Cowtown Underground: Exploring the old M&O subway tunnel
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- The Star-Telegram's Gordon Dickson delves deep into Fort Worth's history by taking a journey beneath downtown into the subway tunnel that use to transport residents and shoppers from a parking lot near the Trinity River to Leonards Department Store and later RadioShack headquarters downtown.
By Gordon Dickson
Video by Rick Press, Clif Bosler and David Kent.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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And it was FREE to ride! And parking in the parking lots were free. Those were great times!
This place has such great memories. My parents went as kids and then we all went together. It was such a magical place, from the subway ride to the ice skating rink. We’d visit Santa every year. Looking at this makes me tear up a bit from pure nostalgia. I wish it still existed so I could take my son.
I agree. I wish we still had this. I loved riding the subway.
I love this...I have fond memories of going to Fort Worth and riding that subway down to Leonard's Dept store! When the subway stopped in front of the store, the Leonard's doors would slide open and you were hit by the smell of popcorn! We lived in Hurst and when the Northeast Mall was built, Leonard's was the first anchor store there, so we didn't get to go to the Fort Worth location anymore. NE Mall did not have a subway, like the original store. Years later, Leonard's became Dillards .
Finally found information on this subway! My grandfather used to always take me here during the summer of 1969 as I was visiting from New Orleans. I was only 3 years old at the time. Don't know how I remember this!
I used to ride this as a child.. I went to the daycare/preschool there when mom worked at the Tandy center
It takes me back to when i was a kid. My Dad drove these subway cars for Tandy and then retired. Its been along time. Thank you for publishing this video.
I worked for him
takes me back to when I use to ride it as a kid to go ice skating in the Tandy Building.
Great memories of growing up when life was so easy. There wasn’t a trip downtown unless you rode the subway if just for the turn around 👏🏻🤓
I'm very happy that you guys covered this, I remember riding on the train just one time when I was young.
I used to love taking the subway to Tandy center.used to meet girls there for dates. Good times. looks like it's long gone now.
Wish this could've been preserved
Remember the Tandy Center had an ice skating rink!
@@Hopscotch429 oh yeah I remember. I had my first date there. Awkward. It's a shame kids today don't get to experience it.
Im a proud TCC graduate. I took all my classes at Trinity River Campus, the old Radio Shack headquarters. Great place to attend .
We used to skip school, North side high.. and spend the day here riding this thing at least 3 times, mall, theater.. fun fun
I'm also a Steer. I also rode this many times, but only as a little boy with my mother and sister.
I remember riding that subway. My grandparents lived in Burleson, and Grandma would go to Leonard's. Not very often, but it was definitely memorable for me as a kid.
I use to ride that subway from the parking lot to the Tandy Center when I was younger.
They need to bring this back, including the ice skating
Am I crazy or did I go ice skating there as a child? I was born in 88
@@casey3713 Tandy Center was in operation until around 2002. Not sure if the skating rink made it that long, but it might have. I was born in 73 and have many found memories of visiting the Tandy Center. We would go about once a month and ride the subway!
I'm 55 and I remember my dad used to take me there on Saturdays my granny worked for the lenard Brothers, and oh yes subway ride🤗 we always parked the furthest so the ride would be longer, I can remember when they hung 🎅 and the raindeer we're hung on the walls of the tunnel you would see as the subway passed, then Tandy center was built with ice rink, I would go there just to ride the subway walk around watching people crash and burn trying to ice skate 😂 thanks for sharing, my compliments sir, the tunnel was longer of course because you couldn't see either end.
Say gunny I'm 55 also and I remember being allowed to ride up front with the conductor going in and out. The screeching echo always gave me an eerie feeling that we were going to be trapped. Then seeing the light at the end.
As a child Leonards at Christmas was magic
Thanks for producing this video. I live in the Metro DC area, where the cars came from, but was never able to get to Dallas-Ft. Worth and ride it. I only saw photos in Black and White. Hooray for UA-cam and you!
Thanks much for this video!
Our family made good use of the subway from when it first opened.
Pleasant memories.
In mid 60s lived in Hurst,for a year, we took this subway several times to go into downtown to the dept.store complex and shopping from a almost out of town parking lot. Loved the trip it was fun loved it , great memories.
Rode this subway more times than I could count, it was a blast.
I remember riding it to Leonard and the Tandy center as a child. So fun
I remember riding the Subway. I thought it was so fun! My Aunt would take me. I was 4 and it was 1969.
That's awesome history!
I remember when Tandy Center partnered with the Tarrant County Justice Center across the street. In the 90s, and early 2000s, when I was called to jury duty, jurors got to park out in the Tandy Center lots, and ride the subway to the Tandy Center. Then, if there was time, grab some breakfast burritos and glazed cinnamon danishes in the food court with a cup of joe. Then it was a simple walk across the street to the Center. Most of my court assignments were in that building. It was a treat for jurors. I remember riding that subway to Leonard's as a 5 and 6 year old when my family went shopping downtown.
I used to ride these rail cars daily go to work. I used to work in the Tandy Center in the food court. I was that cute handsome guy. So if you remember me. LOL
I rode on this subway several times as a child in the 60's when visiting my grandmother in Ft Worth. She would take us shopping at Leonard's downtown which occupied several buildings. I wonder what became of the subway car. I remember reading an article decades ago in The Dallas Morning News, I believe, that said where the subway car(s) originated from.
That's so fascinating. Thank you for sharing.
