The Fort Worth Stockyards Once Supplied Beef, Pork and Lamb to People Throughout the Country

In the 1900s when the Fort Worth Stockyards were supplying beef, pork and lamb to people throughout the country. With the completion of the railroad line to Fort Worth, Texas in 1876 it made the city a major shipping point for livestock and led to the construction of the 206 acre Union Stockyards, which opened for business on January 19, 1890. The company was not successful because it lacked the money to buy enough cattle to attract local ranchers. The president of the company invited a wealthy Boston businessman, Greenleif Simpson, to Fort Worth, in an effort to get Simpson to invest in the stockyards. Simpson’s visit coincided with heavy rains and a railroad strike, so there were more cattle than usual in the yard creating the impression that things were going well. This led Simpson and a half dozen other businessmen from Boston and Chicago to invest in the company. These men changed the name from the Union Stockyards to the Fort Worth Stockyards Company. The success of the Stockyards led local businessmen to reach the conclusion that the city would benefit from having packing plants next to the Stockyards. By the early 1900s, they had convinced Armour & Co. and Swift & Co. to build plants adjacent to the Stockyards. The packing houses were a boon to Fort Worth’s economy, attracting the business of a large numbers of ranchers. In 1909, Armour and Swift bought 265,279 cattle, 128,934 hogs and 40,160 sheep, which brought more than six million dollars into the local economy. The Stockyards had their most successful year during World War II, processing 5,277,496 head of livestock in 1944. By 1969, sales at the Stockyards had declined to 1,045,158 head and by 1986, sales reached an all-time low of 57,181 animals. These days Fort Worth is known for its thriving business-services and technology sectors, but the Stockyards are in our DNA. They are and will always be an essential part of what Fort Worth is.