15. Postcard from Fort Worth - “Stockyard Songs and Stories”
In this final episode of Vanishing Postcards' inaugural season, we pay a visit to Fort Worth's famed Stockyards. A historic district where western identity is embraced without the slightest hint of a wink, here rodeos are hosted each and every weekend, while crowds clamor for the fajitas at JT Garcia's before hitting the dance floor at Billy Bob's. But more than party central, it's probably the only place you can count on seeing longhorn steers paraded through the streets, and take pleasure in introducing you to a few good people who are making The Stockyards' history a tangible experience through stories, songs and honest to goodness work.
TRANSCRIPT
(As this transcript was obtained via a computerized service, please forgive any typos, spelling and grammatical errors)
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Ed Brown (00:09):
Hey, how many folks are here from somewhere other than Fort worth?
Evan (00:16):
It's nearing 11:30 AM and Ed brown, a portly jovial, 70 something stands on the paved brick of Fort Worth's Exchange Avenue. He's brandishing a megaphone while wearing a Texas flag button down and straw ridge top hat. Crowds have gathered on both sides of the sidewalk in view of the grand 1902 hacienda style building for which this thoroughfare was named. Excitement hangs in the air, and after a construction truck passes, vested security guards close off the streets to traffic. But this isn't a holiday and we're not waiting on any parade floats or marching bands. In fact, this is just your run of the mill Monday. Nevertheless, Ed makes sure we know that we're about to witness something special.
Ed Brown (01:04):
Again, in a few minutes, you're going to see the famous Fort Worth cattle drive. Fort Worth is is the only city in the world that does this twice a day at 11:30 AM and 4:00 PM.
Evan (01:19):
That's right. In Fort Worth, barring lightning every day with the exception of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and maybe one or two other dates of importance, a team of drovers guide a herd of Longhorn steers through the heart of this city's Stockyards District.
Ed Brown (01:35):
And we're the only city in the world that employs its own drovers, some people call them Cowboys. We're the only city in the world that has its own long horn herd. And we're the only city in the world that has its own registered brand.
Evan (01:51):
When announcing the herd, George always makes a point to state that this isn't something the city does for pure spectacle. This tradition began in 1999 as part of Fort Worth's sesquicentennial and chatting with me on a bench in what had been the old hog and sheep markets, he says this display is intended as an homage to the cattle drives that shaped this town as a Western gateway.
Ed Brown (02:14):
After the Civil War, when the folks came back from Texas, there was less than 20 families living here. Our economy was devastated. There was no jobs. The only thing we had of value was cattle. And boy did we have cattle in Texas. We had several hundred around here, but when we went down around Houston and San Antonio, there was over 12 and a half million cattle walking around for free. All you had to do is rope them, brand them. They became yours. Now the trouble was there's too many of them. You butchered one out, you might get $1 to $4. Most people didn't have that. But see up north, it was completely different. They didn't have any beef. They told the Texans that if they could walk a cow 800 miles up to the nearest rail head, which happened to be Abilene, Kansas.
Ed Brown (03:07):
They would give the Cowboys 40 to $50 a piece. Now they didn't think that could be done, but we knew we could do it. You know, you never tell a Texan that they can't do something, especially when there's money involved. Well, they would travel 800 miles. It'd take them about three months. After six weeks they were, the cattle were about worn out. They need a place to stay. It had to be the halfway point. Had to be a valley with lots of grass and water in it. And that's where we're located today. See from 1866 to 1890 4 and a half million head of cattle were rounded up brought up the Chisholm Trail, right through the middle of the streets of Fort Worth. And as people would look from the old Fort location, they saw nothing but a sea of cattle, and then Fort worth became known forever more as Cowtown.
Evan (04:03):
Today, Fort Worth is a prosperous, vibrant city that boasts Texas's oldest opera, a symphony exquisite Botanic garden and cultural district whose Kimbell Museum claims Michelangelo's first known painting. Yet, despite these offerings, people still call this place Cowtown, which is a title its citizens seem to have come around to embracing.
