817 Area Code – Fort Worth, Texas: Location, Time Zone & History

Fort Worth calls itself the "City of Cowboys and Culture," and its twice-daily cattle drive through the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District -- the only one of its kind in a major American city -- runs on numbers that begin with area code 817. The code was created in 1953, splitting off mostly from area code 915, one of Texas's original 1947 area codes, to serve Fort Worth and the western half of the Metroplex.

817's territory shrank sharply in a single flash-cut on July 25, 1997: the northern reach toward Wichita Falls and Denton became area code 940, while the southern stretch through Waco, Temple, and Killeen became 254, leaving 817 confined to Fort Worth and Tarrant County. Three years later, on October 7, 2000, area code 682 was layered on top as an all-services overlay rather than another split, and mandatory ten-digit dialing followed.

• Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth plant assembles the F-35 Lightning II and employs more than 17,000 workers.
• Bell Textron builds military and commercial rotorcraft in the region.
• American Airlines is headquartered in Fort Worth, alongside the DFW International Airport hub.
• BNSF Railway's headquarters anchors the area's logistics and rail sector.

An October 2023 exhaust analysis projected the western Metroplex won't need a third area code until around 2038, and eastern Tarrant County suburbs like Arlington, Grapevine, and Southlake already share overlap with the neighboring Dallas 214/469/972/945 complex.