On the trail or in the Stockyards, drovers lived by a code that was all their own: a principle of honor, dignity and respectability.

Some would say these men and women were as special a breed as the longhorn cattle in their charge or out on the open range. They treated the land and their animals with the distinct care that they deserved. The stories they brought back from months on the trail were many, and, in the case of Fort Worth, fueled not just a town but a legacy that endures to this very day.

(Credit: The Hotel Drover website)

As a drover headed cattle up the Chisholm Trail to the railheads, he had one last stop for rest and supplies: Fort Worth, Texas.

Beyond Fort Worth, he’d be crossing the Red River into Indian Territory.

Between 1866 and 1890, drovers trailed more than four million head of cattle through Fort Worth. The city soon became known as “Cowtown.”

When the railroad arrived in 1876, Fort Worth became a major shipping point for livestock, so the city built the Union Stockyards, two and a half miles north of the Tarrant County Courthouse, in 1887.

(Credit: Fort Worth Stockyards website)