A summer breeze sweeps across the patio at Joe T. Garcia’s, and water splashes into the sun-kissed pool where generations of this proud family came of age. Tranquility and tradition are the main draws here, but it’s a well-oiled kitchen operation, perfected over eight decades, that keeps the Mexican dishes and margaritas flowing at Fort Worth’s busiest and best-known restaurant. Rarely has an 18-hour workday been made to look so easy.
Landmarks Commission Approves Expanded Stockyards Historic District
The Historic and Cultural Landmarks Commission voted Monday to approve an expanded version of the Stockyards historic district and reject the smaller district that the Fort Worth City Council favors.
With the vote, the Landmarks Commission is recommending that the council approve the larger district when it votes on the issue April 5. Regardless of the Landmarks Commission’s recommendation, however, the final decision will be up to the council.
The Zoning Commission will also vote March 9 on the recommendations it will send to city council regarding the historic district. The council will consider the Landmarks Commission’s recommendations and the Zoning Commission’s recommendations before taking final action.
To Save the Stockyards’ Living History
Rows of dutifully preserved photographs in the Stockyards Museum are all that remain from much of Fort Worth’s early days. Several images capture the enormity of the meatpacking industry at the turn of the last century. Spread over 100 acres, 2,600 pins once held cattle, hogs, and sheep in what are now large parking lots flanking both sides of East Exchange Avenue.
The livestock was headed to either of two sprawling meatpacking plants: Swift and Company or Armour and Company. Throughout the early part of the 1900s, the Stockyards ranked among the top five meatpacking markets in the country.
Little of that era remains today. Both plants were largely destroyed by fires in the early 1970s. The wood that constitutes large chunks of the structures has been damaged by the elements, and few traces of the beams that once guided animals to slaughter lie intact today. The barns for …
The New Isis Theatre
The New Isis Theatre in the Fort Worth Stockyards is one of the last remaining single-screen movie theaters in Fort Worth, Texas. The original Isis Theater was a Victorian style theater built on the site in 1913 that opened in 1914. The theater burned in 1935 and the The New Isis Theatre art deco-style theater was built a year later. Last year, Fort Worth businessman Larry White Jr. bought the building, which had been vacant since 1988.
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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…