A Stranger in a Strange Land of Opportunity

In the nineteenth century many immigrants took the advice attributed to Horace Greeley: “Go west, young man.”

But Sam Rosen’s way west was longer than most: nine thousand miles.
Rosen was twelve years old in 1880 when he traveled alone from Russia to America. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a steamship, working on board to pay his passage. Arriving in America Rosen did not speak the language or know the customs. Like Moses in the land of Midian, Sam Rosen was a stranger in a strange land.
Sam Rosen knew but one person in this strange land: His older brother Isaac lived in Dallas. Sam joined Isaac, and the brothers worked on a farm.
And they worked hard. J’Nell Pate in North of the River writes that Rosen worked “seven days a week from dawn to dark for $5 [$134 today] per week.”
After two years Sam made one more move west: to Fort Worth.
Here he began peddling tin goods, novelties, and jewelry between Fort Worth and El Paso.

He saved his money and by 1888 had enough to open a clothing store on Main Street.

Over the next fourteen years Rosen sold clothing at various locations along Main Street. By 1898 his store was in Hell’s Half Acre.
As he worked, Sam Rosen learned the language and customs of his adopted country. He also became a savvy businessman. America was the land of opportunity. And Sam Rosen was listening for opportunity to knock.
Meanwhile, the city of Fort Worth had been trying to secure a packing plant to complement its Union Stockyards. Two of the nation’s meatpacking giants, Swift and Armour, said they would build a plant in Fort Worth if Fort Worth paid each of them an incentive of $50,000 ($1.5 million today).

On May 26, 1901 the Fort Worth Register crowed that “Amour” was coming to town. “Open Vistas . . . Intoxicate the Brain,” the Register swooned. “Fort Worth has, at last, attained the longing of her heart of hearts.” Editors could scarcely contain their rapture; proofreaders apparently took the day off to celebrate. (The “Another” in “Another Paking House” refers to the existing Simpson-Niles packing plant.)
Reading that news story, Sam Rosen heard opportunity’s first knock.

Four months later, on October 8, 1901, with “Fort Worth Never Failed,” the Register announced that Fort Worth had raised the $100,000 incentive money to secure both packing plants. “Three cheers reverberated for ‘Fort Worth, the greatest packing house center of the Southwest.’”
Sam Rosen heard opportunity’s second knock.
Rosen knew that the two new packing plants and expanded stockyards would transform the sparsely settled area north of the river. A boom was inevitable. Thousands of people would move into the area, requiring housing, transportation, banks, stores, bars, schools, churches.
In 1902 Sam Rosen, who had moved westward nine thousand miles and had spent twenty years selling in downtown Fort Worth, looked northward two miles and began buying.
According to the Star-Telegram, Rosen “bought 1,790 acres of land north of Fort Worth and began developing the section as a haven of modest-priced homes.”
His land was bordered on the north and west by the sprawling Sansom ranch.
But Sam Rosen did much more than chop raw farmland up into postage-stamp city lots and sell them.
He dug wells, installed miles of water mains, and built four water tanks to supply his residents.
Sam Rosen was said to be a benevolent landlord. The Star-Telegram later wrote: “He never once, they say, foreclosed on a piece of property. . . . Once when his water system was losing $400 and $500 a week and his associates insisted that some of the delinquent customers should be cut off, Rosen agreed reluctantly. In a few hours men on the cut-off list began drifting in to pay their hills. It was revealed finally that Mr. Rosen himself had gone to them and extended loans.”

This 1902 ad touts Rosen Heights as being “high above the smoke and dust of the city.” Prospective homeowners could ride the streetcar to the stockyards, where carriages would be waiting to take them to the addition. Free streetcar tickets could be obtained at local businesses, including the White Elephant, Washer Bros., and, of course, Sam Rosen’s store on Main Street.

Sam Rosen hired architect L. B. Weinman to design a few homes to be built in the addition.

In 1903 a homebuyer could get into a Sam Rosen house for a smidge under seventeen cents ($4 today) a day. This ad says Rosen Heights had one hundred houses with four hundred being built.

That growth meant that Rosen Heights soon needed schools. The addition organized its own school district and built two schoolhouses. In 1903 school no. 1 was built on land that Sam Rosen donated at the corner of Roosevelt and Northwest 26th streets. A replacement school was built on the site in 1910.
Sam Rosen also donated land for churches in Rosen Heights.

Early in the twentieth century zoning laws were lax to nonexistent. Homeowners in Rosen Heights kept chickens and cows, tended their orchards and gardens. Sam Rosen encouraged homeowners to plant trees and flowers on what the Star-Telegram described as “bald prairie.”
In 1903 Rosen sold his store downtown to devote his time to developing Rosen Heights.
Meanwhile, Sam Rosen wasn’t the only entrepreneur scooping up land as today’s North Side boomed. Rosen was competing for land with the North Fort Worth Townsite Company, which was fronted by Joseph B. Googins, and financed by the deep pockets of the Swift company. The townsite company bought up hundreds of acres to plat into city lots to sell to workers at the packing plants.

