Update: Drover buys Stockyards Hotel, shuts H3 Ranch restaurant until July for updates
(Updated.)
The 115-year-old Stockyards Hotel, once a hideout for outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and an anchor of the Stockyards since its era as a packinghouse center and major horse and cattle market, has been sold to Stockyards Heritage Development Co., owner of the Hotel Drover and the new Mule Alley shops.
The hotel , 101 E. Exchange Ave., remains open under the new owners. Its Hunter Brothers H3 Ranch Steakhouse will take a break for updates and reopen in July, a company executive said.
“We have always loved this hotel and the great charm and history,” said Kayla Wilkie, director of design and development for California-based Majestic Realty, a partner in Stockyards Heritage along with Fort Worth-based Hickman Investments.
Wilkie said the company will begin planning how to market the hotel and restaurant alongside the Drover and the other hotel in the partnership, the nearby Hyatt Place Stockyards.
The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and probably will be marketed as an independent, historic hotel, she said. The purchase price was not disclosed.
The Drover, a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel, opened in March 2021 and has been heavily booked with crowds coming to the new Mule Alley and national horse shows and rodeos at Dickies Arena.
A room at the Drover, 200 Mule Alley, was available Tuesday night for $342. A weekend room June 3-5 will rent for $593 per night.
The Stockyards Hotel was available Tuesday night for $199. A weekend room rents for $399.
Stockyards Heritage has led the $175 million makeover of the formerly mostly vacant horse and mule barns into Mule Alley, a retail and restaurant development anchored by the Drover.
The project is a partnership between Majestic Realty Co. and Hickman Investments, founded by the late Stockyards developer Holt Hickman.
The Stockyards Hotel was restored in 1984 in the first round of north Fort Worth historic preservation and has become a landmark across the street from the White Elephant Saloon, one block west of Cowtown Coliseum.
The hotel bar, Booger Red’s Saloon, became known for its saddle barstools and a “buffalo sweat” margarita.
Cleburne natives Tom Yater and Marshall Young led the 1984 restoration. Architect Ward Bogard applied a style jokingly described as “cattle baron baroque” in the era when “Dallas” was the No. 1 TV show and Billy Bob’s Texas was a new national attraction.
Until then, the property was a flophouse named the Right Hotel. Rooms were $5 a night.
The hotel was sold again to Fort Worth investors in 1996, and the restaurant was renamed in 1997 as Hunter Brothers H3 Ranch, named for the old Texas family of executive Robert Hunter McLean. The same company operates Lucile’s Stateside Bistro.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 5:45 AM.
