Denton, Texas, sits at the northern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Area, and while it’s home to plenty of commuting suburbanites, it’s also a decent-sized city in its own right. However, there are a few facts about Denton that aren’t true about its neighbors.
The Denton Arts and Jazz Festival Is a Big Deal
Like any other university in Texas, the University of North Texas has a lot of pride in its sports programs, the Fighting Green. However, the university’s specialty is arts and music, and so the annual Denton Arts and Jazz Festival is much bigger and covers a lot more than what you’d expect from an average county fair. Held on the last full weekend of every April, the festival includes seven stages, plenty of places for artists and artisans to display and sell their works, and performers who cover every kind of jazz and much more.
Dr. Phil Is a Dentonite
Dr. Phil McGraw, the psychologist made famous by Oprah and his own confrontational style of psychology, earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology at UNT. He’s not the only graduate, either. UNT has major facilities dedicated to science and research, which includes biology, medicine, logistics, acoustics, and just about anything else you can imagine.
The Old Soul of Denton Was Fry Street
Fry Street is a short road along the edge of the UNT campus where students used to congregate in the hundreds. Many still come by for a beer at one of the many bars along the stretch, but a few changes in recent years have made it much less of a hangout than before.
Up through the 90s and early 2000s, Fry Street was home to The Tomato, a pizza place as much about hanging out and being seen as it was about the pizza. Fry Street is also where the Bubble Man sells herbal mixes out of the back of his van. The mixes are completely legal, if you can believe that. Unfortunately, a development company bulldozed half a block along north Fry Street back in 2006, including The Tomato, and in 2011 a different company replaced the area with student housing.
The Best Horse Ranches Are in Denton County
Outside the city limits of Denton, Texas, you’ll find the best horse country in the United States. Denton ranchers raise Thoroughbreds, Appaloosas, Arabians, and everything in between. Visitors can pick from between six guided tours of Horse Country ranches, or they can go on a self-guided driving tour that will get them great views of all the different breeds and ranches in the area. Three ranches also offer horseback rides the entire family can enjoy.
As a city and as a county, Denton has plenty to offer visitors and locals alike. Much of the city’s heart and soul comes from the University of North Texas, which is so large its student population counts towards around a third of the Denton’s population, but Denton’s culture and history extend much farther than that.
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