The railroad turned the cattle stop into a cattle capital. The first Texas & Pacific locomotive rolled in on July 19, 1876, and within a generation Fort Worth had built the Union Stockyards north of the river, where longhorns could be penned, sold, and shipped by rail instead of driven on foot. The great packing houses of Swift and Armour followed, and the Stockyards became one of the busiest livestock markets in the country. The brick Exchange building, the cattle pens, and the coliseum that still stand on Exchange Avenue date from that era — the heart of Cowtown, preserved as a living National Historic District where the longhorns still walk twice a day.
The fort came first. On June 6, 1849, a company of U.S. Army dragoons under Major Ripley Arnold raised a camp on a bluff above the Clear Fork of the Trinity, one of a line of frontier posts strung along the edge of settlement. That autumn it was named Fort Worth, for Major General William Jenkins Worth, a hero of the recent war with Mexico who had died earlier that year. The soldiers stayed only a few years — by 1853 the frontier had moved west and the army moved with it — but the civilians who took over the empty buildings stayed, and a town grew up around the old parade ground.
Why People Visit Fort Worth
Visitors come to Fort Worth for the rare combination it offers: a real working cowboy past in the Stockyards, where the longhorns still walk, and a world-class art scene minutes away in the Cultural District. Add Sundance Square, the Water Gardens, the Botanic Garden, and the winter rodeo, and a single day can hold cattle pens and fine paintings. Proud, friendly, and unmistakably Texan, Fort Worth rewards anyone who wants the West and the wider world in the same town.