Devon Dawson (04:26):
The moniker of Cowtown was something that the city council foolishly tried to throw off back in the 1970s. We tried to shed the image of Cowtown, but we saw the better, we saw the error of our ways. But for awhile before that they said it "it's downtown not Cowtown." Yeah, well see. We were trying to be Dallas. Fort Worth has less population, but a whole lot more charm. Sorry, Dallas. We have t-shirts we say on these t-shirts it says "Don't Dallas, my Fort worth."
Evan (04:59):
And what are the differences between Dallas and Fort Worth people?
Devon Dawson (05:03):
Well, of course they're all Texans and we love to argue with one another, but anyway, it was pretty much banking and oil and not so much cattle. So we were, uh, upstream on the Trinity and, uh, we, during a drought in the 1950s, we actually had this thing in Fort Worth. It was a horrible drought. In the 1950s, we, we had signs all over Fort Worth that said, "Flush twice, Dallas needs the water!"
Ed Brown (05:30):
Everyone in Texas loves each other. Okay. But, um, remember, um, Texas is where the west begins. So a lot of times we say, well, Dallas is where the peters out.
Evan (05:45):
In Fort worth, there's no mistaking you're in the west. This is especially noticeable in the Stockyards where neon signs advertise steakhouses that serve massive rib-eyes and rainbow trout to hungry revelers. To be fair, it's been a long time since livestock barons brokered deals at the Exchange and while thousands of cattle passed through here on hundred mile journeys, today's herd only numbers 22 and the distance they travel isn't even three blocks. But that doesn't stop Ed from getting the crowd hyped up.
Ed Brown (06:19):
I want to welcome you to Fort Worth. I want to welcome you to the Stockyards. But most of all, welcome to The Cattle Drive!!!!!!!
Evan (06:29):
Within moments, the drovers exit their pens on horses, but as these gentle four legged giants come lumbering down the street, a hush instinctively settles over the crowd.
Ed Brown (06:42):
But as they come down the road, I said, you got to be there to see it. I never get tired of it. And I mean that. There's just a certain chill where you see these magnificent Longhorns. And as they come down the road, I tell people you're going to see 18 to 19, but that represents each one of them represents 100. So try to imagine the normal cattle drive was eight to nineteen hundred, led by 10 Cowboys or cowgirls. You're going to see these drovers in their period, correct atire, the way it really was. But you really get the feeling. You hear them talking to the cattle, you see the cattle walking just the way they did in the old days. The long horns don't change. So it's just the way- nowhere else you gonna find that. So again, I dare you to watch it, and not just have that little goosebump come up and say, "Wow! This is real!"
Evan (07:55):
Watching the herd is indeed a transporting experience. The procession itself is simple and doesn't take more than two minutes, but it's touching in its symbolism. Like Ed suggests, as I hear the clop of hooves against brick and see the drovers orchestrating formation, I can't help but feel the ghosts of history. But more than the wealth and commerce these animals generated, I think of the lifestyles, fashions and art they inspired, which continues to permeate the stockyards to this day.
Devon Dawson (08:27):
(Sings The Navajo Trail)
Evan (08:51):
I timed my trip so I could be in town on a Sunday when The Cowtown Opry gathers 2:00 PM on the steps of the exchange building to freely perform for any who care to stop by. A group dedicated to the performance preservation and promotion of Western music, I sat down with the organization's artistic director, Devon Dawson. Toting a painted guitar, fringed purse, red bandana, Jade earrings, and hat, she looks like she could have stepped off the set of a Dale Evans picture, but this isn't a performance costume. It's who she is.
Devon Dawson (09:23):
And I wear my boots and hat. I've been to France and I've worn them there. I've been downtown London. I've worn them there. I got a lot of attention from the people on the street in downtown London. When I was in France, I was on a country road in central France, near Saint Agreve in the Ardeche. This car went by and they rolled the windows down and they said, "TEXAS!!!!"
Evan (09:45):
Devon has been blessed to make a profession out of Western music, which she stresses probably shouldn't be hyphenated with country. So I asked her to explain the difference.
