May 24, 2018

We visited the old stockyards in Fort Worth which are no longer used, but are a tourist attraction with lots of restaurants in the old cattle pens.  Twice a day there is a small long horn cattle drive down the street for the benefit of the tourists.  Between 1866 and 1890, 4 million cattle were driven to Forth Worth to be sold and shipped to other markets by the railroad.  Eventually  various investors figured out that it was better to build slaughter and meatpacking plants nearby and then ship the meat out.  They built the Livestock Exchange building which became known as the “Wall Street of the West”.

The Texas Longhorn Cattle are direct descendants of cattle brought from Spain.  The spread of the horns can be 5-7 ft.  As the Spanish moved them north many escaped and developed into a low feed and drought tolerant rangy cattle breed.  As settlers arrived they captured the cattle as their own.  In the later half of the 1800’s many trails including the Chisolm Trail developed to drive the cattle north.  But as time went on other breeds of cattle gradually replaced the Longhorns.  The Longhorns almost went extinct but were saved in small herds starting in 1927.

Click to see more and also check out the competition galleries for May through August .

Of course we have the cowboys and cowgirl in authentic customs as well.