75 Years of Service to Fort Worth and Beyond

From its humble beginnings in the wake of the devastating 1949 floods that inundated Fort Worth to the support of the recovery efforts after the Hawaii and Los Angeles wildfires, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District has successfully met every mission head-on.

The district was established on April 16, 1950, and called 100 West Vickery home. In 1980, the district moved to the Fritz G. Lanham federal building at 819 Taylor Street where it remains to this day.

From its singularly focused mission set in 1950, to the dynamic, multifaceted mission set of today, the Fort Worth District has evolved. Today, the district oversees military construction in Texas and Louisiana at 14 installations from Fort Bliss to Fort Johnson, more than 900 miles away. This includes approximately 600 projects with an estimated value of more than $9.8 billion in design and construction.

“One of the biggest issues for the district during the 90s was the Cox Range Control Facility on White Sands Missile Range,” said Jim Weller, the Fort Worth District commander from November 1997 to July 2000. “It was a design build contract. In the 90s, the Corps of Engineers transitioned from district engineers serving as the contracting officers and signing the contracts to the contracting staff signing the contracts. But I was still heavily involved in the contracting, which created some issues for contracting, so it was a learning curve.”

The district currently manages 51 civil works projects which includes 373 miles of levees and bank protection. Approximately 33% of Texas’ surface water is located within the boundaries of the district, which includes 9.6 million acres of land and water. In total these civil works projects have prevented an estimated $170 billion in damages.

“Back in the 70s, the district was doing the preliminary design to make the Trinity River navigable all the way up to just west of loop 820,” said J.B. West, a former district employee for over 30 years starting in 1965.

West was also the commander for what was then an Army Reserve aviation unit that worked in unison with the district.

“I was able to fly the district photographer low level along the Trinity River all the way to Galveston Bay,” West said. “Periodically, someone in the district would need some aviation support. So long as it was official business, I could carry civilians on Army helicopters. Every time there was a major flood, somebody in water resources would go out, look at the flood waters and see how they were doing.”

As with the responses to the Hawaii and Los Angeles wildfires, district staff have participated in emergency management response since the start of the district. Ten presidentially declared major disaster events have occurred since 2010, and district personnel have supported each of them. Since 2016, more than 185 staff members have volunteered their time and skills in support of hurricanes and wildfires. There have also been 122 deployments outside of the continental United States since 2001.

“From 2002 to about 2006 the deployment schedule for the district was very heavy,” said Bob Morris, who served with the district from 2002 to 2024 as a soldier and civilian, culminating in his roles as the deputy for the Programs and Project Management Division for 13 years.

“The district pioneered the Forward Engineering Support Team concept,” he continued. “In June 2002, we sent the FEST team over to Afghanistan to support the 18th Airborne Corps. Beyond supporting the war fighter, we’ve also been a lead for the debris removal mission after natural disasters.”

The real estate section of the district manages 2.6 million acres of real property, which includes 4,462 civil and military real estate instruments. There are 7,400 real property items managed valued at $824 million. Along with the real property items, the section also manages 350 recruiting leases for all branches of the armed forces with $46.2 million in annual economic impact across 150 communities.

“In the 80s we had a large acquisition branch,” said Randy Roberts, the former chief of Realty Services Branch, who joined the district in 1983. “With Joe Pool and Ray Roberts Lakes under construction, we were acquiring the land that would later become the lakes.”

With the construction of the lakes came a new way of developing the property around the lakes. What seems commonplace now, was something new for the district which inherited many of their lakes from the New Orleans District.

“Unlike many of the lakes we had in our inventory already, we developed Joe Pool and Ray Roberts lakes with cost share partners,” Roberts said. “For the recreation side we had partners, such as Texas Parks and Wildlife, leasing out parts of those lakes for their own parks; at Joe Pool Lake there’s Cedar Hill State Park.”

The district also works with partners and outside entities that are developing properties along rivers and waterways. Each year the regulatory division averages almost 1,900 permit authorizations across the district. They also investigate more than 180 compliance and enforcement actions.

“In the early 80s, the Trinity River in the metroplex led to major changes when it comes to regulatory and a standardized criteria for floodplain development,” said Becky Griffin, the former chief of the district’s planning branch. “Wayne Lee, who was the chief of regulatory at the time, became really concerned that there was so much activity that his people wouldn’t be able to carry out their obligations under environmental requirements. He wanted a programmatic environmental impact statement that would look at development, particularly focused on the Three River Region in the metroplex.”

An outgrowth of the changes later became the Central City Project.

“We developed what we call the regional environmental impact statement that eventually led to working with the North Central Texas Council of Government,” continued Griffin.

Probably the most known part of the district is its dams and flood control reservoirs spread across of Texas. With 25 lakes spread across the district’s four regions, it is no surprise that there are more than 19 million visitors annually to the various parks and day-use facilities. The lakes offer 7,700 campsites and in 2024 the total revenues reached $11.85 million.

“In 1983 I came to the Fort Worth District from the New Orleans District to become the lake manager at Lake O’ the Pines,” said Jerry P. Thomas, who served as the first operations project manager for the Piney Woods Region in the district. “I became a project manager when the district combined Lake O’ the Pines, Wright Patman, and Jim Chapman after it was built. In 1993, the district stood up the four regions they have now, and Sam Rayburn and Town Bluff were added to the other three to become the Piney Woods Region which I oversaw until I retired in 2015.”

With 75 years on its resume and accomplishments across the globe, the Fort Worth District has no plans on slowing down. No matter if it’s military construction, civil works, flood risk mitigation, or a future natural disaster, the district will continue living the Corps of Engineers’ motto, Essayons! – Let us try!