Alliance looks ahead 25 years

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: On a cold December day nearly 25 years ago, an American Airlines jumbo jet dipped its wings above hundreds gathered near Fort Worth’s new Alliance Airport runway. About 150 people were on the plane, and Ross Perot Jr., Alliance’s developer, was in the cockpit. When it landed, Mayor Bob Bolen accepted the airport’s operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration in a ceremonial opening. Fort Worth had plowed into new territory when leaders agreed to back a city-owned airport in far north Fort Worth, on land donated by the Perot family and at the behest of the FAA. Alliance would become the nation’s first industrial airport. Since then, homes with more than 150,000 residents fill the once-empty farmland, huge distribution centers ship goods around the world, and the area serves as the pinnacle of logistics hubs to developers. See full story.