Fort Worth Stockyards: From Cattle Pens and Packers to a Historic District

What Are the Fort Worth Stockyards?

The Fort Worth Stockyards are a historic livestock and meatpacking district north of downtown Fort Worth, Texas, now preserved as a National Historic District. The Fort Worth Stockyards history page says the city built the Union Stockyards in 1887, about two and a half miles north of the Tarrant County Courthouse. The yards turned Fort Worth into the livestock hub that earned it the nickname Cowtown.

How Fort Worth Became Cowtown

Between 1866 and 1890, drovers moved more than four million cattle through Fort Worth, according to the Stockyards site. The railroad arrived in 1876 and made the city a major shipping point. Cattle that had walked up trails from South Texas now met the rails there.

The yards were built in 1887, but the company lacked money to attract local ranchers. It courted Boston investor Greenleif Simpson, who on April 27, 1893 bought the Stockyards for $133,333.33 and renamed it the Fort Worth Stockyards Company.

Armour, Swift and the Exchange Building

Simpson and his fellow investors wanted meatpacking kept local. By about 1900 they had attracted Armour and Company and Swift and Company. The Historic Fort Worth pages on the Armour and Company plant cover the buildings, while the stockyards history says the two packers settled on their sites with a coin toss. Armour took the northern tract and began building in 1902, and Swift took the southern site, which held a gravel pit.

Construction of the pens, barns and Livestock Exchange Building also began in 1902. The Exchange housed commission firms, telegraph and railroad offices and other support businesses, and was nicknamed The Wall Street of the West.

Cowtown Coliseum, Niles City and the War Years

Construction on Cowtown Coliseum began in 1907 and finished in 88 working days, in time for the Feeders and Breeders Show. The Coliseum became home to the first indoor rodeo. Stockyard and packinghouse wealth created the town of Niles City in 1911, with about $30 million in property value, and Fort Worth annexed it in 1923.

In 1917 the Stockyards was the largest horse and mule market in the world, as Allied officers bought animals for the war effort. In 1944 a peak 5,277,496 head were processed.

Decline of the Packers

After the war, paved roads and trucking shifted the market toward shippers and smaller local auctions. Armour closed its Fort Worth plant in 1962, and Swift followed in 1971. Armour's office building was demolished, and Swift's headquarters later housed a restaurant in the 1970s and now serves as XTO Energy offices. By 1986 sales hit an all-time low of 57,181 animals.

The Texas Historical Commission's atlas holds a National Register document for the Stockyards area, which is a good place to see the formal historic listing.

Preservation and Visiting Today

In 1976 Charlie and Sue McCafferty founded the North Fort Worth Historical Society. Their work helped establish the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District and restore the Livestock Exchange Building, the Coliseum and the former Swift headquarters. The Stockyards Museum opened in the Exchange Building in 1989.

Today the district hosts a twice-daily cattle drive, described as the world's only one of its kind, and has more than a hundred shopping, dining and entertainment venues. For more on cattle trails and trading towns, see the ranching section of farm.FM and a farm.FM story about Fort Worth Cowtown.