Elected the 45th Mayor of Fort Worth in 2021, Mattie Parker was reelected in 2023, garnering 79% of the vote, and won a third term in 2025. Governing one of the fastest-growing cities in America is no easy feat, but Parker faces both challenges and successes head-on, leading the city through a host of urban challenges, from public safety to public health care affordability.
Born in Austin but raised in Hico, Texas, Mayor Parker grew up two miles down a dirt road and 15 miles outside of town, which today only has a population of 1,400. “It was a very remote and rural lifestyle,” she explains. “I was the fourth generation raised in the house on my family’s ranch and had a ‘party line’ phone until I was 13, which meant that I shared a phone line with my neighbors down the road who were 90 years old.”
Belying her small-town roots, Mayor Parker graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and has a law degree from Texas A&M University School of Law…