FROM JANUARY 2015
Jerry Blaisdell
The Cowboy Rides Away
SPONSORED BY DREW SPRINGER FINANCIAL SERVICES
BY MARSHA BROWN
PHOTO BY STEVE SCHILLIO
Weatherford reluctantly bids farewell to
its city manager Jerry Blaisdell. It’s the
beginning of a new era. But, are we ready
for the Blaisdell era to end?
I
patrolmen Pinkard recruited for the new undercover unit.
Blaisdell’s shift was from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and Pinkard
wanted Blaisdell to start his new job the first thing the next
morning. Blaisdell asked his new commander if he could
take the rest of the night off, go home and rest up before
starting his new job. His commander said, “No.” End of
discussion.
“I worked all night,” Blaisdell said. “Then I reported to
my new job in vice at 7 a.m.”
Fort Worth in 1966 wasn’t quite tamed, yet. Hell’s Half
Acre was being razed to make way for a new convention
center, but Jacksboro Highway was still a hotbed of crime
and gangsters.
“There was a lot happening at that time,” Blaisdell
said. “The whole ‘Jacksboro Highway’ thing was still
going on. The city had a lot of turmoil and had a lot of
gambling issues. We began to work on those. It wasn’t a
popular job.”
Jacksboro Highway is purported to be the
birthplace of Texas Roadhouse Music, a genre that
developed during the 1950s and early ’60s. Otherwise
known as Highway 199, the stretch of four-lane blacktop
is still famous for its roadhouses, bars, illegal gambling
houses, prostitutes and ju ke joints, although they vanished
years ago. It was such a significant part of Texas lore
that novelist Larry McMurtry included the street in The
Last Picture Show. In the bestseller, restless teenagers
Duane Crawford and Sonny Jackson headed to Jacksboro
Highway in search of a raucous good time.
“There was a lot of struggling over gambling and
DECEMBER 2015 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
t’s hard to recall a time when Jerry Blaisdell was
not the guy to call when something, went wrong in
Weatherford. He’s retiring at the end of this month and
the realization is starting to sink in that soon, citizens of
Weatherford are going have to call somebody else.
Since 1989, Blaisdell has been a driving force in
the City of Weatherford, first as its police chief, then as
assistant city manager and lastly as city manager.
“Jerry Blaisdell’s leadership has gotten us through
some very tough times,” said Craig Swancy, Weatherford’s
mayor pro-tem. “I always admired Jerry’s ability to mentor
city employees. His diplomacy was second to none and
he is a true leader who brings out the potential in other
people. Nobody could have led us through the tough
times the way Jerry did.”
Blaisdell came to Weatherford as chief of police in
1989, after retiring from the Ft. Worth P.D., after 23 years.
While most boys dream of becoming a police officer,
Jerry Blaisdell really wanted to be a game warden. He
wanted to work with wildlife. He ended up working with
wildlife, but not the kind he had envisioned.
As his graduation from Tarleton State University
graduation neared Blaisdell realized he needed a job and
applied at the FWPD. “They contacted me very quickly,”
and offered more money than a job as a game warden.
Blaisdell started out as a beat cop working the
graveyard shift in the area called “Stop Six”, making $450
a month.
“You could live on it, but just barely,” he said. “Many
times I had $5 to last me two weeks.” But Blaisdell quickly
moved up. One night, while he worked to maintain
law and order in one of Fort Worth’s most crime-ridden
neighborhoods, a car drove up alongside him and he
found himself face-to-face with Capt. R.E. Pinkard.
“He was over narcotics [for the FWPD],” Blaisdell said.
“He asked me if I wanted to go over to vice and narcotics.
I said, ‘Sure. I’ll be happy to, but I don’t know anything
about either vice or narcotics.’” Blaisdell was one of four
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