On August 26, 1850, Tarrant County was created by the Texas legislature. The settlement of Fort Worth had a population of 599 whites and sixty-five Blacks. Slavery existed in Fort Worth in its beginnings as a tiny settlement on the bluff overlooking the Trinity River. Colonel Middleton Tate Johnson, one of the founding fathers of the original Army outpost (1849-53), owned 640 acres of plantation northwest of the fort, worked by 150 slaves.
