22,000
$102,000
8.1 square miles
$409,000
The mission of the Fort Worth Zoo is to strengthen the bond between humans and the environment by promoting responsible stewardship of wildlife and ensuring diverse, high-quality educational and entertaining family experiences through effective and efficient management of its resources.
The foundation of this mission statement is based on three cornerstone principles:
Conservation
A commitment to affect positive change through the facilitation of conservation and sound scientific research.
Education
A commitment to provide factual information to nurture an appreciation of and respect for wildlife and the environment.
Entertainment
A commitment to excellence and to always exceed our guests’ expectations.
When the Horned Frogs faithful began to overflow the stands at the team's former home, Clark Field, the TCU Board of Trustees realized that a new stadium was needed for the TCU football program. Thus, the Board of Trustees voted for a new stadium and created the Athletics Committee to study the cost as well as find a way to pay for it. Momentum for the new stadium hit an all-time high when the Frogs claimed their first Southwest Conference championship on November 30, 1929, when all-conference quarterback Howard Grubbs engineered a late fourth-quarter drive to tie crosstown rival SMU, 7-7. In Francis Schmidt's first season with the Frogs, TCU concluded the season with a 9-0-1 record, and stadium talks began to heat up.
The Athletics Committee recommended that the University begin a "quiet campaign" headed by Fort Worth Star-Telegram owner and publisher Amon G. Carter to raise $150,000 for the stadium that would seat roughly 30,000. The newspaper publisher recommended that Fort Worth residents raise 60 percent of the money for the stadium. Eventually, the sides settled on selling mortgage bonds to construct a $350,000 stadium that would seat 27,000, but could expand to over 60,000. The TCU Board of Trustees endorsed the settlement, and in 1929, a football stadium began to take shape. Less than one year after beginning construction on the stadium, the Frogs played their first game against the University of Arkansas on October 11, 1930. With Amon G. Carter Stadium at capacity of 22,000, the Frogs defeated the Razorbacks soundly by a 40-0 count, which marked a crowning achievement and the perfect dedicatory battle.
Over the next two decades, several expansions of Amon G. Carter Stadium began to take shape from the end zone to the east grandstand areas. In 1948, construction to east grandstand increased capacity by 8,500 to a total of 30,500 while three years later, 2,500 seats were added to the north end zone to up the total to 33,000. In 1953, the stadium once again expanded to a total capacity of 37,000 following a 4,000-seat expansion to the east grandstands.
Amon G. Carter Stadium reached another milestone in 1956 as a two-level press box and upper deck area was added, which featured a giant 60' x 120' display of the school's logo - the curved Purple and White "TCU." The letters were displayed on the bleacher seats and could be seen when flying over Amon G. Carter Stadium towards the DFW International Airport. When construction was completed in 1956, the official capacity of Amon G. Carter Stadium was 46,083 - over double what it was when originally constructed.
The newest round of construction did not occur for three decades when the seats in the lower grandstands were removed and replaced by aluminum seats in 1985. The upper deck area followed suit in 1991 when all of its seats were replaced by aluminum seats, which actually decreased the attendance of Amon G. Carter Stadium to a total capacity of 44,008. In addition, the original artificial turf was replaced with natural grass prior to the 1992 season.