 1956.
7 March 1956.
26 March 1956.
10 April 1956.
26 August 1956.
7 August 1957.
15 January 1958.
1 January 1959.
21 March 1959.
29 August 1959.
7 November 1960.
30 April 1961.