{"id":7467,"date":"2026-01-09T08:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=7467"},"modified":"2026-01-09T08:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:08:27","slug":"7467-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/7467-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Head ‘Em Up and Move ‘Em Out!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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FORT WORTH STOCK YARDS \u2013 On\u00a0an\u00a0unseasonably warm Sunday morning after Christmas, my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I\u00a0stood\u00a0on\u00a0East Exchange Avenue along with a few thousand other folks crowded along opposing sidewalks. (\u201cUnseasonably warm\u201d is\u00a0quickly\u00a0becoming an oxymoron in this age of climate change.) We managed to secure a spot behind the rope stretched along the\u00a0street\u00a0by two world-weary guys who clearly have been doing\u00a0this for\u00a0a long time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGet behind the rope, please. No sitting on the curb. You must remain standing,\u201d they intoned,\u00a0over and over.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u00a0were\u00a0here to watch the\u00a0<\/span>Fort Worth Herd Cattle Drive<\/span><\/i>, an event that occurs twice daily except for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. About 15 majestic, full-grown Texas\u00a0long\"\"<\/a><\/span>horns will be \u201cdriven\u201d from the Livestock Exchange Building,\u00a0a few blocks down and then herded back into their pens.\u00a0The drive\u00a0is rightly billed as a living tribute to Fort Worth\u2019s cowboy legacy and called the\u00a0\u201cworld\u2019s\u00a0only twice-daily cattle drive.\u201d\u00a0Other cities\u00a0\u2013\u00a0such as Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Dodge City, Kansas\u00a0\u2013\u00a0with\u00a0similar bovine heritages hold cattle drives\u00a0during\u00a0special events. Only in Fort Worth can one see\u00a0a drive\u00a0362 days\u00a0a year, twice daily, weather\u00a0permitting.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not\u00a0these\u00a0longhorns\u2019\u00a0first rodeo.\u00a0With about a half-dozen drovers (their word)\u00a0keeping them on\u00a0East\u00a0Exchange Avenue and off the\u00a0sidewalk,\u00a0or\u00a0meandering into a nearby souvenir shop (both of which have occurred, according to the announcer), they slowly hoof it down the brick street. They vary in color and horn configuration. All are\u00a0<\/span>huge<\/span><\/i>, weighing between 1,400 and 2,500 pounds, with horns spanning from 6 to 10 feet, tip to tip.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Except for Lil\u2019\u00a0Tex, a miniature Longhorn\u00a0bringing up the rear of the drive. Lil\u2019 Tex is \u201conly\u201d\u00a0800 pounds. The announcer said Lil\u2019 Tex is quite sassy and does not let the bigger boys\u00a0bother him. He will get up in their face, which made us love him even more.\u00a0We always root for the\u00a0underdog, or, in this case, steer.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cattle have been run through Fort Worth\u00a0since just after the Civil War,\u00a0according to an\u00a0<\/span>entry<\/span><\/a> in the Handbook of Texas.\u00a0The cattle, many of them longhorns known for being able to eat\u00a0<\/span>anything<\/span><\/i>, including prickly pear cactus,\u00a0were\u00a0driven\u00a0from South Texas northward to\u00a0connect with the Chisholm Trail. The drovers would stop in Fort Worth for supplies, and the city soon garnered its\u00a0most common\u00a0nickname: Cowtown.\u00a0By 1886, four stockyards\u00a0(it is spelled as one word except in the official title)\u00a0had been built near the railroad, which\u00a0came to Fort Wo\"\"<\/a>rth a decade earlier\u00a0with the arrival of the Texas and Pacific Railway. A fat-stock show began in\u00a01896\u00a0and has survived until\u00a0present\u00a0as one of the\u00a0largest livestock shows in the country.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Feedlots\u00a0in the Panhandle, a pungent addition to Amarillo in particular, replaced stockyards in the 1960s.\u00a0After decades of decline, the Fort Worth\u00a0Stock\u00a0Yard held its last auction in December 1992. The buildings now house all\u00a0types\u00a0of souvenir shops, western-wear stores,\u00a0and restaurants.\u00a0Roughly 9\u00a0million visitors show up on Exchange Avenue annually\u00a0for this free event.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

|\u2014\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \u2014\u2014|<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been fascinated by longhorns since seeing Bevo on television during a UT-Austin football game decades ago.\u00a0I always pause when\u00a0seeing\u00a0a herd of these beauties in a pasture.\u00a0Before the cattle\u00a0drive\u00a0down East Exchange Avenue, my BMC and I\u00a0visited the\u00a0boys in their\u00a0holding corral up by the\u00a0exchange building. These huge creatures somehow have figured out how to maneuver at close quarters with\u00a010-foot horns, gracefully ducking under each other\u2019s racks.\u00a0They are clearly used to people. A few dozen folks\u00a0stood with us on a wooden\u00a0balcony just above their heads.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That brings me to Waylon and Willie. For my 70<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0birthday last August, my BMC arranged delivery of two longhorn steer calves, at the\u00a0time\u00a0about six months old. It was not a complete surprise\u00a0but an amazing\u00a0gift. She found\u00a0a wonderful woman who raised them on a small ranch near Cleveland, north of Houston. We picked these two out. (They are not brothers, different mothers.)\u00a0But their arrival on my\u00a0<\/span>birthday<\/span><\/i>\u00a0was a complete surprise.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Willie and Waylon (pictured\u00a0in\u00a0this piece along with a few photos from Fort Worth\u2019s cattle drive) are fine additions to our critter family.\u00a0My BMC has them eating\u00a0range cubes\u00a0out of a bucket\u00a0and\u00a0standing patiently while she brushes them. They\u00a0dutifully trot up whenever either one of us goes down to their pen.\u00a0Willie and Waylon\u00a0are calm, sweet creatures,\u00a0still babies at heart. They romp around\u00a0in the\u00a0side pasture, chasing each other like 350-pound-ish puppies. In a separate, adjoining pasture, Pancho the Donkey watches with\u00a0apparent\u00a0disdain.\u00a0We are still looking for a jenny for\u00a0Pancho, hoping it might improve his mood.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Willie and Waylon\u2019s horns are only about a foot long. It takes 6-8 years for them to reach maximum length, from what I have read.\u00a0In the next couple of years, their horns will lengthen\u00a0quickly,\u00a0and their direction begins\u00a0to set.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is going to be fun to watch, as was the cattle drive down East Exchange Avenue at the Fort Worth Stock Yards. Even if it was too\u00a0dang hot\u00a0for December.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Print this entryFORT WORTH STOCK YARDS \u2013 On\u00a0an\u00a0unseasonably warm Sunday morning after Christmas, my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I\u00a0stood\u00a0on\u00a0East Exchange Avenue along with a few thousand other folks crowded along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[85,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-85","category-columns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7476,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7467\/revisions\/7476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}