For our History class Charlie and I will be reading Fort Worth Stockyards (Images of America) Paperback a gentleman in the Fort Worth Stockyards shared with Charlie and I.
I wish my mom or my grandmother Dorie worked at the meatpacking plant Armour and Swift. I know she would have stories to share with Charlie he could use in school.
As early as 1867, Fort Worth held promise as an ideal Stockyards. Making their way to northern markets, cattle passed through the city on what became the Chisholm Trail. By 1876, local businessmen urged railroad development, and the establishment of local packing facilities and animal pens followed in the 1880’s. The first Stockyards opened in 1889. It was not until the nation’s two largest meatpacking giants, Armour and Swift, bought into the local market in 1902, however, that the Stockyards began to thrive. Fort Worth became the largest Stockyards in the Southwest and ranked consistently from third to fourth nationwide. Most major Stockyards have now closed, including Fort Worth in 1992. Of these, only Fort Worth has successfully turned its former livestock market into a tourist site, attracting nearly a million visitors annually.
