There’s new opposition to a move that would rename a portion of White Settlement Road in Fort Worth.
It’s about a mile stretch of road near the upcoming $1.7 billion mixed-use project.
“We’ve done it before, throughout the city,” Councilwoman Elizabeth Beck told NBC 5 on Thursday.
“Really, anytime we have a significant development and one of those really, you know, landscape changing developments and the developers come to us and ask for a name change, you know, to help create that sense of place for that development and we have a history of, of working with them to do that and that’s what we’ve done here,” she added.
She said the developer would cover the costs of renaming, which is nearly $26,000.
But not everyone is on board.
Jimmy Joe Jenkins, vice president of The River District Neighborhood Alliance, said they want to preserve the road and its history.
“The developers own all the land around that, which is totally fine and no one’s against that. It’s using their development as an excuse to rebrand a historical road,” Jenkins said. “Development is not a reason to change history.”
He said a name change should be up to the public, not a corporation.
“It’s one of the longest corridors in history that goes all the way to 730 in Weatherford,” Jenkins said. “That was the road to Fort Worth, and it made us who we are.”
The road has ties to Fort Worth’s history of pushing Native Americans out of the region.
Jenkins said the cost of renaming the road could instead be used to put up a historical marker to educate people about the uncomfortable history, instead of erasing it.