Fort Worth Stockyards

by J'Nell L Pate

Overview

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 1880s. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781531637750
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing Library Editions
Publication date:	01/14/2009
Pages:	130
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

J'Nell L. Pate is a local Fort Worth historian and writer whose dissertation covered the Fort Worth stockyards. The work later appeared as a book, Livestock Legacy: The Fort Worth Stockyards 1887-1987. Published in 1988, it won that year's prize for the best book on Texas history from the Texas State Historical Association. She has written six other books. Photographs for this title came from numerous local libraries, including the North Fort Worth Historical Society, and private collections.

Editorial Reviews

Title: Eight for Pate
Author: Jeri Field
Publisher: Azle News
Date: 1/15/2009

The eighth book written by local historian and columnist J'Nell Pate goes on sale Monday, Jan. 19. Pate, an Azle resident and retired history teacher, has a master's degree from TCU in Fort Worth and a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Texas in Denton. She has contributed a history column "Pages From Western History," to the Azle News for over 40 years.

Her latest book, Images of America: Fort Worth Stockyards is a visual representation of the Fort Worth Stockyards' first 100 years.

In 127 pages, Pate combines 200 historical photos with updated information received from personal contacts and research from her doctoral dissertation on the Fort Worth Stockyards, which in 1988 became an award-winning academic book.

Fort Worth Stockyards takes the reader on a path that begins in the late 1800's to show how a tiny community of 20 houses and two general stores became one of the largest "livestock marketing yards" in the Southwest and changed along with the times to enjoy economic success - not once, but twice.

During its early years, the Fort Worth Stock Show, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1996, was held each March at the Fort Worth Stockyards. From 1898 to 1941 the show went on, with the exception of 1942 when a flood left silt and sand on the coliseum floor and 1943 when World War II turned the livestock exhibits building (now Billy Bob's Texas) into an airplane assembly plant.

That next year the stock show moved to the newly constructed Will Rogers Memorial Complex in west Fort Worth, and it has stayed.

Readers will also learn from Pate's book how the Fort Worth Stockyards became the largest horse and mule market in the world during World War I and the largest sheep market in the world during World War II.

In its later years, while changes in the marketing of livestock hastened the demise of big stockyards across the country, the Fort Worth Stockyards became the "only major livestock market that was able to turn itself into a tourist attraction."

Pate points out how in its "second existence" the Fort Worth Stockyards have managed to "save most of its historic buildings... and bring in economic dollars to the city of Fort Worth... just as it did in its first life."

Before retiring in 2000, Dr. J'Nell Pate taught history for 39 years in the Fort Worth Public schools and at Tarrant County College. Today she serves as secretary of the Azle Historical Museum and continues to research and write on Texas history.

Her new book Fort Worth Stockyards, published by Arcadia Publishing, sells for $21.99 at local retailers, independent bookstores and online. A companion postcard packet sells for an additional $7.99.

A limited number of copies of Pate's new book will soon be available for sale at the Azle News office at 321 West Main. And in the spring, Dr. Pate is scheduling a book signing in Azle, with the time and date to be announced.

Title: Wrangle a copy of local historian's Stockyards book
Author: Staff Writer
Publisher: Star Telegram
Date: 1/18/2009

Just in time for the Fort Worth Stock Show comes this 128-page soft-cover history of the Stockyards by local historian J'Nell L. Pate. Heavy on photos (more than 200 of them), the book covers the Stockyards' early stages in the late 1800s and ends with a photo of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivering a speech there last year. Also being released separately is a set of 15 postcards featuring historic photos of the Stockyards. A really cool one is a view of West Exchange Avenue in the 1950s that shows the street lined not with livestock but with vintage Buicks and Cadillacs.

From the Publisher