Devon Dawson (09:54):
If you asked Roy Rogers that, Roy Rogers was the King of the Cowboys. He, he was asked that and he said, "Well, in country music they're singing about their neighbors' wife, and in Western music, they're singing about their neighbors' horse." Well, Western music, um, does deal with love of the land, adventure history, um, romance, romance of the land and romance with each other. So they do tug at the heartstrings. Um, then when movies started being made, they romanticized the hard life. And a lot of those songs I just mentioned, came out of cowboy and Western movies.
Evan (10:30):
But while Hollywood proved crucial in popularizing Western music, Devon says that as Cowtown was a crossroads of culture and business, it was in these streets that much of it was shaped.
Devon Dawson (10:41):
So as it evolves, when you have a lot of people and a lot of money, you want entertainment. So all the up and down Exchange Avenue, you know, the turn of the century, you had bawdy houses, you had everything that wild, young men would wan. In downtown Fort Worth they called it Hell's Half Acre down there, but they also had a lot of honkytonks and during prohibition speakeasies. Well, all this is a place where musicians can get paid to play. So this band type of music, hot string band music, it was about five different cultures, shaking hands in Texas. And especially in Fort Worth, started borrowing each other's styles. And it became what we now know as Western Swing, which is the official music of Texas. Uh, the, the Western Swing music, that developed in Fort Worth and north of here was a dance type of music. It was happy. People need in the depression, especially people didn't have much money. So for like 25 cents, a couple could go out and see Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys at a dance. And they could, um, their hearts would be lifted and it was, we need to give relief to each other when times are hard, you know, and we've had a little bit of a hard time, not as bad as the depression, but this last six months it's been a challenge and people's spirits need to be lifted. And the music does that.
Evan (11:58):
Devon was introduced to the records of Bob wills and sons of the pioneers through her father, who was a musician himself
Devon Dawson (12:04):
He actually was born in 1918. When he was 17 years old, he actually was alone in the world. By that time he strapped a guitar on his back. He rode hobo on the rails out to get to California and pick oranges. And he was in like the Visalia area and he found he could make a whole lot more money and work a lot less hard if he just played guitar, instead of picking oranges. He didn't tolerate rock in the house. So I didn't have any of that influence. And in high school, I had nothing in common with my, my friends. I didn't, I wouldn't listen to Aerosmith or, you know, what Jefferson Airplane or whatever, you know,
Evan (12:40):
Since those early days of listening to vinyl, she's performed at the Grand Old Opry and is known today as one of the best yodelers in the business. So much so, she even provided the singing voice of Toy Story's Jessie on the Grammy winning album, Woody's Roundup. But this isn't a skill her father got around to teaching and is something she didn't even attempt until age 40-
Devon Dawson (13:02):
A few people around me were yodelers. And I thought, oh, I always wanted to do that since I was 10 years old. My dad could Yodel, you know, like he could do that. And I just knew that I knew that I knew that I wanted to learn yodeling. I thought it would be fun and kind of a fulfilling of a thing. A dream I'd had. It'ss kind of a cowgirl attitude- "I can do this!" You know? So I started yodeling in the car and I'd have the, uh, when I was alone in my vehicle, on the freeway with the windows rolled up, I'd put on a Roy Rogers recording and tried to yodel along with Roy. Cause you gotta copy the best, you know? And uh, I sounded horrible and that's why you don't want to be around other people because it's going to be very discouraging. So you can't let it out really blast and get better until you do it alone. And you know, so, so I was trying and sometimes I couldn't quite get it. And then I it's like the Lord gave me this scripture. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." So I taped that up on my dashboard of the vehicle. Next time I went out, I was looking at that scripture and I'd set myself and take a breath and I could do it
Evan (14:14):
Just then Devon's musical collaborator. Jessie Robertson passes by and having learned of my love for Johnny Mercer, They launch into a song from his obscure show, Texas Lil Darlin', and I'm treated to a private concert-
Devon Dawson (14:36):
(Sings with Jessie Robertson)
Evan (15:18):
Jessie strikes me as the kind of guy people call a teddy bear. He's tall and vast with a winning smile and jokester attitude. Yet having wrestled with cancer, depression and the loss of many loved ones, he's open about the struggles he's faced. This music, he tells me, played a role in saving his life and sharing its joy with others has become something of a personal ministry.