Hello to everyone from California USA
After you got off the subway and walked into Leonard's....on the right after the doors was the pet section....i remember as a kid ....one yr they had a bunch of baby alligators on display for sale
Thank you for the Great video
Lived in TEXAS my whole life. Road it on field trips, with my dad, with my grandparents. Damn thing was fast too. 🤠😂🤣😂
Every time I went downtown, I rode the subway. It just made parking easier. My first time was for jury duty. Once you got off, you had signs you could follow to the court house.
I remember waiting for the subway at one of those shelters with my mother and sister and riding it through the tunnel to Leonards in the mid 1960s.
Awesome Video, I would love to visit this subway!!
subwaymark it's been sealed with concrete and grass
Keep up the Great work
So sad...I am from Nebraska, but when I would visit Ft Worth I would always ride into the Tandy Center.
I used to ride that subway all the time to Leonards in the early 70’s back before Tandy center was even thought of.
I loved to ride that subway from the parking lot to Leonard's then Tandy Center close to ice skating rink. No more free parking in downtown anymore due to Mayor Betsy PRICE smelled the money to tax everything from Will Roger parking lots and everything parking in downtown Fort Worth and 7th West St.
Wish they’d bring it back
Before they shut it down it was a great that you could park for free and you could ride the subway when you had jury duty at Tarrant County courthouse.
The M & O replaced the buses which used to transport people from the parking lot to Leonards.
I used to park and ride it to work in 1993 /1994. Ate lunch at the Tandy center.
Wonderful ! ... NOW , take a look at the ( abandoned ) tunnels of the UK's London Underground ... DAVE™🛑
Next question is whether the Tandy center is still intact
Why did they shut it down
Amazing
Extended at both ends and you have a new light rail line.
I used to ride that subway every day when I was a kid . My mom worked for " Eds" bank I had to go to the " y.m.c.a." before school. That was back in 1980 through 1985
Rode it many times with my grandfather.
Boy, does that take me back :-)
😪
Thanks for making this! That must have been a pretty special opportunity to go into those spooky old tunnels.
Yep, rode that subway to Tandy Center to go next door to the Tarrant County courthouse.
We had a subway system my generation will never know
I remember I used to go with my grandma when I was a kid and we use to walk around and go into the stores in the 2000s I forget when the shut it down
I’m here because in my dream I ask where was I and the lady in my dream reply and I had to look it up in its true this place is real 😮
I used to ride this to go downtown free parking..❤
They should totally bring this back as a campus shuttle!
What I learned from this video: Urban exploring is fine, as long as rich hereditary oligarchs do it with the press filming.
UA-cam recommended your channel to me
Fewer and fewer of us go to malls anymore. I'm nostalgic about the good ol' days of malls with indoor skate rinks, Santa at Christmas, the smell of fast food, and exciting free train trips from the parking lot to the store. But, seriously, in these days of shopping online and having the weird-looking electric vans deliver stuff right to my door, it is no wonder these communal delights have gone the way of the dodo bird. I mean, I get seriously annoyed if I can't find a parking spot right in front of the store or restaurant! Be honest: so do you!! I am not enamored of leaving my car to bake in the heat in a crowded parking lot by the river, schlepping over to and waiting in a not-air-conditioned shack, and then relying on a train to get me to and from a store half-a-mile away while my car sits there exposed to God-knows-who doing God-knows-what. Yeah, we won't ever go back to those times again. Their inconveniences fade into the soft glow of nostalgia.
Is this the place that led to that inside mall
What happened to the vehicles?
The M&O car #1 is still on display in downtown Fort Worth ❤
One of the cars in now operated on the McKinny Ave. Trolly M-Line. Car No. 143 aka "Winnie" It was one of the originals from DC.
Was it downstairs with the foodcourt?
Nice adventure - I road it before it was closed down . . You were very unprepared with proper portable flood lighting instead of four Radio Shack spot flashlights from 1980 - pun intended
rode that many times with my grandmother Leatha Cox Sisk.
The space for Leonard's was huge unsure of where it was though
So what's beyond the concrete wall?
dirt
The tunnel entrance was there. Covered over now.
It's a shame that it's gone
love to see the history. too bad that can be brought back to life, even if only for historical usage
We rode on it when it opened up.
Road it hundreds of times when I was kid , before tandy bought Leonard's
They do come out of the middle of the earth in ft worth but im not saying where
why did they close it
(Please reply) is the Tandy Center still here? Not the subway, the building
No its been long gone they took it down and replaced it now called City Place I remember going there like a couple times too when I was a little kid remember ice skating rink.
Oh. Does City Place look like how the Tandy Center used to look like?
TREFan120 no it looks all diffrent you can see how it looks like on a few websites.
Just one more question: is the station the wasbinside the building still there (what there’s left)?
What's left is the underground area and the two platforms where people would wait to get on the subway. I know if you do a google street view of City Place you can make it go back to 2007 when it was still there.
It used to go all the way to the old Montgomery Wards
I don't understand the comment the world's only privately ownly subway. The early London subways were all privately owned, in the sense they were owned by a private company. The first London subway opened in 1863.
She meant to say only privately owned in the United States.
Road the subway many a time when work for Radio Shack.
I road on the at in the 80s and think part of early 90s
Leonards was cool, I remember them selling guns and white chocolate polar bears!
My dad worked for Tandy. I remember riding the Subway to "kidnap" him to take him to lunch. He was always surprised to see us. Then we would use it go to the Library. It was a sad day for us when it shut down. It was fun to ride
Well would you look at that. They did some graffiti in an old tunnel when they got to the end.
😢
what if the place was haunted after all.
I've never heard that it was haunted. Looks like it could be though ... LOL
this is just raccoon city from resident evil
5:05 The Backroom into the tunnel.