Stockyards cattle drives bring Fort Worth history to life. What goes into being a drover?
The Fort Worth Stockyards is quiet early in the morning.
The insides of shops are dark, and the sidewalks are empty as a new day dawns.
By 11:30 a.m. the clopping of hooves will echo off the bricked street of East Exchange Avenue, and crowds — seemingly appearing out of nowhere — will gather near the curb to catch a glimpse of the iconic longhorn cattle drive.
For some onlookers, it will be their first time seeing a steer with eight-foot-long, or longer, horns. Others may think it is a quintessential, everyday occurrence in Texas.
Although the cattle drivers, called drovers, dress in cattle drive-era style, they are not time-travelers from the past.
The Fort Worth Herd cattle drives started June 12, 1999, and are a driving force in tourism and historical education for the city.
The drives are reminiscent of the great Texas cattle drives that ran roughly from the mid 1860s to the mid 1890s, which brought Texas longhorns to states up north. Fort Worth, nicknamed Cowtown, was one of the stops along the major livestock route called the Chisholm Trail, which could take drovers up to three months to travel.
Today’s drives typically last about five minutes and happen twice daily at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Excessive heat in North Texas limit the drives to just the 11:30 a.m. time during the summer months.
Although the drives are brief, there is a whole day’s worth of work that goes into bringing this piece of Fort Worth history to life.
Livestock Director Marty Olson and the Fort Worth Herd drovers took the Star-Telegram behind the scenes to get a glimpse of the daily tasks.
A day in the life of the Fort Worth Herd
The Fort Worth Herd’s day starts at 6:45 a.m. with the drovers saddling and exercising their horses.
The steer are then moved out of their covered overnight pen — also used during the Fort Worth Herd Experience — and fed in the sand pen or, as Olson likes to call it, “the beach.” The sand pen offers more room for the steer to move around and prevents them from getting stuck in a corner, he said.
Since the Fort Worth Herd started in 1999, ranchers and longhorn breeders across the United States hand-select and submit steer to be part of the Herd, Trail Boss Kristin Jaworski said.
When selecting a steer, Jaworski said the Herd avoids picking pets.
“I don’t want those steers stopping on the street looking for treats or looking to scratch their ears,” she said. “We want them to be as natural as possible to move away from that what’s called a ‘flight zone.’”
Each of the steer, all male, have names and their own unique personalities.
They can be friendly with each other, but there are hierarchies in the group, and a dominant steer could push another off his feed tub, drover Ed Richardson said.
“They like playing musical feed tubs,” Richardson said as a white and black steer named Cowboy Houdini trotted to an occupied feed tub on the other side of the pen.
The ruler of the roost is a white and brown spotted steer with a cowbell around his neck named Reata.
One steer missing from the sand pen group breakfast is a brown and white miniature longhorn with a white “Y” shaped patch on his forehead named Lil Tex who, as Jaworski describes, is like an “agility-trained dog.”
Lil Tex is halter trained and makes an appearance during the Herd Experience and other events, although you won’t see him walking with the herd.
The other steer “are as natural as possible, and they move away from the pressure,” Jaworski said. “So if you walk up to them, they’re walking away. You walk up to him, he wants to be pet.”
While the steer eat breakfast, the drovers head back to the covered pen to scoop manure and soiled hay, which is sent to a recycling compost yard.
Then it’s time to set up for the Fort Worth Herd Experience, an hourlong show that starts at 1 p.m. and covers life during the cattle drive era. Props like a chuckwagon, cattle brand board and examples of spurs and ropes are set out for visitors to observe.
Once set up for the Herd Experience, the horses are fed gut supplements and taken out for more exercise before the morning cattle drive.
During the five minutes that the herd is out on East Exchange Avenue, Olson keeps a watchful eye on the crowd and the steer. Some of the steer’s horn spans are longer than the typical eight feet, so he keeps a look out to make sure they don’t stray too close to the curb.
When the morning drive is done, afternoon chores commence, which includes mending fences, cleaning stalls and washing the horses. Jaworski said some of the afternoon chores could also include cattle handling and horsemanship training.
Final tasks for the day include an evening feeding and watering, and checking on the livestock before heading home to start over again the next day.
Donation boxes at the Fort Worth Herd Experience, located behind the Livestock Exchange Building, and the observation deck overlooking the sand pen are two opportunities for visitors to contribute to the Herd.
Drover Brenda Taylor, who has been with the Herd for 23 years, said donations go directly back to supplies to care for and feed the horses and steer.
Contributions to the Herd can also be made online on Visit Fort Worth’s The Herd page.
The days start early, and there are many tasks, but Taylor said dedication for the work is what gets her out of bed every morning. She never looked back after leaving an office job to work for the Herd a year after it started.
“Meeting people, getting to do this job, are you kidding me?” Taylor said. “You’ll never get famous, and you’ll never get rich, but it is the most rewarding job I’ve ever done.”
