STOCKYARDS NATIONAL HISTORIC DISTRICt



STOCKYARDS NATIONAL HISTORIC DISTRICt

 

Stockyards National Historic District



Stockyards National Historic District - Step into the West

THE STOCKYARDS ARE LOADED WITH PLACES TO EAT, EVENTS, STAY, SHOP, PLAY AND MORE

Fort Worth is where the West begins, and nothing embodies Western heritage better than the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District. From the original brick walkways to the wooden corrals, every inch of the Stockyards tells the true history of Texas’s famous livestock industry. The Fort Worth Herd is the world's only twice daily cattle drive, held every day at 11:30 AM & 4:00 PM in the Fort Worth Stockyards. When the railroad arrived in 1876, Fort Worth became a major shipping point for livestock, so the city built the Union Stockyards, two and a half miles north of the Tarrant County Courthouse, in 1887.

 

History

As a drover headed cattle up the Chisholm Trail to the railheads, he had one last stop for rest and supplies: Fort Worth, Texas.

Beyond Fort Worth, he’d be crossing the Red River into Indian Territory.

Between 1866 and 1890, drovers trailed more than four million head of cattle through Fort Worth. The city soon became known as “Cowtown.”

When the railroad arrived in 1876, Fort Worth became a major shipping point for livestock, so the city built the Union Stockyards, two and a half miles north of the Tarrant County Courthouse, in 1887.

But the Union Stockyards Company lacked the funds to buy enough cattle to attract local ranchers, so President Mike C. Hurley invited wealthy Boston capitalist Greenleif Simpson to Fort Worth in hopes he would invest.

A lucky fluke won the Stockyards an investor.

Simpson arrived and found the pens full of cattle; he decided Fort Worth represented a good market, and made plans to invest. Little did he know, the pens didn’t normally hold that much cattle; he’d simply arrived on the heels of heavy rains and a railroad strike.

On April 27, 1893, Simpson bought the Union Stockyards for $133,333.33 and changed the name to the Fort Worth Stockyards Company.

Simpson invited other investors to join him, including his Boston neighbor, Louville V. Niles, whose primary business was meatpacking. They soon realized that instead of shipping the cattle off to other markets to be processed, they’d be much better off building meat packing plants nearby so they could keep the business in the city. The investors began working to attract major packers to Fort Worth, and by about 1900, they had persuaded both Armour & Co. and Swift & Co. to build plants near the Stockyards.

The businessmen planned construction – by coin toss.

Armour and Swift held a coin toss to decide who would get which tract of land. Armour won the toss and chose the northern site; construction began in 1902.

However, Swift & Co. ended up getting the better end of the bargain with the southern site, which contained a large gravel pit that they used for the construction of their plant. They even sold some of the gravel to Armour.

That same year, construction started on the pens, the barns, and the new Livestock Exchange Building, which housed the many livestock commission companies, telegraph offices, railroad offices and other support businesses. It became known as “The Wall Street of the West.”

The success of the Stockyards meant the area needed an indoor show facility. In 1907, construction began on a grand coliseum – now known as the Cowtown Coliseum – that was completed in just 88 working days, in time for the grand opening of the Feeders & Breeders Show. The Coliseum became the home of the first indoor rodeo.
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