Among all the celebrations of Arlington Mayor Jim Ross hosting the world during the city’s 150th anniversary seems like a good time to take a look at the ways it all began.
Centered among the city’s evolving identity and its largest economy in the Entertainment District is the story of how it has been sustained.
It may never have happened except for critical turning points that unfolded during the past 65 years.
Real estate developer Angus Wynne Jr.’s plans for an industrial park along the new DFW Turnpike running through the city had stalled out. He imagined a “temporary solution” that became Six Flags Over Texas opening in 1961.
A personal connection with the park came for Sylvia and me when we selected it as our wedding trip destination from Louisiana three years later. It’s how we discovered Arlington.
Last month, the park celebrated a milestone of hosting one of the few places on earth where you could take a ride on the world’s tallest, fastest, and longest giga dive coaster.
The next turning point occurred three years later when voters approved a big Tarrant County bond proposal where Mayor Tom Vandergriff had included a plan to build a minor league baseball park that debuted in 1965 as Turnpike Stadium.
Then in 1972, following a decade of determination by Vandergriff to bring a major league team here, he succeeded and forever secured his legacy.
Renaming it Arlington Stadium and quickly adding 15,000 outfield aluminum bleacher seats to comply with MLB requirements, Arlington had become a major league city.
During 1987, the year I was elected mayor, and without a clue of losing the Rangers, I got a call from the team’s owner, Eddie Chiles, saying, “Mayor, we have a problem.”
He explained the stadium was unable to produce enough revenue to cover the cost of the players’ total payroll – some $6 million.
A side note: that sum is more than $1 million short of today’s average pay for a single player.
Eddie would sell the team to a group of investors headed up by President George Bush’s son. They would require a new ballpark.
When that announcement was made, headlines the following day and for weeks to come essentially announced the Rangers would be moving to Dallas, as one sports writer declared, “where they belong.”
“No,” said I, and went to work with the owners’ partner in charge of ballpark development, Tom Schieffer, and put together an agreement between the city and the Rangers to build The Ballpark in Arlington. All subject to voter approval.
They showed up in record numbers in 1991, and authorized the deal by nearly a 65% margin, saving our team and the Vandergriff legacy.
Everything after that in the Entertainment District today can be traced to the outcome of that election.
What came next was when Jerry Jones was looking to build a new stadium for his Cowboys. He liked what the city had done with the Rangers – that debt then having been paid off. Working with former Mayor Bob Cluck, the Cowboys’ plan was approved by voters in 2004.
After 25 years of Rangers games in the Texas summer heat in The Ballpark in Arlington, owners concluded they needed a new air-conditioned, retractable roof stadium to improve the experience for fans and players.
Saying so reignited speculation of Dallas having a second chance to move the team to its downtown. Then Mayor Jeff Williams, following the history of success with the Rangers and Arlington voters, put a 50-50 deal to build Globe Life Field before them in 2016. Sixty percent said ‘yes.’
It would be the fourth time Arlington voters would authorize public funding for major league sports facilities.
In the meantime, two national hotels, the new Arlington Convention Center, Texas Live!, the National Medal of Honor Museum, and the One Rangers Way apartment complex (where my wife and I now call home) can be found in the center of it all, attracting 16 million visitors annually.
Right now, a new 550-room hotel is under construction on the site of the old Sheraton Hotel property next to the Esports Stadium adjacent to the Arlington Museum of Art.
So, as we celebrate 150 years, it’s a reminder of what’s yet to come in our remarkable hometown.
Richard Greene is a former mayor
of Arlington.
