Fort Worth

Fort Worth: Murder, Mayhem and Vice in the Roaring 20s
By Kevin Foster

In the shadow of its celebrated stockyards, glittering skyscrapers, and world-famous Fat Stock Show, Fort Worth in the 1920s hid a far grittier reality-one of shotgun blasts on Prairie Avenue, revolver duels in drugstores, bodies dumped from bridges into the Trinity River, and lives shattered by sudden jealousy, drunken rage, and desperate betrayal.This gripping collection of 26 true crime stories pulls back the curtain on the city's rougher underbelly during the Roaring Twenties. Drawn from police reports, court records, death certificates, prison files, and contemporary newspapers, these are not tales of glamorous gangsters or Prohibition legends. They are the raw, human stories of ordinary Fort Worth residents-firefighters, barbers, truck drivers, young wives, ballplayers, and working men-whose paths collided in moments of violence that still echo today.From the blazing Gunfight at the Jennings Viaduct that left one bandit dead and a police officer wounded, to the horrifying Rampage on the North Side that left a woman permanently blinded, to the chilling Slow Death of Edna Duke, who lingered for thirty-one agonizing days after a shotgun blast, each chapter reveals a city in uneasy transition. World War I veterans patrolled the streets with little training, detectives like A.C. Howerton and D.S. Harris chased an endless stream of violent death, and juries often decided fate through the controversial "unwritten law," creative defenses like phrenology, or swift pardons from Governor Miriam Ferguson.You'll meet:

• A firefighter shot six times in the back on a downtown sidewalk in broad daylight.
• A jealous husband who killed his rival at the Central Fire Station.
• A teenage boy who murdered his young wife in a rented car and later carried a flower for her grave.
• A bank robber "flapper" whose dramatic case stretched across years.
• A former sheriff who shot a lawyer in the lobby of the Westbrook Hotel over a million-dollar Spiritualist will.