PHOTOS: Fort Worth’s first ‘official’ Veterans Day was a party. That would soon change.

On the chilly gray morning of Nov. 11, 1938, the streets of downtown Fort Worth rang with “inspiring tunes of military bands beneath hundreds of waving American flags.”

It was the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day, marking the end of the World War, and thousands marched in the city’s annual parade — a tradition still going strong after 105 years.

The Star-Telegram reported that many of the 1938 parade spectators remarked how the war didn’t seem that long ago. An “impressive” one minute of silence at 11 a.m., with all facing west to honor of the dead, was the most somber moment of what was, for the first time in 1938, a new federal holiday that we now call Veterans Day.

“The parade was the primary impetus for the start of a round of celebration activities that were to last until a late hour Friday night,” the Star-Telegram wrote, with downtown dance halls staying open extra late to 1:30 a.m. No doubt, the party would continue that weekend with TCU’s homecoming game against Texas (a win, by the way, 28-6).

But there was something else on the front pages of the Star-Telegram as the city celebrated its “Armistice Day party” — an ominous sign that two decades of peace would soon come to an end: “Anti-Jewish riots sweep German,” one headline screamed. “Synagogues in flames; big shops are looted.”

It was Kristallnacht — the night of broken glass — when the Nazis declared war on German and Austrian Jews, sparked by the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris.

By the next Armistice Day in 1939, Europe was already at war, but Fort Worth didn’t let that get into the way of what was declared “the largest parade of its kind ever staged” in Cowtown. “The irony of Armistice with Europe at war will be ignored in the local celebration except in prayers for peace,” the Star-Telegram wrote. The bells of First Presbyterian Church on Taylor Street, where The Tower is now, sounded “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”

Within two years, the U.S. would enter World War II. The Armistice Day “celebration” would take on new meaning, war after war — Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Here’s a look back at Star-Telegram photos of Veterans Day events over the decades. Some of these photos haven’t been seen since they first published in the newspaper.

We salute every man and woman who served their country, and pray — just as they did in 1938 — for peace.

Matt Leclercq

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Matt Leclercq was senior managing editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from 2021 to 2026. He is now editor of The Charlotte Observer and can be reached at mleclercq@charlotteobserver.com.