In 1903 Rosen built his Rosen Inn hotel at 1318 North Main Street in the heart of the business district of the Marine community. For the building’s design, Rosen again turned to L. B. Weinman. In addition to the hotel, the building housed Rosen’s real estate office, Meyer Greines’s furniture store, and the funeral parlor of S. D. Shannon and George Gause.

The building also housed a generator that supplied electricity for Rosen Heights and other parts of today’s North Side. The generator also powered the streetcar line that Rosen installed to serve his homeowners. (Photo from University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.)

By 1905 the streetcar line extended from Rosen Heights east to North Main Street and then south to downtown Fort Worth. In the beginning Rosen’s line competed with the line of Northern Texas Traction Company, the tracks of the two lines running parallel along North Main. Sometimes the competition was literal: According to Pate, cars of the two lines sometimes raced each other along the straightaway of North Main Street.

In 1902 the city of North Fort Worth, had incorporated as the packing plants neared completion. On December 31, 1904 North Fort Worth, in a hurry to take advantage of the tax calendar, annexed much of Rosen Heights.

In 1906 Sam Rosen watched as the rest of his namesake addition became his namesake city: The unannexed part of Rosen Heights incorporated.

In 1906, to give his Rosen Heights homebuyers and streetcar passengers a place to go, Sam Rosen built a trolley park at the end of his streetcar line.
Sam Rosen’s White City opened on San Jacinto Day (April 21) in 1906 with Youngers’ Wild West Show. White City was so-named because its buildings were painted white. The park’s centerpiece was Lake Togo, which Rosen created by dammed a spring. Park patrons could boat on the lake or ride the park’s Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, helter skelter, figure-eight roller coaster, tunnel of love boat ride, and miniature steam train on tracks—all under “brilliant” electric lights. Patrons could enjoy “high-class vaudeville,” Punch-and-Judy shows, “water baseball,” concerts, dramatic troupes, skating, and Japanese polo. Amusements included a penny arcade, photo booth, baseball diamond, theater, dance pavilion, even a small zoo. A calliope filled the air with music. White City also had a hotel.
Featured performers included the ill-fated aerialist Nellie de Vaughn, Madame Colemane, who was shot from a cannon, the Beggar Prince Opera Company, Stewart the hypnotist, and Dare Devil Develo.

In 1906 the Rosen Heights streetcar line became part of Citizens’ Railway and Light Company.
(In turn, in 1911 Citizens’ Railway was gobbled up by Northern Texas Traction Company.)

Despite the loss of his streetcar company, Sam Rosen remained ubiquitous—from land to lumber—on the North Side.
He lived on Bryan Avenue in Rosen Heights.
By 1907 those 1,790 acres of “bald prairie” that Sam Rosen had bought in 1902 were unrecognizable. In 1902 the population of Rosen Heights was a few cows. By the end of 1907 Rosen Heights had a population of five thousand.
But as fast as Rosen Heights was growing, the city of North Fort Worth was growing even faster, its population exploding from two hundred in 1902 to ten thousand in 1907. North Fort Worth called itself the “Chicago of the Southwest.”

In 1908 North Fort Worth annexed the rest of Sam Rosen’s namesake addition, which became the city’s Fifth Ward.

But Sam Rosen remained politically engaged in his namesake addition. After the rest of Rosen Heights was annexed by North Fort Worth he served as alderman representing Rosen Heights/Fifth Ward.
In 1909 Fort Worth would annex North Fort Worth.

Fast-forward to 1925. Part of the Rosen Heights school district had been absorbed by the Fort Worth school district, which announced plans to build a new elementary school, designed by Wiley Clarkson, on the site that Sam Rosen had donated.
Sam Rosen Elementary School opened in 1926.

Meanwhile, Sam Rosen continued in the real estate business. By 1932 he had been joined in his Rosen Heights Land Company by sons Eph and Joel. Note that the Rosens now lived in the near South Side.

That year, thirty years after Sam Rosen developed his namesake addition on “bald prairie,” he died.

Sam Rosen is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

Today Rosen Heights retains a few reminders of its developer. In addition to Rosen Avenue, several streets in Rosen Heights were named for family members. Two streets that retain the family names are Ephriham (son) and Pearl (brother-in-law) avenues.

And two blocks east of Rosen Avenue, on Roosevelt Avenue are Rosen Heights Baptist Church and Sam Rosen Elementary School—reminders of the stranger in a strange land of opportunity who transformed the North Side.

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