Fort Worth City Council approves name change for stretch of White Settlement Road

The Fort Worth City Council voted 9-2 Tuesday to approve a name change for a section of White Settlement Road.

The new name, “Westside Drive,” will apply to the section of road between University Drive and Henderson Street.

District 4 council member Charlie Lauersdorf and District 10 council member Alan Blaylock opposed the name change.

The change also faced pushback from residents and business owners along the stretch concerned about the erasing history and the potential financial implications of the change.

Dallas-based developer Larkspur Capital requested the change to coincide with its $1.7 billion mixed-use development “Westside Village” on the northeast corner of University Drive and White Settlement Road.

The vote also comes four months after the city council approved $125 million grant package to help the development and address flooding concerns surrounding the cite.

The intent of renaming the section of White Settlement Road was not to interfere with history — the town of White started as a group of white colonists among villages of Native Americans in the 1840s — but to position the corridor as part of a transformational development, said Carl Anderson, president of Larskpur Capital, speaking at the Oct. 21 council meeting.

“We’re excited to replace aging car dealerships and warehouses with a vibrant hub of shops, restaurants, hotels and offices,” Anderson said.

The two firms will pay the city roughly $25,000 to replace street signs on the roughly one-mile stretch of road.

However, the businesses along the stretch will incur costs that could number in the tens of thousands, said Chris Mahon, a manager at Binswanger Glass at the intersection of White Settlement Road and Rupert Street.

Mahon outlined how the change would result in his company having to take time to change addresses with suppliers, update insurance and tax information, and reduce visibility on websites Google Maps and Yelp.

“Every sign, every decal, every digital asset must be redesigned adding additional thousands in costs,” he said.

Fort Worth’s small and midsized businesses are the backbone of the city’s economy, Mahon said, adding any name change shouldn’t result in financial and operational harm to businesses.

Several residents argued in favor of keeping the name saying it’s part of the city’s history and heritage.

“These names are not mere labels. They are embodiments of our past. Reminders of how far we’ve come, and markers of the complex interactions of our ancestors,” said White Settlement resident Aaron James.

District 7 council member Macy Hill, whose district includes White Settlement Road west of University Drive, said the name change was purely about the development and should not be partisan or political.

She noted renaming street names to coincide with new development is nothing new pointing to the new city hall building, the Stockyards, the Clearfork Development, the new Tarleton State campus, and Bell Helicopter.

Hill also said she’s working with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce to find small business grants to help businesses along the corridor adjust to the change.

District 9 council member Elizabeth Beck, whose district includes the name-changed section, said in a text message to the Star-Telegram that she was excited that name change will enable the city to transform a corner of Fort Worth.

She also criticized Lauersdorf and Blaylock during the council meeting, saying it shows they don’t support business in Fort Worth.

Lauersdorf shot back, saying as a business owner he knows the challenges small businesses will face adjusting to the change.

“While I certainly appreciate and welcome the sizable investment the developers are willing to make in Fort Worth, I can’t support changing the name simply to appease development interests,” Lauersdorf said in a text message to the Star-Telegram.

What’s in a name?

One the differences between the White Settlement Road name change and other developments is the perceived baggage attached to the name. White Settlement Road, which was paved in the 1950s, has long served as a connection between downtown Fort Worth to the historic location of one of the first settlements of non-native inhabitants in west Tarrant County.

Settlers from the eastern United States started moving into the region in 1836 amid a push by Republic of Texas President Sam Houston to increase land values and increase immigration, according to the White Settlement Historical Museum.

As more settlers moved into the area, clashes broke out between Indigenous residents and white settlers, according to a city of Fort Worth document on the city’s initial settlement and development.

This included the 1841 Battle of Village Creek where Texas Gen. Edward Tarrant and 69 volunteers clashed with a series of Indigenous villages on land that has since been inundated by Lake Arlington, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

The battle resulted in the Indigenous residents withdrawing and paved the way for an 1843 treaty that opened up the area to more settlement, according to the historical association.

White Settlement started as a trading post, and got its name because it was a settlement of white people surrounded by seven Native American villages, according to the White Settlement Historical Museum.

The area went from being called “the white settlement” to just White Settlement as more residents moved into the area and put down stakes, according to the museum’s website.

While city leaders have argued the name is not connected to race or racism, some tried to change the name in 2005 citing concerns about dropping sales tax revenue and a lack of business development.

However, residents voted to reject the name change by a 9 to 1 margin and even moved to recall city officials who proposed the change in the first place.

Fort Worth took a crack at a name change for the street in 2021 after the completion of the the second of the three Panther Island Bridges. Mayor Mattie Parker signaled a willingness for the change saying the city needed a more inclusive Fort Worth-specific name.

However, those efforts petered out in 2023 and haven’t been taken up since.

Dancing Iglesias, co-owner of Flipstone Vintage and thrift and a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, has argued in the past that the name White Settlement can act as a jumping off point to discuss Indigenous history in North Texas.

Speaking after the council meeting, Iglesias said she was disappointed in the decision.

“Almost every other heritage and culture is elevated in Fort Worth, but the Native community isn’t,” she said.

While Iglesias acknowledged the name change was not about erasing history, she argued there’s more the city could do with White Settlement Road to create unity between the city and its Native community.