Are Alligators Preparing To Invade Fort Worth's Imaginary Island?

I saw this this morning, on Facebook, brought to my attention by Elsie Hotpepper and her Doppleganger.

So, alligators are being seen enjoying Lake Worth again. Isn't this sort of a regular occurrence?

With the reptiles visiting Lake Worth from their home in the marshes of the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, where one sees signs warning visitors not to disturb the gators.

The Facebook poster, Libby Barker Willis, is suggesting that perhaps Panther Island should be renamed Alligator Island.

That same suggestion cropped up last year when an alligator showed up in the area where the Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats take place.

I don't know how a gator could get from Lake Worth to the Rockin' the River zone, what with the Lake Worth dam seeming to be a bit of a water transit impediment.

Changing the subject ever so slightly.

I really think America's Biggest Boondoggle needs to stop with the Panther Island nonsense. There is no island. There may never be an island. And even if the un-needed flood diversion ditch is ever dug and filled with water, the area currently being called Panther Island still won't be a real island.

Fort Worth has a history of misnaming things. Like for decades confusing the town's few tourists by calling its downtown Sundance Square, where there was no square, til a couple years ago when a little plaza was built where parking lots used to be. With those parking lots being what many people long thought were Sundance Square.

And now we have The Boondoggle nonsense. Re-branding that hapless slow motion "project" over and over again. Trinity Uptown. Central City.  Trinity River Vision. With Panther Island being the latest. And then slapping that absurd Panther Island nomenclature on all sorts of things, like Panther Island Pavilion.

Where there is no Pavilion. Or island.

Currently I am in Wichita Falls. I'm liking Wichita Falls. Pretty much each day I've been here I see something which impresses me, which I never saw in Fort Worth.

Yesterday as I drove to Walmart, driving by the park nearest my abode, about two blocks distant, it being a park with a big pond and regular park facilities, had dozens of kids fishing in the pond. I read this morning this was some sort of after school program.

The signage all over Wichita Falls is very well done and useful, and so far I have not had the signs point me to something which does not exist, like a square, an island or a pavilion that can't be found.

Wichita Falls did have a serious problem with misnaming something and confusing tourists. This problem went on for about a century. I'll let Wikipedia explain via a paragraph in its Wichita Falls article....

A flood in 1886 destroyed the original falls on the Wichita River for which the city was named. After nearly 100 years of visitors wanting to visit the nonexistent falls, the city built an artificial waterfall beside the river in Lucy Park. The recreated falls are 54 ft (16 m) high and recirculate at 3,500 gallons per minute. They are visible to south-bound traffic on Interstate 44.

I visited Wichita Falls in Lucy Park on Saturday. I was impressed.