I Love Downtown Fort Worth & The Biggest Comic Strip In Texas That Surrounds Sundance Square

Fairly frequently, I think due to me being such a big booster of Downtown Fort Worth, I get email from Downtown Fort Worth, Inc.

I got one of those emails yesterday. It was via that email I saw the cool new logo and slogan for Downtown Fort Worth.

From the Downtown Fort Worth Inc. website...

It's hard to describe Downtown Fort Worth in a few words. But one thing's for sure: "You Get It When You Get Here." Go ahead, take a look around, then come and see the real thing.

Get what? I'm not quite sure. You might get something if you join in on one of Downtown Fort Worth's J.D. Granger Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats.

Look around, and then come see the real thing? What real thing? I have no idea.

I have to say, the Downtown Fort Worth Inc. website is very well done. With a lot of information.

In the What We Do: NEWS section I learned that, after years of having no square in Sundance Square, construction has begun on a public plaza on Main Street between 3rd and 4th Streets.

Finally there will be a square in Sundance Square, after perplexing tourists for way too long in their futile search for the formerly non-existent square.

The Biggest Comic Strip in Texas has been built as a construction fence to keep prying eyes from seeing Sundance Square as it is being constructed. The construction fence/comic strip covers 36 panels, 7 feet tall by 16 feet wide. The biggest comic strip in Texas is Sundance Kid themed, in two parts, with part one being about the early 1900s era when the Sundance Kid, Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang wandered around Fort Worth's Hell's Half Acre, before it got covered with a Convention Center.

I'm not sure I understand part two of the biggest comic strip in Texas. From what I can glean, somehow the Sundance Kid finds himself back in modern times after an otherworldly mishap.

Does this mean the Sundance Kid finds himself back in 2012 downtown Fort Worth? Appalled at its current condition, with none of the saloons, bordellos and casinos he'd previously enjoyed in Hell's Half Acre and mad as hell that his name has been used to name a bunch of parking lots Sundance Square? And then uses his Super Hero powers to build a real square?

Also in the What We Do: NEWS section there is an article about a DFWI Luncheon for the Love of Cities that asks the question "How many times have you heard someone say "I love Fort Worth!" when talking about our city?"

I can quite honestly say I can not remember the last time I heard anyone say "I love Fort Worth!"

If ever.

After the article asks the I love Fort Worth question, the next paragraph informs us....

Downtown Fort Worth and the surrounding urban areas have seen a remarkable renaissance in the last decade.  Urban-focused blogs, grass root street events, innovative gatherings and a renewed interest in city life are changing the way people who love Fort Worth express that love. This is a wonderful byproduct of Fort Worth’s growth…the increased engagement of our neighbors in the life and future of their central city.

Have I ever mentioned what a HUGE fan I am of propaganda? I guess I don't have to mention it. It is sort of obvious, I would think, that I am a HUGE fan of propaganda. The more outrageously exaggerated, the better!

Saloon Hopping With Elsie Hotpepper To Billy Miner's Saloon In Fort Worth

Last night I was really looking forward to Elsie Hotpepper picking me up in the Elsie Hotpepper Peptomobile and going to downtown Fort Worth to Billy Miner's Saloon.

I have previously gone to a burger joint with Elsie Hotpepper, in non-saloon hopping mode, to the Love Shack in the Fort Worth Stockyards. We were a bit disappointed in the Love Shack's Dirty Love Burger. It did not seem to live up to the hype.

The last time I was really impressed with a burger, was in Phoenix, on February 22, 2004. An In & Out double cheeseburger. Even though I was already plenty full from having spent 2 hours at a Happy Hour, and, even with me due to get on a plane, I had myself 2 In & Out double cheeseburgers. This made for the most explosively bloated plane ride ever.

So, it was with eager anticipation I anticipated a Billy Miner's Saloon Cheeseburger. This anticipation was made even more acute due to the fact that well-known local burger gourmet, Gar the Texan, had given the Billy Miner's Saloon Cheeseburger a rare 5 stars.

Cut to the cheese, I'd give the Billy Miner's Saloon Cheeseburger 4 stars. Not quite to In & Out 5 star worthiness. But close.

Now, you may be wondering who Billy Miner is or was.

Well.

Unlike most large towns, Fort Worth embraces its criminal past. Maybe this type embracing is part of the reason why Fort Worth, collectively, seems to have little problem embracing its criminal present, in the form of those, like the town's mayor, Mike Moncrief, a modern era Sundance Kid who does his robbing in much more sophisticated ways than using a gun to hold up a train.

Both the Sundance Kid and Billy Miner liked to rob trains. Fort Worth named its downtown collection of parking lots after the Sundance Kid, calling the parking lots "Sundance Square."

I believe this is the only downtown square in America named after a criminal.

Like the Sundance Kid, the legend of Billy Miner is that he was usually fairly non-violent in his criminal pursuits. During Billy's life of crime he spent 36 years in prison. He escaped from 5 of his prison homes.

Pinkerton agents were always after the Sundance Kid. Same with Billy Miner. Billy was chased all over America, while robbing trains and stage coaches. Billy was a suspect up in Canada, in British Columbia, in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois and Michigan.

Obviously Billy Miner was very eclectic in the states and provinces he chose to work in.

Billy died at 71 years old, on September 2, 1913 in a Milledgeville, Georgia jail.

I can not help but notice that neither Texas, or Fort Worth, is listed among the locations where Billy Miner practiced his craft.

Regardless, even though Billy Miner may never have consumed a Cheeseburger in Fort Worth, or robbed a Texas train, he still is the sort of criminal we like to honor as a genuine folk hero, here in Fort Worth.