Jessie Robertson (15:42):
The main reason that I do the music. And I've said this many times on stage is because if I can get those people listening to me and watching me and having fun with me for that time that I'm there. Then they forget about all their troubles and cares and their problems
Evan (16:00):
Devon fully agrees and argues that it's important to keep Western music alive as it provides the young with the gateway to our heritage,
Devon Dawson (16:07):
The main demographic right now is the people who remember their grandparents and their parents being out on the land. Kids who are city bound, they never even, they've never even experienced what it's like to be to live where there's not constant roar, traffic and smog, where you can't see the stars at night. So it leads to the music, gives them the window to that. And maybe it will draw the heart to where maybe they would like to go live that way too. It's important that we not lose our agricultural roots.
Jessie Robertson (16:47):
(Sings with Devon)
Evan (17:44):
Unlike the city kids, Devon aims to reach through music, Tyler Peterson grew up far from the hustle and bustle on a ranch outside of Marble Falls and has been riding and working with animals for about as long as he can remember. This is a joy he's honored to promote as one of the herd's drover
Tyler Peterson (18:01):
People come up and talk to me who've never seen a horse in person. And I've had people cry before because they think that horses are such beautiful animals and they've never had the opportunity to experience being this close to one and being able to touch one. And so I truly appreciate what the herd has done for the community to bring this to the city of Fort Worth. And so that people who may not have the opportunity to be around horses every day or cattle every day, have the chance to bring their kids out. Every time you see a kid's face light up, it just makes your day a little bit better.
Evan (18:39):
Modest and humble, Tyler carries himself with a stoic maturity that belies his youth and looks every bit the natural in a dusty black hat, period vest and full beard. He's been working with the herd now for a year and a half. And despite his calm, readily admits to his excitement when he learned he'd been accepted to join this team.
Tyler Peterson (18:59):
I was, I was pretty overjoyed. I was, I was excited and ready, but at the same time I was nervous because I knew that this was going to be a completely different game than pretty much anything else I'd ever done. When I first came to work here, I had not worked with longhorn cattle before. I'd worked with other breeds of cattle, but never longhorns. So there was a little sense of little nervousness about that. Longhorn cattle, think a little differently than say your Angus cattle or your Hereford cattle. And so they kind of are a little bit smarter almost. They kind of view a situation and judge it and then kind of try to manipulate it into their favor a little bit. And so you kind of have to be aware that they they're very aware of where their horns are and they're very aware of where their body positioning is. And you kind of have to out-think them a little bit more. So we have 22 Longhorn steers in total. Um, in ages ranging from three years old to about 15 years old and horn lengths of all different lengths. I think the longest horn length that we have is 106 inches from one tip of the horn to another tip of the horn.
Evan (20:15):
Like all things in nature, Ed tells me these horns serve a purpose and came about when the harsh environment of the Texas brush country forced Spanish cattle to evolve.
Ed Brown (20:25):
What happened. They started changing- first of all, to protect their babies from coyotes and wolves. They would fight them off with their horns. They got started adapting because of that and their horns instead of growing straight up, start growing sideways for better protection. In fact, they adapted to where, as soon as the cow come up, the adults, male and female, both cattle would get in a circle and the babies need to get in the middle. Was there a horn story growing out to the side, it got to where, both male and female, by the way, are born, with nubs. Their horns grow until the day they die. Okay. Now granted it slows down, but they still growing. Blood is flowing through their horns. As air passed over their horns, it started cooling their blood down. Well, when that happened, then they started growing bigger and stronger. They got to adapt to the Texas heat where they could go 10 to 13 miles a day without food or water. And then they got to where they could have babies very easily. And so that's why we started growing and growing in our size of herd.
