Change 1 mile of White Settlement Road’s name? Hey, why not go for 2? | Opinion
I just have one question for the Fort Worth City Council.
If changing the name of White Settlement Road to Westside Drive is good for the 12-block segment between sculptor Ned Kahn’s “Wind Roundabout” sculpture and University Drive, then why not go a little farther?
If the Westside Village developers will help when the council votes Oct. 21, go ahead and change 2 miles of road in near west Fort Worth instead of just one.
Not all of it. That’s too long and tough to change.
Here’s my idea: Just change the name of the straightaway 1 more mile west to Westview Avenue, where the road twists near Rockwood Park Drive.
That covers both the east and west approaches to Westside Village, a $1.7 billion development that will be the west side’s version of Clearfork.
Surely Greenwood Memorial Park, built on a former slave farm, would benefit more from a connection to Westside Village than to the name of White Settlement, a city 9 miles west.
The city of White Settlement has never paid Fort Worth one penny to promote its name. It doesn’t benefit Fort Worth in any way.
A century and a half of free publicity is enough.
Don’t make this a political issue in any way. The original name White Settlement Road wasn’t political.
It was the name pioneers gave the wagon path to white settlers’ cabins west of Fort Worth in American Indian territory.
This is the era of eliminating race rhetoric.
So it’s not “woke” to take race out of a name. It’s unwoke.
This is a chance for City Council to do what city leaders have talked about for 10 years. Changing the name to increase property values has been on the table ever since the River District development began farther west and spurred a new round of economic development.
But until now, the ideas always got too big.
Once, city officials talked about staging a renaming contest. That turned into an unfortunate tug-of-war between political factions arguing over worthy heroes.
Another time, officials talked about changing the road all the way across the west side of the city. But that drew pushback because it would change too many addresses.
The proposals were always too complicated. So they always collapsed under their own weight.
In 2016, River District developer Chris Powers even said he looked into renaming the road for Hall of Fame golfer Ben Hogan, who lived nearby in Westover Hills. But Powers found the process was costly and long, he said.
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Now, even more businesses and apartments have sprung up between the West Fork river bridges.
Those stakeholders should make their own decision about whether it would enhance their property to rename their part of the road to Westside Drive.
Powers doesn’t have a stake in the development anymore, he wrote in a text message this week.
But, “I’m glad they’ve been able to pull this off,” he wrote.
“I know it’s something [City Hall] has wanted for a long time!”
Now don’t take it too far.
Maybe 1 more mile.
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 11:19 AM.
