On December 14, 1989, Alliance Airport opened on the prairie next to Haslet. Built through a partnership of Hillwood (Ross Perot Jr.’s development company), the City of Fort Worth, and the Federal Aviation Administration, it was billed as the world’s first industrial airport designed for cargo and corporate aviation. In 2022 it was renamed Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport in honor of H. Ross Perot Sr.
The airport became the anchor of AllianceTexas, a 27,000-acre development of cargo aviation, rail, warehouses, offices, and housing. Today it is home to 602 companies. Hillwood reports that since 1990 the development has paid $4.6 billion in property taxes to local governments, Haslet among them.
The first boom
By 1990 the Handbook of Texas was calling Haslet “a commuter community for Fort Worth,” with 795 residents and about twelve businesses. The census counted 1,134 people in 2000 and 1,517 in 2010. After nearly a century under 300 people, the town had grown more than fivefold in two decades.
