The Wild History of Hell’s Half Acre: Fort Worth’s Infamous Red-Light District & the Law’s Evolution

A Visit to Hell's Half Acre & Fort Worth History
August 28, 2020

Speaker: Brendan Smart

Moderator: Alumni Board President Dana Zachry ’11
Attorney, Katten & Benson

Explore the fascinating and untamed history of Hell’s Half Acre, Fort Worth’s most notorious vice district, in this engaging Texas A&M Law Answers Webinar featuring historian and guide Brendan Smart. This deep dive into the heart of 19th-century Fort Worth uncovers the saloons, brothels, gambling halls, and the lawmen and outlaws who shaped the city’s past—and left a lasting impact on Texas law and urban development.

Located near what is now Texas A&M University School of Law, Hell’s Half Acre was once a bustling hub for cowboys, railroaders, gamblers, and infamous figures like Wyatt Earp and Butch Cassidy. It was a place where vice and commerce thrived side by side, fueling Fort Worth’s economy while drawing the ire of reformers and law enforcement.

This presentation covers:
✔ The origins of Hell’s Half Acre and how Fort Worth’s frontier economy shaped its rise
✔ The saloons, brothels, and gambling dens that defined the district
✔ Notorious lawmen and gunfights, including Marshal Jim Courtright’s infamous showdown
✔ The role of railroads, cattle drives, and the booming vice economy
✔ How legal battles, World War I, and urban renewal led to the district’s decline
✔ The surprising remnants of Hell’s Half Acre still visible today

This historically rich and legally significant webinar is part of the TAMU Law Answers Webinar Series, offering expert discussions on legal history, ethics, business law, and contemporary issues affecting the legal landscape.

🔹 Watch now to uncover Fort Worth’s Wild West past and its lasting legal and cultural impact.

"A Visit To Hell's Half Acre" will tell the story of Fort Worth's most legendary and controversial district, a thriving and tenacious assortment of bordellos, saloons, and gaming parlors, serving up the delights of cowboys, railroaders, gamblers, thieves, and ordinary citizens--and generally outraging the religiously fervent and the reform minded. The stories and characters of the Acre are memorable, entertaining, illuminating and sometimes tragic-- and we believe still relevant, still part of the fabric of our public life. The profits, struggles and compromises of the Acre shaped the character of Fort Worth, and it is therefore fitting that the Texas A&M School of Law should be situated in this historic district where human nature and emerging institutions--of society and of the law--met each other in high tension.

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