|
HISTORY
Crestwood is a quiet neighborhood
nestled in a bend of the West Fork of the Trinity River two and
one-half miles from the Fort Worth Central Business District.
It's neighbor to the east is Greenwood Cemetery, to the north
and west across the river the Rockwood Golf Course and to the
south, the Monticello neighborhood. It is included in the 1855
John P. Thomas and Peter Schoonover Surveys and the 1861 Thomas
B. Curry Survey.
Wm. J. Bailey, a former state
senator, owned much of the land in 1906. The Elks Club Lodge
on White Settlement Road was formerly Wm. J. Bailey's mansion.
The Bailey family also developed Greenwood Cemetery. Bailey sold
the land for Rockwood Park to the city in 1932 for $21,726.
After forming the Monticello
Land Co. and developing Monticello in 1928, Bailey sold the land
in 1939 to developers T. W. "Jack" Loffland and A.C.
Luther, who later developed Ridglea. Lofland and Luther had earlier
begun development of Westover Hills. With the housing shortage
following World War I, and the coming to Fort Worth of the "bomber
plant" and Air Force base, Crestwood boomed with most of
the homes being built in the 1940's.
The flood of 1949 heavily damaged
the Crestwood area, but it was rebuilt. A system of levees and
lakes protects it from floods today.
White Settlement Road, the southern
boundary of the neighborhood, began as the east-west stage line
between Fort Worth and Yuma, Arizona in the 1850's. The Butterfield
Overland Stage departed every day from the front door of the
El Paso Hotel in downtown Fort Worth and proceeded 1,560 miles
west to Yuma.
Original restrictions for Crestwood
noted that no residence shall be built that costs less than $5,000.
No trailers, house cars or other moveable structures shall be
parked or placed on the lots and used as residence, servant's
house or outbuilding and no livestock or poultry shall ever be
kept on the lots.
|
