As the crowds converge in West Fort Worth for the annual Stock Show and Rodeo, I’d like to say a few words on behalf of the Will Rogers Memorial Center, the 1936 Moderne masterpiece that provides the backdrop for city’s annual celebration of Western culture.

The Coliseum, the Pioneer Tower and the Auditorium are signature pieces of Fort Worth architecture. Designed by Wyatt C. Hedrick and Herman P. Koeppe in the dark days of the Great Depression, these buildings were a celebration of our frontier past and a symbol of a bright future to come. Today, we live in that shining world of tomorrow that our ancestors imagined in the 1930s. But how does the future look for Will Rogers Coliseum?

Fair to partly cloudy?
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