{"id":429367,"date":"2025-12-06T18:50:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T18:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/429367\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T18:50:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T18:50:52","slug":"leonards-department-store-and-fort-worths-hidden-subway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/429367\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonard\u2019s Department Store and Fort Worth\u2019s Hidden Subway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fort Worth has a way of keeping its history just beneath the surface \u2014 literally. For those of us who like to squint and imagine the city as it looked decades ago,\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a story buried downtown that feels like something out of a mid-century dream: Fort Worth once had a subway. And it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0for commuters \u2014 it was for shoppers.\u00a0Well, at least the subway was initially built for shoppers.\u00a0I was reminded of this when a recent city newsletter highlighted<\/a> the historical transit system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To grasp the story of the subway, you\u00a0have to\u00a0start with Leonard\u2019s Department Store <\/a>\u2014 the heart of downtown Fort Worth for decades. In 1918, brothers Marvin and Obie Leonard opened a tiny 25-by-60-foot shop across from the Tarrant County Courthouse. Over the years, it grew into a sprawling seven-block empire, stretching across Houston, Throckmorton, Weatherford, and W. First streets. Long before suburban malls, Leonard\u2019s drew crowds with elaborate window displays, whimsical Toyland attractions like \u201cSanta\u2019s Rocket Express,\u201d and the Southwest\u2019s first escalator \u2014 built entirely in-house.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the early 1960s, the\u00a0Leonards\u00a0faced a challenge: how to move the growing crowds from remote parking lots to the downtown store. Their solution was audacious \u2014 a subway line,\u00a0purchased\u00a0and refurbished from Washington, D.C., streetcars, running\u00a0roughly a\u00a0mile from Panther Island to the\u00a0store’s\u00a0basement.\u00a0On Feb.\u00a015, 1963, Marvin and Obie unveiled the M&O Subway \u2014 named for themselves \u2014\u00a0for\u00a0$1 million, half for construction and half for the cars. It was the only privately owned subway in the world at the time, and Fort\u00a0Worthians\u00a0flocked to ride it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the\u00a0Leonards\u00a0sold the store to Tandy Corporation in the late 1960s \u2014 Tandy\u00a0later sold it to Dillard\u2019s in the mid-1970s \u2014 downtown Fort Worth began to change. The original seven-block structure was demolished in 1979, yet the subway continued\u00a0operating\u00a0with a reduced fleet under Tandy, proving its utility beyond retail. Its final ride came in 2002, closing a\u00a0nearly 40-year\u00a0chapter in Cowtown history.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, most of the M&O Subway is hidden \u2014 tunnels are gated, tracks buried, and the downtown skyline transformed with modern high-rises at “City Place.” Yet remnants remain: a restored railcar sits in the lobby of One City Place at 300 Throckmorton St., a bronze marker honors the Leonard brothers, and the Leonard\u2019s Museum, now housed at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, preserves over 2,000 artifacts curated by Marty Leonard, daughter of co-founder Marvin Leonard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For many longtime residents, memories of Leonard\u2019s\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0just about shopping\u00a0\u2014\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0about riding the subway beneath the city, marveling at the ingenuity of two farm boys who turned a $600 investment into a retail empire.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLeonard\u2019s\u00a0was definitely part of the history of Fort Worth for a lot of years,\u201d Marty told\u00a0Fort Worth Magazine\u00a0in January\u00a02024 during the museum\u2019s new home announcement. \u201cIt is very, very gratifying to me, mainly because people have told me how important they think [the museum] is and that they’re so thrilled that it’s going to be preserved for the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s to\u00a0another tribute to the store that so many\u00a0Fort\u00a0Worthies\u00a0cherished \u2014 and still remember, Marty.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Worth has a way of keeping its history just beneath the surface \u2014 literally. For those of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":429368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,42198,7372,88992,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-429367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fort-worth-history","11":"tag-fortworth","12":"tag-leonard","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-top-story","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115674132171998083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}