Print
Share page with AddThis

Hodgkins Park

4200 Hodgkins Road
Lake Worth, Texas 76135

Hours:

7:00am to 10:00pm

Park Amenities
  • Picnic Tables
  • Playground
  • Grills
  • Large Covered Pavilion

Park Rental Applications must be filled out in person.

  • For Park rentals, go to City Hall located at 3850 Adam Grubb, Lake Worth, Texas 76135.

Times Record news articles! Click here to read them!

James Hodgkins "The Judge"

In the years following the Civil War, many Americans moved west to start a new life on the frontier of the United States. Texas, one of the newer States of the Union, experienced a great deal of migration from the east. During this period of time, this search for a new beginning brought the Hodgkins family from Pike County, Pennsylvania to Texas in the year of 1877. The small community of Birdville in eastern Tarrant County became the family’s new home.

John and Elizabeth Hodgkins, both of whom had migrated from England through New York to Pennsylvania, had an eleven-year-old son, James, who helped drive the wagon on the trip to Texas. The family settled on a farm in this new State in the hope of this new beginning.

During this same period, the Greer family of Paris, Tennessee also moved to the area know as Benbrook with daughter Sarah Elizabeth to start farming on the edge of Comanche County.

As time passed, the two new Texans met at a church social and were married in Benbrook on April 11, 1891. The new family moved to Niles City, which became part of north Fort Worth, where Hodgkins operated a meat slaughter business. He supplied meat to area stores in the city before the large packing houses (Armour/Swift) came to Fort Worth.

In the fall of 1906, however, the family invested their life savings to purchase 240 acres in rural Tarrant County on the banks of the Trinity River. By this time Jim and Sarah Hodgkins had eight children and two more were born on the Hodgkins farm in later years. This farm was the sole livelihood to the family during these years. Beside a small creek which fed into the Trinity River, Hodgkins dug a well which became the only source of fresh water in the area for the next nine years. Today this well sets in the middle of Hodgkins Memorial Park and serves as the park’s focal point. In 1915 the water backed up behind the new dam which had been constructed on the Trinity and “Lake” Worth was formed. The lake was built as one of the first primary water sources for the City of Fort Worth. The new lake covered almost 100 acres of prime fertile ‘bottom’ land belonging to Hodgkins. The Hodgkins farm had changed the area for all times.

In order to continue to supply additional clean drinking water to his grown children and their families along with others moving to the community additional wells were dug near the streets of Chapel Lane, Williams Springs Rd, Greenbriar Crescent, Alice, Lilac Lane and Nine-Mile Bridge Rd (Azle Avenue) and Wells Drive. The names of streets in Lake Worth are significant as they are tied to Hodgkins legacy and heritage of his life.  A total of eight (8) wells with network of connecting pipelines were also connected to supply water to homes of the Hodgkins family members. One could say that Hodgkins had his own water system long before a city was incorporated. The area was commonly known as the “lake” and northwest Tarrant County.   

Hodgkins saw the need for a store to supply the people coming to the new lake. This store supplied food, drinking water, fish bait and various items for a weekend at the lake, operated from 1915 to 1934. In addition, Hodgkins rented tents, boats, fishing poles and cabins on the edge of Lake Worth. He also would position duck hunters in ‘blinds’ during the winter months on Lake Worth. The area’s first telephone was installed at the store and a megaphone was used by Hodgkins to call to the area campers, boaters and residents of the community for telephone calls.

In addition to being considered the area’s first businessman, Hodgkins also took on the job of law and order and became know in the area as “The Judge”.

As the lake area became more populated, Hodgkins was instrumental in forming the first school. Hodgkins acquired a two-room building and set aside property for a school. The school opened in 1923 with 16 students and a faculty of 1. He employed the first teacher and paid her salary for the first year. James Hodgkins was the founder of the Lake Worth Independent School District. The first was teacher Miss Effie Springfield who later married Stirling Morris. Mrs. Morris spent her entire career in the Lake Worth ISD teaching many Lake Worth students the 4th grade into the 1970’s. Effie Morris Lane in Lake Worth is named in her behalf.

Hodgkins spent the remainder of his life in service to the new community. He was instrumental in the first bus line. He purchased the first vehicle used to transport children to school. The closest high school at this time was North Side (Ft Worth) and many of his children and great grandchildren attended. Hodgkins made sure they had transportation to and from school.

Hodgkins died on October 29, 1942. The funeral procession to the cemetery stretched for miles. Burial was at the Hodgkins Family Cemetery in Lake Worth. His wife, Sarah Elizabeth Greer Hodgkins, died on June 17th, 1952 and was buried in Ash Creek Cemetery in Azle, Texas. James Hodgkins made a significant impact to what we know as Lake Worth Texas today. In 1965 Vivian Hodgkins White deeded 59 acres of roads and rights-of-way to Tarrant County Texas ultimately benefiting the City of Lake Worth; land that was part of the original 240 acres that James and Sarah Hodgkins purchased in 1906.

In 1987 the sons of Vivian Hodgkins White; James, Barry, Charles and Geoffrey; grandsons of James Hodgkins conveyed 2.1 acres of land for ‘Hodgkins Spring Park’ to the City of Lake Worth. Throughout his lifetime it was his wishes that parkland would be ‘given’ to a future city for children and adults to enjoy. The Vivian White family also built the fence wall, initial picnic table and pavilion concrete sites. It was conveyed with the understanding the well would remain intact and would one day be considered, sponsored and recommended to the Texas and Tarrant County Historical Societies’ for a Historical Marker. This site along with the well in the Hodgkins Memorial Park is in the memory of this unselfish, dedicated community leader who residents, children and grandchildren knew as The Judge.

August 15, 2019