There was more bull than usual on West Exchange Avenue on a bright Tuesday afternoon.
The twice-daily cattle drive drove a little further west than usual on Nov. 12 to help celebrate a new Fort Worth Stockyards sign on West Exchange Avenue mirroring the familiar sign on East Exchange. The cattle — predictably — celebrated the only way they could and left their distinctive punctuation mark.
There were others who left their mark and maybe a little bullishness, too, as the current mayor and three previous mayors were also there to celebrate.
“This is much more than a sign for me,” said Mayor Mattie Parker, speaking to the crowd before the ribbon was cut on the new sign. “It really represents the connection and possibility in the future of the Fort Worth Stockyards.”
On Nov. 12, the mayors, mayor pro tem and city councilman for the area Carlos Flores, and a host of business owners and operators, along with other Stockyards luminaries celebrated the new sign.
It closely matches the landmark sign on East Exchange and has other connections to the history of Fort Worth and the Stockyards, including the architect who designed it, Arthur Weinman. His grandfather designed several buildings in the Stockyards when the area was in full swing in the early part of the 20th century with both Armor and Swift plants employing several thousand.
“The bricks (for the posts) are Acme bricks, the same color as the ones used by Wyatt Hedrick for several buildings in downtown Fort Worth,” Weinman said.
While the new signage has connections to the past, it also has some modern touches to make it easier to maintain including solid concrete bases for the posts that, according to Weinman, “could withstand a collision with a Mack truck.”
The project is funded by the city of Fort Worth through Stockyards Tax Increment Finance District. Its path to completion was managed by Fort Worth Stockyards Inc., which has a mission to work with business leaders, property owners, stakeholders, residents, elected leaders and community groups to increase public awareness of the area.
All the numbers haven’t been added up yet, but Flores said the cost for the sign was about $190,000. The city’s park and recreation department will maintain it, he said.
“The success of the Stockyards, for the most part, has been concentrated down there,” he said, pointing to East Exchange. “It has had some benefit up here, but not to the extent we would like. Now, this will make it more possible.”
City officials estimate that the number of visitors to the Stockyards has increased to 11 million annually, up from 3 million visitors just 10 years ago.
Janet Lane, whose late husband Jim Lane represented the Stockyards area from 1993 to 2005, said the sign would have had him “bursting with pride.”
“This sign will shine a bright light up here on the hill, and for the businesses and the people who are truly part of the fabric of the Stockyards, even though most visitors we see their backs as they walk to East Exchange, will now know that there is more to do and more to see up here.”
For Ruth Hooker, owner of Hooker’s Grill at the top of the hill at 213 W. Exchange Ave., it was the fulfillment of a dream.
Hooker initially approached Flores about the sign several years ago.
“He told me basically, ‘you need to do this, you need to do that,’ and I did and here we are,” she said.
Hooker said every week she gets customers who come in and say they were visiting the Stockyards but wanted a burger, so they came to Hooker’s Grill.
“Every week, if not every day, we get visitors to our business who think they’ve left the Stockyards,” she said. “I tell them they are still in the Stockyards and now they’ll know.”
The 70-acre core of the roughly 200-acre Stockyards Historic District is being redeveloped by Stockyards Heritage, a joint venture between Majestic Realty Co. and Hickman Companies, along with development partner M2G Ventures.
Phase 1 of the project, kicked off in 2014. That phase focused on adding the Hotel Drover and creating a retail district using the Mule Barns. The partnership is moving on to Phase 2, which will include more hotels, underground parking, commercial space and residential development, but hit a stumbling block recently because of legal issues between the former leader of Stockyards Heritage, Craig Cavileer, and Majestic Realty.
Bob Francis, business editor for the Fort Worth Report, can be reached at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.