Fort Worth Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Fort Worth Stockyards

Fort Worth, Texas is named for U.S. Army Gen. William Jenkins Worth

Fort Worth, Texas, is named for U.S. Army Gen. William Jenkins Worth. He came from humble beginnings in Hudson, New York, where he was born in 1794. After rudimentary schooling he worked as a merchant until he was 18, when he applied for a commission in the Army so he could fight in the War of 1812.

He distinguished himself during the war and went onto an illustrious career in the Army. He fought against the Seminole Indians in Florida and was second in command to General Zachary Taylor during the Mexican War. After the Mexican War, in January of 1849, he was placed in command of the Department of Texas. In that post, he proposed building 10 forts to mark where the west Texas frontier began from Eagle Pass to the confluence of the West Fork and Clear Fork of the Trinity River.

He never lived to see the forts completed, dieing of cholera in May of 1849. His remains were rei…

Fort Worth Home to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame

Fort Worth is home to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. This outstanding museum celebrates many strong and courageous women who epitomized what is great about America. While the cowboy is an American icon, the many women who settled the American West are often overlooked.

The 220 inductees include everyone from the painter Georgia O’Keeffe to the sharpshooter Annie Oakley to U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The museum got its start in 1975 in the basement of the Deaf Smith County Library in Hereford, Texas, and moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1994. It moved into its current home in the Fort Worth Cultural District in 2002.

Longhorn and the Chisholm Trail

Much of Fort Worth, Texas', early development and its nickname "Cowtown" can be attributed to its location on the Chisholm Trail. The post-Civil War trail was used to move cattle from southern Texas up to railheads in Kansas.

During the war, Texas ranchers had not been able to get their cattle to market. Because of the over supply, after the war, Texas ranchers were only receiving $4 per head for their cattle, while ranchers in the East were receiving $40 per head. In 1867, a fellow named Joseph McCoy built a stockyard in Abilene, Kansas, and urged the Texas ranchers to drive their Longhorn cattle to his yards. Once he purchased them, he would ship them East. In 1867 alone, he shipped 35,000 cattle East. Most of those ranchers driving their Longhorns to Kansas, stopped in Fort Worth.

As important as it was for Fort Worth's development, the Chisholm Trail's legend grew even…

Fort Worth Evolving from Cow Town to Hipster City

via: USA TODAY

Longhorn cattle still roam the streets of this historic cow town.

Twice a day, grizzled men wearing authentic-looking hats, scarves and gloves climb atop of horses and slowly walk a herd of about 20 cattle – horns long enough to lance a human heart from 4 feet away – three blocks from the animals' night pens to the day pens, then back again.

It's a touristy spectacle in the city's historic stockyards sponsored by the visitor's bureau and aimed at the busloads of out-of-towners and gaggles of gawking grade-school students on field trips. But it's also a nod to the city's 19-century importance as a major cattle depot, from where thousands of head of cattle each year would slog north to Kansas City through the Chisholm Trail and onto plates in restaurants in Chicago, Boston and Washington.