This morning we got up and drove an hour or so to Forth Worth. We visited the historic stockyards and it was really cool. Fort Worth was the last place for drovers to get supplies as they drove longhorn cattle up the Chisolm Trail and it became an important cattle-trading center earning the name ‘Cowtown’. From 1866, millions of heads of cattle passed through Fort Worth making it the largest livestock-marketing center in the Southwest. In 1976 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Fort Worth Stockyards Historic District.







Today it is mostly about shopping and eating although we did visit the museum and learned about some of the Stockyards history, and twice daily there is a cattle drive through the streets. Wranglers dressed in period outfits guide the Fort Worth herd of longhorn cattle along East Exchange Avenue. It’s pretty cool to watch even though there are only about 12 steer who could probably do the drive by themselves. They all looked quite bored with the whole deal as they walked down the street, but at the same time very intimidating; I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of those horns which can apparently grow up to 7 feet.







They are supposedly quite docile and they did appear to be almost gentle as we watched them before the drive, in fact I wouldn’t mind one for myself.

Mike! They have done a great job of preserving this area!





Mike: Some of these horns go over 6 feet tip to tip, how would you like to be skewered by those?