Evan (21:44):
It was because of these horns that the cattle didn't just survive but thrive. But while they once numbered in the millions as ranching practices evolved demand for Longhorns weekend, as other breeds provided more beef to the point where they were almost lost for good
Ed Brown (22:00):
In 1927, we didn;t think we needed longhorns anymore. Then when we started killing them out, the government woke up one day and said, we need to save the Longhorns. So they looked for some purebred longhorns. Less than 30 is all they found. We talked about the Buffalo almost becoming extinct. We were just literally months away from never having a Longhorn. But they took them up to our territory in Oklahoma and left them alone. Remember man had nothing to do with them. So they'd be better off without man, left them alone. They started multiplying on their own. And now we have thousands.
Evan (22:41):
J Frank Dobie once described Longhorns as "tall, boney, grotesquely narrow hipped creatures that could walk the roughest ground, fight off the fiercest band of wolves and endure punishment as beasts on earth have ever shown themselves capable." Today though their prized status symbols with some weighing in excess of 2000 pounds and are more for show than anything else. For this, it bears mentioning that the herd steers look pretty different than the ones that used to roam the Plains. In some ways, maybe one could make the case that this is in itself, metaphoric of how Western mythology has grown in romance and scope. But the beauty and majesty these animals possess is undeniable. And for that, I'm honestly pretty content to stand back and enjoy this display. It's also not hard to see why they draw over 800,000 spectators each year, which is something that continuously amazes Ed.
Ed Brown (23:42):
Uh, I guess it's been 10 months now, uh, went to Israel and Egypt, believe it or not in both places, I ran into someone that visited over here and they said, "Oh, I remember you. You're the guy that stands outside and announces the cattle drive." You know? So, uh, I guess it's a small world after all right,
Evan (24:07):
But despite this influx, I think the Stockyards has somehow avoided becoming like Disney's Frontierland. And when I ask Ed why he thinks this balance has been maintained, he stresses that the people around here recognize that preservation goes far beyond aesthetics and are committed to making the area's past a living breathing encounter, which Tyler seems to state the herd perfectly embodies.
Tyler Peterson (24:32):
That's that's the way I've always viewed it. At least was whenever I saw it from the outside. Whenever, before I worked here, I viewed it as a preservation of history, kind of like an art museum, preserves history. This is kind of our own version of art. This is our, this is the, this is like a live reenactment of art to me. And so that's the way that I see the Fort Worth herd- it's a reenactment of history in the making
Evan (25:01):
In his book, God Save Texas, The Pulitzer prize winner, Lawrence Wright breaks down culture into three distinct categories. The first level provides what you might call a bedrock or nativist foundation. In Texas think pickup trucks and all we've come to stereotype. Level two is cosmopolitan overlay, which happens when people begin to sample foreign influences and Shakespeare, Pucinni and foie gras infiltrate cities. Then level three arrives when having absorbed the sophistication of level two, a culture returns to its origins to renew itself with, as Wright says, "knowledge self-confidence and occasional forgiveness." All of this is on display around here. You can guzzle beer at the White Elephant Saloon or sip wine and nibble off a charcuterie board in Mule Alley. But while I can't speak for Mr. Wright, I think the Stockyards is in many ways, an embodiment of level three. You can taste this in the rattlesnake and rabbit sausage at chef Tim Love's Lonesome Dove Bistro.
Evan (26:15):
You can hear it in the music of the Cowtown Opry and Devon Dawson's yodel. It's in the artistry of the boots sold at ML Leddy's. And of course the sight of Tyler and his fellow drovers guiding the Longhorns from atop, their horses. I'd planned on hitting the road. First thing Tuesday morning, but when the time came, I couldn't bring myself to leave. I had to catch the herd one last time. Naturally, I worried about beating the traffic on 35, but seeing the cows marching down Exchange, I smiled knowing I made the right call, then turned to Ed before parting ways. "Never get sick of it. Huh?"
Ed Brown (27:03):
Never. Like I said, it just gives you sensation. Doesn't it? Like never, never get tired of it.
