‘Fighting Goliath’: How a rural North Texas community took on Big Data
A Fort Worth Star-Telegram short documentary film
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Description: To them, this is God’s country — spacious pastures and narrow country roads, peaceful sunrises and starry nights. A perfect place to raise a family, ride horses and live the Texan dream. Then came the cryptocurrency mining factory. What started as a faint buzzing sound from the complex became impossible to ignore. Some nearby families found it too much to bear. Across North Texas, landowners are discovering they have few options to fight the surge in industrial data centers. But in this Hood County community, they had an idea.
About: Star-Telegram visuals editor Amanda McCoy and staff writer Elizabeth Campbell spent three months interviewing residents, attending public meetings and reporting for this film. McCoy has received multiple Lone Star Emmy nominations for her work in North Texas. Reach her at amccoy@star-telegram.com.
Learn more about data centers in North Texas:
- The new land rush: Rural Texans brace for data centers
- Battle over unregulated data centers in Texas Legislature
- Granbury complaint filed with Texas Rangers over zoning
This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 11:17 AM.
