In the 1960 metro definitions and population, Dallas and Fort Worth were separate metropolitan areas at 1.08 and .57 million, respectively.
Dallas alone was comparable to Cincy, New Orleans, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, Milwaukee, San Diego, Buffalo, and Seattle (all in the roughly 900k-1.3m range). Dallas was a major and large metropolitan area by the standards of that time, not a minor large or even middling city. Dallas is in the middle of the pack here in 1960, but today the Dallas metropolitan division (5.4m) is substantially larger than all but Atlanta, Houston, and Miami.
Fort Worth alone was comparable to Birmingham, Columbus, Dayton, Memphis, Louisville, Norfolk, Phoenix, Providence, Rochester, Sacramento, Riverside, San Antonio, San Jose, Syracuse, Tampa, and Toledo (all roughly 500k to 900k) and most of these were considered large, if secondary, metropolitan areas. Fort Worth is in the low to middle end of the pack here, and was also appreciably larger any southern metropolitan area not listed anywhere in this post. Today, however, the Fort Worth metro division (2.7m) is significantly larger than all but Phoenix and Riverside (which it is smaller than) and Sacramento, Tampa, and San Antonio (to which it is comparable).
Both of them were larger than Tulsa (418k).
Dallas+Fort Worth (y’all are talking about the 1960s, so I feel comfortable combining them since the 1960s is the decade development overflow from Dallas changed the population dynamics enough that the metropolitan area merger was done in 1973) combined is comparable to Minneapolis, Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. (all between 1.4m and 2.0m).
The only metropolitan areas that were larger than that last tier listed above at the time were:
1. New York (10.7m)
2. Los Angeles (6.7m) and Chicago (6.2m)
3. Philadelphia (4.3m) and Detroit (3.8m)
4. San Francisco (2.7m), Boston (2.5m) and Pittsburgh (2.4m)
A combined DFW would have been the 11th largest metropolitan area at the time.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...ts/pc-s1-1.pdf
On the flip side, to show Fort Worth’s importance:
than and the Fort Worth division (2.7m)