Site of Tarrant County's First Courthouse, Birdville
Haltom City, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First (1849-1856) county seat, Tarrant County, with 80 acres for public use. Courthouse foundation was laid on site donated by G. Akers and W. Norris. After courts upheld--in Walker vs. Tarrant County--vote in bitterly contested 1856 election, Fort Worth became the county seat. (1968).
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Tarrant County was organized, the community of Birdville served as its first county seat from 1849 to 1856, with 80 acres set aside for public use and a courthouse foundation laid on donated land. A bitterly contested 1856 election moved the seat to Fort Worth, a result upheld in court in the case of Walker vs. Tarrant County. The rivalry over the county seat was one of the fiercest in early North Texas.
Why it matters
The heated Birdville–Fort Worth county-seat fight shows how much early towns staked on becoming the local center of government, a common and often bitter drama of frontier Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · G. Akers
- · W. Norris
Related events
- · Walker vs. Tarrant County
- · 1856 county seat election
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Birdville Church of Christ
Haltom City, TX
Just after Birdville became the Tarrant County seat, twelve charter members gathered for this congregation's first worship service in 1852. Reorganizing in 1882, they met in the Birdville school building and in 1900 hosted a revival led by Richard M. Gano, a noted evangelist and former Confederate general. The congregation built a frame church in 1906 and rebuilt in brick after fires in 1950 and 1970.
West Fork Baptist Association
Haltom City, TX
On two October days in 1855, delegates from a dozen frontier congregations gathered at the Birdville Baptist Church to organize the West Fork Association of United Baptists. As settlers poured into North Central Texas, the association linked isolated churches and helped plant new ones, growing until 1886, when its leaders wisely divided it into smaller regional bodies—many still active today.
Birdville Baptist Church
Haltom City, TX
Organized in late 1853 by five founding members, this Tarrant County congregation went dormant during the turbulent Civil War years of 1856-64 before ten members revived it as the United Baptist Church at Fossil Creek. It took its present name, Birdville Baptist Church, in 1917. The marker records the resilience of a frontier faith community through war and reorganization.
Birdville Cemetery
Haltom City, TX
Birdville grew up as one of Tarrant County's earliest settlements, and its community burial ground took shape around the 1852 grave of pioneer Wiley Wilda Potts. Legally set aside for burials before 1860 out of the George Akers Grant, the one-acre plot expanded with later donations, was formally organized under a burial association in 1917, and had gathered hundreds of graves by the mid-twentieth century. Several families here rest four generations deep in a single plot, a quiet record of the people who put down roots on the North Texas frontier.