WHERE IN AMERICA ARE YOU
by Randy Karr

You are in "Cowtown", the only place in the world where cowhands drive a herd of Longhorns from stockyard holding pens down a city's main street. These daily cattle drives help make this city a top tourist stop and these Longhorns famous. As Cowtown celebrities, they don't sign autographs, but do appear on television shows, in music videos and with Madonna. Cowtown began as a military camp, later named for General Worth, a War of 1812 and a Mexican War hero. It soon became a hub for cattle drives, and a place where drovers re-supplied before herding cattle northward to the Chisholm Trail. With the arrival of the railroad, cattle drives ended and a 200-acre stockyard opened. It was the end of the line for over 100 million cattle when the Armour and Swift companies built meatpacking plants here. As Cowtown prospered, a coliseum was built that became the site of the world's first indoor rodeo and an Elvis Presley concert.

The Livestock Exchange building you see is where, for decades, livestock was herded in and auctioned. Today, people can bid on cattle from the comfort of their home or office via satellite and Internet, not in dusty auction rings. In 1987, Superior Livestock Auction introduced satellite-video marketing and has since become the largest livestock auction in the United States. Cowtown is a historic district in a city that is located on the banks of the Trinity River.

Where in America are you, anyway? Name the National Historic District and the Texas city.

Click the photo to reveal the answer.

©2006 Randy Karr