FORT WORTH, Texas — The railroad is as vital to Fort Worth’s history as cattle.
The city was a stop along the legendary Chisholm Trail, and the first railroad to reach the city was the Texas & Pacific Railway, which arrived in 1876. The arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1880s followed.
In 1893, Boston capitalist Greenleif Simpson and other investors, including Louville Niles, bought Union Stockyards and renamed it the Fort Worth Stockyards Company. In the early 20th century, the two largest cattle slaughtering firms of the time, Armour & Co. and Swift & Co., established operations in the new stockyard.
Both Trinity Railway Express and TEXRail use the T&P Station in Fort Worth.
The Texas & Pacific opened its newest T&P Station — and its fourth in the city — on October 25, 1931, replacing a depot that opened on December 16, 1899. That depot replaced the railroad’s second station in Fort Worth, which opened in 1882 and burned in 1896.
The railroad opened its first station in Fort Worth on July 19, 1876. The first depot was a “modest frame structure,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in 1931.
On December 17, 1904, a fire damaged the 1899 station. However, the edifice was repaired.
Fort Worth is also home to several modern commuter and intercity passenger stations.
Amtrak, Trinity Railway Express and TEXRail use Fort Worth Central Station. Trinity Railway Express also serves the CentrePort/DFW Airport station, while TEXRail uses the Mercantile Center station.
Other historic depots also stand in Fort Worth, including the Santa Fe Freight Building and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad Passenger Station.
BNSF is based in Fort Worth.