CPAC Insider
The Wall Street of the West
What Fort Worth's Stockyards Say About a Nation's Strength

By Brodie Taylor - 2026 CPAC Global Explorer
I'm standing outside the Fort Worth Livestock Exchange reading a plaque when it hits me just how much was once moving through this place.
In 1893, Boston man Greenlief W. Simpson led a group of investors in purchasing the Fort Worth Union Stock Yards. As the company grew its connections across the country, it too reached overseas and supported the war effort, becoming the world’s largest livestock market.
With millions of livestock passing through, the Fort Worth Exchange became known as the “Wall Street of the West”.
Nothing caught my interest more while walking through the Fort Worth Stockyards than this. It showed the industry and strength the United States has long had.
The CPAC Global Explorers were taken on a guided tour up and down the main stretch of this historic district in Fort Worth, Texas. The main street was full of souvenir shops, leather goods stores and bars.
We took the opportunity to buy cowboy hats and belt buckles. Some tried their luck on the bucking bull, watched the cattle drive through the main street or even filmed their own short Western! No doubt inspired by the John Wayne museum down the street.

The Stockyards felt active, but not in the way it must have been. The plaque read that by the 1950s, local auctions were drawing business away from the Exchange, which led to the district gradually shifting from being a hub of cattle business to a significant part of the city's heritage. The industry itself continues today in Texas and across the Midwest.
The Stockyards are a brilliant, vibrant way to show and be proud of the history of the American cattle trade that forms part of the character of the nation.
Standing there, you could appreciate what this place represented and what brought it into being.
The Exchange building and the district around it were built on enterprise at speed and scale. Traders, investors and entire industries were centred around places like these.

I couldn't help but be reminded of Sovereign Hill back in Australia, the living museum of life in the gold rush boom town of Ballarat. This too is a period and place that formed the Australia we know today.
Being able to go to the Fort Worth Stockyards now, we’re not just seeing a preserved history, but the foundations of how the country built the strength it has today.
So now that we're heading into CPAC for the week, this trip has provided a strong backdrop for the current debates in the US - from rebuilding domestic industry to the cultural battles defining its future.
The Global Explorers program is made possible by the generosity of our CPAC donors. Applications for 2027 will open later this year — stay tuned for details.
Think this could be you? Learn more about the Global Explorers program here and start getting ready.










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