But the gambling, booze, prostitution and wild times would find a new home in the 1940s and 1950s –Jacksboro Highway, Fort Worth's version of Bourbon Street that would definitely live up to the legacy left by Hell's Half Acre.įrom military men to plant workers to degenerate gamblers, Jacksboro Highway's few miles of roadway (officially known as Texas Highway 199) stretching away from Fort Worth toward Azle, Jacksboro, Wichita Falls and Amarillo attracted a unique cast of characters out for a good time. "A knifing was as ordinary as a parking ticket today."Īnd eventually the good times would come to an end, thanks to stricter police enforcement and religious campaigns warning against the vice occurring in the Half Acre in the years preceding World War I. Plenty of people were both, rough, tough and respectable," read a 1949 article about the area in the Fort Worth Press. Rowdiness and respectability lived side by side. "Fort Worth was a wide-open town in the 1870s. Fisticuffs and murder were also common in the Half Acre, where gun-toting cowboys and heavy drinking often created a combustible combination. Cowpokes who drove their cattle through the city knew that a stopover for a night could include dancing women (and a woman for the night at the right price), drinks and some gambling, followed by a much-needed bath after hitting the trail. Booze, prostitution and gambling were mainstays –and lawmen chose to look the other way rather than upset a key economic engine for the city.
Hell's Half Acre, as the city's red light district was known, encompassed several blocks around today's Tarrant County Convention Center.
In the 1950s, if you were interested in gambling, drinking, cutting loose on a dance floor, and just raising some hell in general, Jacksboro Highway was the place to be.Ī good roll of the dice or deal of the cards could always be found in Fort Worth in the late 19th century. After the paramedics took him away, the game resumed and we played another 24 hours."īrunson's tale is one of many of the famed strip of roadway. "All of us had known Virgil and played with him many times. "That's when I found out how cold-blooded poker players can be," Brunson writes. While reaching to scoop in his pot, the man dropped dead on the table. Virgil then grabbed his bottle of whiskey, tilted it back and gulped down a shot.
#The east side gamblers all in professional
Brunson, who would go on to win 10 World Series of Poker championship bracelets (the biggest trophy in professional poker) and be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, acknowledged his opponent's win. Constantly nursing a cup of coffee and a cigarette to stay awake, Brunson found himself locked in battle in what he would later describe as the "longest poker session of my life." A man named Virgil had also been seated at the table, taking pills, drinking and smoking to stay awake.Īn employee of a slaughterhouse, Virgil came out ahead of Brunson in a key hand, Brunson writes in his book The Godfather of Poker. Big money was at hand and, apparently, the money was too good to leave. The action is big and "No Limit Ace-to-Five" is the chosen game for the night.Īt the table for five days straight, Brunson has only gotten up from his spot for a bite to eat and visits to the men's room. Smoke billows in the air and poker legend Doyle Brunson is at the poker table mixing in bets and bluffs. The scene is a dark room in the 1950s off Jacksboro Highway, a six- to seven-mile road running from downtown Fort Worth to Lake Worth featuring a mélange of saloons, back-room gambling halls and any type of vice your brain might be able to imagine.
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