Welcome To Texas: Texas Cowboy Hall Of Fame
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Two weeks ago, we took you to the historic Fort Worth Stockyards for a new segment, 'Welcome to Texas.' Well, we got such a great response that we decided to dig a little deeper into the attractions that make up the Stockyards.
If it's been a few years since you've visited the Stockyards, you're missing out on something pretty special.
The Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame opened its doors in 2001 in a 25,000 square foot, 100-year-old building that once served as one of the Stockyards' horse and mule barns. But it's what's inside of the building that will take you back in time. Among the exhibits is the Sterquell Wagon Collection, the world's largest collection of lifestyle wagons.
"This was actually Standard Oil. It was part of Rockefeller Oil," said Pam Minick, showing off the collection. "This is what the semis looked like more than 100 years ago."
Minick may be best known to North Texans as the former marketing director of Billy Bob's Texas, but as the current president of Friends of the Fort Worth Herd, she has a close relationship with many aspects of the Stockyards, and is intimately familiar with the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. She, herself, was inducted in 2004.
"When people come to Texas," explained Minick, "this is what they want to see. They want to see cowboys. They want to see the western way of life. They want to be educated and learn about our western heritage."
Not only will visitors see the individual booths containing the personal memorabilia of more than 150 Hall of Fame inductees, they can also view exhibits that show what life was like on the Chisolm Trail. And there's the Applewhite-Clark exhibit, which features artifacts from such legendary figures as Santa Anna, Comanche chief Quanah Parker and Texas Rangers John Coffee Hays and Samuel Walker.
"This is just such a piece of, not only Texas, but a piece of the West, and piece of American History that everyone needs to see and feel and touch," said Minick.
And, of course, you can't miss the Sterquell Wagon Collection -- more than 60 wagons, buggies and sleighs that depict how life in this country moved more than 100 years ago.
"I can't tell you how many people walk into this Cowboy Hall of Fame," Minick added, "and they'll remember the cowboys that are honored here, and they'll look at the wagons and they'll say 'My granddad had a wagon just like that.' And so, people recall memories here -- and they make memories here."
And, at $5 or less per person, they're memories well worth making.
