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_. TWO --.. "The Wages of Sin Are A Damned Sight Better Than the Wages of Virtue" IF ALL THE COWBOYS WERE NOT AS LEGENDARY AS Shanghai Pierce, their exploits at least tended to be remembered that way. Stories of gunplay in the streets, of cowboys riding their horses up to the bars and demanding service, of those same cowboys shooting out the lights or the mirrors behind the bars are all part of the reputation of Hell's Half Acre in the late 1870s. Being wild 'n' woolly was a reputation that Fort Worth was rather proud of. And why not? It was certainly lucrative. In just three short years, Fort Worth had gone from what the 1873 Centennial Gazetteer of the United States described as a "postal village and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas" to being promoted in T&P Railroad literature as the "Queen City of the Prairies," a "farmer's paradise," and "a beautiful city of heights ... offering unusual inducements to the banker, the merchant and the mechanic, with work for all. '" In 1873 the population was 850' After the railroad arrived it had swollen to 5000, numbers any business man could appreciate. More importantly, business receipts had gone up commensurately, a fact reflected in the city's take. In November, 1876, it was reported that Fort Worth was receiving $4000 annually from saloon licenses alone - the most profitable of the various occupation taxes imposed by city government. 2 It is no wonder that Fort Worth citizens did not want to endanger their economic success by administering too stiff a dose of morality. That would be bad for business. Even the Bible thumpers tailored their message to local conditions. The relationship between the churches • 33 • 34 • Hell's Half Acre • and the vice establishments (which outnumbered churches two to one) could best be described as "live-and-let-live." "The drinking places didn't bother the churches," one veteran reporter recalled, "and the churches didn't bother the saloons. "3 The Reverend J. Morgan Wells was the first in a long line of flamboyant preachers to leave his mark on Fort Worth. Like some of his equally distinguished successors, Wells was BaptisL He came to town in r876, a dapper figure customarily attired in top hat and frock coat and swinging a cane. The year before his arrival, local Baptists had built their first church on a south side lot facing the spot where the cattle trail entered town. As soon as Wells settled into his new parish, he began making regular calls on every saloon, business house and hotel in town, inviting one and all to attend Sunday services. He filled the pews but was unhappy with the location of the church. It was "too far from town" and dense clouds of dust caused by herds of passing cattle choked Sunday morning worshippers until "all thoughts of religion vanished." On his own initiative, he launched a campaign to build another house of worship at Third and Taylor streets. When his parishioners failed to fulfill their pledges, the good reverend, decked out in his finest, made the rounds soliciting money from gamblers, saloon keepers and others of ill repute until he had raised the incredible sum of$65,000. With that funding he was able to build an English Gothic structure uptown completely free and clear of debt. 4 There was a lesson in the episode for Fort Worth's other holy rollers - even the Lord's work could prosper if his ambassadors were not too proud to make an accommodation with the wicked and impious. Fort Worthers made their accommodation with Hell's Half Acre, producing some strange, even downright amusing tales. One of the strangest was covered by the Democrat in r878 after a full solar eclipse. In a column titled "Eclipse Postscript," the reporter related that a crowd of cowboys had been out on the range watching the phenomenon . When the eclipse was full and the sun totally blocked out, the drovers, supposing that night had set in, mounted their ponies and rode off at full gallop for the pleasures of Hell's Half Acre. 5 All the cowboys who came to town to liven things up were not fresh off the trail. The country around Fort Worth was dotted with ranches, some of them sizeable spreads employing thirty-five or forty cowboys. It was not unusual for ranch owners to bring their men into town for a "merry time," excursions that helped to...

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