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Amon G. Carter

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Amon G. Carter
Born
Giles Amon Carter

(1879-12-11)December 11, 1879
Crafton, Texas, U.S.
DiedJune 23, 1955(1955-06-23) (aged 75)
Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.
Resting placeGreenwood Memorial Cemetery
OccupationNewspaper publisher

Amon Giles Carter Sr. (born Giles Amon Carter; December 11, 1879 – June 23, 1955) was the creator and publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and a nationally known civic booster for Fort Worth, Texas.[1] A legacy in his will was used to create Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum of American Art,[2] which was founded by his daughter, Ruth Carter Stevenson, in January 1961.[3]

Biography

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Carter was born in Crafton, Texas. After his mother died in 1892, he moved away from his remaining family, to Bowie, Texas, where he supported himself with a variety of odd jobs. At those jobs, he learned salesmanship, and became a travelling salesman as a young man.[4] Bowie residents have recalled that he was one of the original "chicken & bread boys" who sold sandwiches represented as "chicken" to passengers at the rail station during the depression.[5] The sandwiches, it was thought, were really made of rabbits that the boys had hunted. To this day Bowie has an annual Chicken & Bread Festival each October.

Publisher

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In May 1905, Carter accepted a job as an advertising space salesman in Fort Worth. A few months later, he agreed to help finance and run a new newspaper in town. The Fort Worth Star printed its first newspaper on February 1, 1906, with Carter as the advertising manager. The Star lost money, and was in danger of going bankrupt when Carter had an audacious idea: raise additional money and purchase his newspaper's main competition, the Fort Worth Telegram.[6] In November 1908, the Star purchased the Telegram for $100,000, and the two newspapers combined on January 1, 1909, into the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.[6]

From 1923 until after World War II, the Star-Telegram had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the South, serving not just Fort Worth but also West Texas, New Mexico, and western Oklahoma. The newspaper created WBAP, the oldest radio station in Fort Worth, in 1922; and followed it with Texas' first television station, WBAP-TV, in 1948.[6]

Civic booster

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This Cadillac owned by Amon G. Carter, Sr., is displayed at the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.

Carter parlayed this money and power into celebrity as a national spokesman for Fort Worth and West Texas (Carter popularized the description of Fort Worth as "Where the West Begins", a phrase which still appears daily on the Star-Telegram's front page, and Fort Worth Police Department vehicles). During the 1920s and 1930s, Carter personified the image of the Texas cowboy in the national mind: an uninhibited story-teller, gambler, and drinker, generous with his money and quick to draw his six-shooters. Major magazines such as Time and the Saturday Evening Post ran profiles of Carter, and he counted Will Rogers and Walter Winchell among his friends. The well-publicized hospitality of his Shady Oak Farm near Lake Worth was open to any major celebrity or businessman passing through Fort Worth.[7] In 1961, National Geographic said that Carter had done "more than any other one person to build the city into its present image".[8]: 181 

Carter used his national stage to drum up business and government spending for his home region. From the Texas state legislature, he got a four-year college (now Texas Tech University) for Lubbock, where he was first chairman of the Board of Directors.[9] He persuaded Southern Air Transport (now American Airlines) to move its headquarters from Dallas to nearby Fort Worth. Several oil companies moved or kept their headquarters in Fort Worth after personal interventions by Carter. In addition Carter was influential in obtaining for Fort Worth the construction of Air Force Plant 4 (now the headquarters of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics) and the relocation of Bell Aircraft (now Bell Helicopter Textron).

Carter's disdain for Dallas, Fort Worth's much larger and much richer neighbor, was legendary in Texas. One of the best-known stories about Carter is that he would take a sack lunch whenever he traveled to Dallas so he wouldn't have to spend any money there.[6][8]: 181  He was also quoted as saying "Fort Worth is where the West begins...and Dallas is where the East peters out."[10] On his orders, the Star-Telegram television station, WBAP-TV, avoided mentions of Dallas or of even being part of a merged Dallas–Fort Worth television market on his orders even when it was clear the two cities would be a single market. Carter's heirs maintained this line until NBC pressured them to relent several years after Carter's death, along with a move of its transmitter to Cedar Hill to cover both cities equally.

After World War II, Carter stopped barnstorming on behalf of Fort Worth. In January 1951, Carter received a donation from the Texas and Pacific Railway—steam locomotive No. 610—and he put it on static display near the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum on behalf of the Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show.[11][12][13] In 1953, he suffered the first of several heart attacks; the final one, two years later, was fatal. On June 23, 1955, Carter died in Fort Worth, Texas. He was buried in Greenwood Memorial Cemetery in Fort Worth.[14]

Legacy

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Amon G. Carter Plaza, the main entry to Texas Tech University

References

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  1. ^ Cervantez, Brian (2019). Amon Carter. University of Oklahoma Press.
  2. ^ "Amon G. Carter Foundation - History of the Foundation". Agcf.org. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  3. ^ "Creator of Carter Museum of American Art dies". Associated Press. 2013-01-07. Archived from the original on 2014-04-13. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
  4. ^ "Who Was Amon G. Carter? | Amon Carter Museum | Fort Worth, Texas". Archived from the original on 2010-02-02. Retrieved 2009-12-03.
  5. ^ "Bowie Chamber of Commerce - Chicken and Bread Days". Bowietxchamber.org. Archived from the original on 20 January 2018. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  6. ^ a b c d "Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection: A Guide". Lib.utexas.edu. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  7. ^ City of Fort Worth, Texas http://fortworthtexas.gov/uploadedFiles/Planning_and_Development/Miscellaneous_(template)/05 Appendicies.pdf. Retrieved 19 January 2018. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ^ a b Stanley Walker (February 1961). "The Fabulous State of Texas". National Geographic. Vol. 119, no. 2.
  9. ^ H., PROCTER, BEN (12 June 2010). "CARTER, AMON G., SR". Tshaonline.org. Retrieved 19 January 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Robb, Inez (5 April 1949). "Fort Worth-Dallas Feud Is His Invention". Lebanon Daily News. p. 14. Retrieved 6 January 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Vernetti, Joanna (August 8, 1975). "Engine No. 610 Needs $60,000 To Put 'Steam' Into Bicentennial". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. p. 4.
  12. ^ "T&P Steam Locomotive, Gift to City Will Keep Iron Horse Memories Alive". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Vol. 17, no. 353. January 19, 1951. p. 1.
  13. ^ "Old No. 610 Rolling Right Along; Dallas Engine Heads for Junk Yard". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Vol. 75, no. 3. February 3, 1955. p. 12.
  14. ^ "Greenwood Cemetery, Ft. Worth". Archived from the original on 2010-12-17. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
  15. ^ Rushing, Jane Gilmore; Kline A. Nall (1975). Evolution of a University: Texas Tech's first fifty years. Austin, Texas: Madrona Press. p. 168. ISBN 0-89052-017-8.
  16. ^ Sherrod, Katie (March 4, 1984). "610: We can't let a dream run out of steam". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. p. 181 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ Risenhoover, C. C. (February 1, 1981). "The Old 610: History steams into town with hundreds at station". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. pp. 27, 33.
  18. ^ Kline, Tom (September–October 1996). "A Century of Lone Star Railroading: The Texas State Railroad". Locomotive & Railway Preservation. Pentrex. pp. 23, 29.

Further reading

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