Recently I noticed two diesel locomotives coupled in the 8th Avenue railyard of the Fort Worth & Western railroad.
Together again: Closer examination showed the names of the two locomotives: Luke Short and Timothy Courtright.
At Oakwood Cemetery the two gunfighters are probably chewing barbed wire and spitting bullets because the last time those two hombres were as close as their eponymous locomotives were, they were pulling pistols, not freight cars.
FW&W engines also display a longhorn logo. The longhorn and the panther are at the top of the totem pole in Fort Worth iconography. Millions of longhorns were herded through Fort Worth on the Chisholm Trail in the nineteenth century.
Below are some longhorns seen around town.
First, three video clips of longhorns I shot in Fort Worth:
1. The cast members of the stockyards daily cattle drive relaxing between shows in their green room (call it the “Longhorn Lounge”):
2. It’s show time:
3. Here’s a herd (in Benbrook) of which you may not have heard:
Think this post needs more cowbell? You got it:
Honk if you love longhorns: the stockyards Cattleac.
At the stockyards.
On the wall of a storm drain channel near Westcreek Drive.
In the lobby of One City Place.
At a swap meet.
Later that same swap meet.
On Angle Avenue on the North Side.
Bench at the stockyards.
Stamped on a sidewalk at the stockyards and filled with dirt.
On Bluebonnet Circle.
Fountain on Sundance Square Plaza behind the former headquarters of Northern Texas Traction Company. The fountain is a valentine to this column capital . . .
at the old main post office.
Oakwood Cemetery tombstone of Charles and Sue McCafferty, who founded the North Fort Worth Historical Society in 1976.
Frieze of the Tarrant County Corrections Center downtown.
Del Frisco restaurant.
Along the Cotton Belt Trail in North Richland Hills.
The Brand Inspector by Jim Reno, 1983, at the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Foundation on West 7th Street.
A cast-iron water meter cover.
Manhole cover.
Medallion on the monument of the Saunders family of cattle raisers at Oakwood Cemetery.
The long arm horn of the law: Cowtown squad car.
Statue of Bill Pickett at the stockyards.
Livestock Commission Building at the stockyards.
Lon Evans Corrections Center, 600 West Weatherford Street.
Stockyards.
If you know where this maverick grazes, go to the head of the herd. I spotted it from the air. Well, from the cyberair: I was peering down at the Trinity River on Google Earth. This longhorn is on the lawn of a fenced residential compound tucked between the levee and White Settlement Road.
And this one is in a backyard a mile up the West Fork.
On the nameplate of the Star-Telegram this longhorn is more read than herd.
The real (Joseph) McCoy: Lounging in the “green room” between shows behind the Livestock Commission Building.
Longhorns in love: In a pasture near the Clear Fork of the Trinity River in Benbrook.
Jimmy, I was concentrating on longhorns in this post. “The Vaquero” appears in a post on horses and in a post on North Main Street.
Did I miss the Mexican cowboy on North Main mounted on a horse with his pistol in a holster–which our politically correct City Council rejected because of the pistol before relenting to the reality of history? Or maybe it’s not part of this story. Just curious.
Where is the one near Westcreek? I grew up in South Hills and my close friends Bob and Kitty Brandt still live there. I count Marsha (may she rest in peace) and Charles as friends also.
Wes, I almost stumped myself there. I live one block off Westcreek in a house that Marcia found for me and could not at first recall where a longhorn is near Westcreek. But I had forgotten that this one is on the storm drain channel wall in Westcreek Park hidden behind South Hills High School east of Westcreek Drive.
Great production preserving old west heritage.
Thanks, Bill. I enjoyed making the video clips.