About a hundred years ago, the Texas Spring Palace, an elaborate oriental-themed wooden amusement park, opened in Fort Worth. A year later, in 1890, it died in a chaotic and deadly blaze, depicted in a painting by artist Orin McCormick, a painting that is known only through reporoductions that were sold as souvenirs. A second painting of the structure by the same artist was identified recently through some antiques-roadshow style sleuthing. A Fort Worth attorney bought the piece in an antique mall and donated it to UT, Arlington, and it will be on display at the old Tarrant County Courthouse this summer.
Rubber neck stretches 119 years
