The industry that built the Fort Worth Stockyards stampeded back in a big way on Sept. 17 as local heroes Standard Meat Co. sliced the ribbon on a new 200,000-square-foot protein processing plant just down the street from where 9 million tourists visit and play cowboy annually.
Now, amid the hustle and bustle of the weekend hat-and-boot wearing crowd, new and refurbished hotels, restaurants, bars, daily cattle drives and other attractions, the very industry that created the Stockyards — meat processing — has returned.
At one time, the Fort Worth Stockyards saw Swift and Company employ more than 1,700 people, and its main competitor here, Armour, likely employed roughly the same number. In 1944, the Stockyards was reported to have processed more than $5 million worth of animals. The industry began dying after World War II as trucking and refrigeration lessened the need for centralized processing areas…