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BLESSED IN THE WEST

By Craig Hanley |

Although it has been

in denial on the issue-for over a century, Dallas has always been desperately in love with Fort Worth. The level of
co-dependency in the relationship would shock a talk show host, but a sober look at the facts explains why the
marriage continues to prosper, Dallas adores.culture and Fort Worth is a remarkable oasis of sophistication. The
city nobly supports pure artforms like the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet, the Van Cliburn piano competitions, a world
famous museum district, stellar academic institutions like Texas Wesleyan University (which is home to an extensive
weekend degree program), a lovely botanical garden and a true jewel of a zoo.

Dallas exults in its rough and tumble past and recently put up a cattle drive monument to prove its macho toots to
visitors. Anyone who ever sat in a saddle, however, knows that the reddest frontier blood in the Metroplex flows a
might further west up the Trinity River. Your best chance for spotting real cowboys and cowgirls is over in the
saloons and honkytonks outside Fort Worth’s Historic Stockyards.

Psychologically, economically, and well, doggone it, emotionally, Dallas simply could not get along without its
better half.

For all its impeccable social credentials. Fort Worth can tight like a wildcat. Three years ago, deep cuts in the
national defense budget pushed the city into a corner and it bounced back with claws flashing.

Downsizing at Carswell Air Force Base (now Naval Air Station Fort Worth) and General Dynamics (now Lockheed) caused
job losses. Nonetheless, the Fort Worth economy added 22,000 jobs last year and is on track to add 15,000 in 1995.

The business leadership of the city deserves tremendous credit for meeting the crisis head-on and organizing a
successful turnaround. Fort Worth has become one of the top five corporate destitrations in the United States as a
direct result of aggressive, no-nonsense salesmanship.

Zenith, Nestle, Nokia, PCS Primera, Haggar and Federal Express are establishing major new facilities. Much of the
planned manufacturing is high tech in nature. As a result, industrial space is scarce and the market is rewarding
speculative construction.

Fort Worth’s new buccaneer spirit made bold headlines recently when a stealthy team of their wheeler-dealers pirated
a proposed motor speedway-complex right out from under the noses of Bid D authorities. On either side of the
Metroplex, the involved parties are still fuming or chuckling over this daring daylight raid. It’s little escapades
like this one that keeps the romance alive.

Economic authorities know that what is good for one city is equally good for the other. Thousands of people who live
in Dallas and the Mid-Cities drive to work in Fort Worth every Jay. The entire region benefits tremendously from
jobs provided by Fort Worth employers like Pier Imports, Tandy, Burlington Northern, Bombay Company, American
Airlines, Justin Industries and Alcon Laboratories.

Regularly voted one of the most livable business addresses in America, Fort Worth is in fact a marvelously serene
place to raise a family and just be yourself. Most of the 1-4 million people who live in the Fort Worth metropolitan
area do just that. The population is growing, but not frenetically. Neighborhoods tend to be stable as a result. The
land has a gentle roll to it and so does the pace of the day.

According to the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau, the city attracts tourists from every continent except
Antarctica. More than 60 percent of the visitors are fellow Texans.

More than any other group, it is Dallasites who crave Cowtown culture. On any given weekend, westbound traffic on
1-30 is a constant convoy of pickup’trucks and luxury sedans en route to Fort Worth. Some passengers are heading to
the Kimbell Art Museum for a once in a lifetime chance to marvel at Chinese tomb artifacts. Some are off to the
Stockyards to yell themselves hoarse over Travis Tritt.

Given the depth and diverse focus of Fort Worth’s cultural offerings, such high brow/low brow distinctions become
meaningless. Western art fans wear Oxford suits as often as they wear jeans and boots and you will see folks in both
get-ups hushed with awe in the galleries of the Amon Carter Museum.

The Sid Richardson Collection of Western Arts in Sundance Square is one of the best in the world, featuring 55 works
by legendary cowbo, artists Frederick Remington and Charlie Russell, two gorgeous silver parade saddles and bronzes
on loan from the Amon Carter. In Fort Worth’s unmatched tradition of giving, the oilman left these inspiring
canvasses to the public so they might never forget the motion and vitality of the West.

In an instance of supreme poetic justice, the great grandson of the French painter Camille Pissarro is the head
curator of the Kimbell, the best small museum in America.

The Kimbell holdings range in period from antiquity to the 20th century and include masterpieces by Duccio, Fra
Angelico, Titian, El Greco, Rubens, Rembrandt, Goya, David, Ce:anne, Mondrian, Picasso and Matisse. The Museum has
assembled small but select groups of Mesoamerican and African pieces as well as Mediterranean antiquities and is the
only institution in the Southwest with a substantial collection of Asian arts.

The Fort Worth Dallas Ballet continues to make its mark as The Star of Texas, with 34 public performances in the
Metroplex annually, plus an aggressive Texas touring schedule including San Antonio, Nacogdoches, Corsicanaand
Midland.

If Asia is an interest or if life in the big city has toasted your nerves, go zen out for an hour in the Fort Worth
Botanical Society’s elegant Japanese Garden. Subtle, powerful, symbolic, the magic mix of rock and water and flora
is good for what ails you.

After the kids have fed the brilliantly colored imperial carp, walk them over to the Conservatory for an impromptu
lesson on the forests of the world. The precious and increasingly fragile beauty of the environment is quickly
understood in the presence of big coconut and royal palms, Hong Kong orchid trees, growths of coffee, banana and
papaya, elephant ears, birds of paradise and firecracker plants.

The biggest attraction in the cultural district is the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, home of the
multiple permanent exhibits, the Noble Planetarium and the newly renovated Omni Theater. This summer, Leonard Nimoy
guides each Omni audience through “Destiny in Space”, a riveting educational tour off the solar system. High speed
flights over the strange faces of Venus and Mars provokes especially intense choruses of oohs and aahs when
witnessed on an 80-foot screen.

After checking out life size sculptures of North Texas dinosaurs at the museum, you may want to visit with living
wonders at the Fort Worth Zoo, ranked as one of the top three zoos in the nation by Family Life
magazine. At many exhibits, visitors are separated from animals by only a river or a waterfall; face-to-face
encounters are common at large viewing windows.

New natural-setting exhibits opened at the Fort Worth Zoo within the last three years feature primates, cheetahs,
Asian rhinos, tigers, bears, deer and cranes. Many of these exotic species are endangered.

Whatever your interest my be, pick a weekend and head out to explore our neighbor over yonder where the sun goes
down. The attractiveness of the artsy old cattleman’s town is anything but abstract. Forth Worth has always had
grand style and always puts it money where its mouth is; its people have always been refreshingly for real.

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