Niles City
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Incorporated in 1911, the City of Niles was called the "Richest Little Town in the World" because of its size and the number of large businesses located here. Included in the townsite, which eventually covered 1.5 square miles, were major meat packing firms, the Fort Worth Stockyards, two grain elevators, a cotton seed oil company, and a petroleum refinery and pipeline plant. By the early 1920s the town's taxable property was valued at $30,000,000. Niles was named for Louville Veranus Niles (1839-1928), a successful Boston businessman who first visited Fort Worth in 1893. His reorganization of the Fort Worth Packing Company in 1899 led the firms of Swift and Armour to locate their plants in this area in 1902, rapidly increasing nearby business development. Substantial muncipal tax revenues helped make the city of Niles a progressive community. Under the supervision of a Mayor and five Aldermen, funds were used for improvements in roads, utilities,and city services. The two school districts which served the town also benefited from the large tax base. Despite legal efforts beginning in 1921 to remain incorporated and avoid annexation, the City of Niles became part of Fort Worth in 1923. (1981)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Incorporated in 1911, tiny Niles City packed so much industry into its square-and-a-half miles that boosters dubbed it the "Richest Little Town in the World." Its townsite held the Fort Worth Stockyards, major meatpacking plants of Swift and Armour, grain elevators, and an oil refinery, pushing taxable property to $30 million by the early 1920s. Named for Boston businessman Louville Veranus Niles, whose reorganization of the local packing company drew the big meatpackers, the city was annexed by Fort Worth in 1923.
Why it matters
Niles City shows how the meatpacking boom concentrated staggering industrial wealth on Fort Worth's edge during the Gilded Age's aftermath.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Louville Veranus Niles
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Armour and Company
Fort Worth, TX
In 1901 Fort Worth business leaders courted Armour & Co., one of the nation's largest meatpacking firms, offering land and incentives to lure a branch plant to the city. Construction began in 1902, and the sprawling operation just north of here helped make Fort Worth the livestock capital of the Southwest, spawning a web of supporting businesses. The plant ran for more than half a century before closing in 1962.
Swift & Company
Fort Worth, TX
By the 1880s Swift & Company was a national meatpacking giant, and its strategy of building plants near the herds drew it to Texas and its vast livestock. Recruited by the Fort Worth Stock Yards Company, Swift opened this plant in 1903, quickly reshaping the city's economy and spawning a railway, a publishing firm, and other support businesses. The operation ran until 1971.
Fort Worth Belt Railway
Fort Worth, TX
When the railroad reached Fort Worth in 1876, it transformed the town from a regional trading post into a national livestock hub. The stockyards' Belt Railway, launched in 1904, shuttled cattle and supplies into the yards and finished products out to markets across the country. As trucking rose in the 1920s the belt declined, and today a short surviving stretch carries an excursion train through the historic stockyards district.
Fort Worth Stockyards Hog and Sheep Markets
Fort Worth, TX
After the Fort Worth Union Stock Yards struggled to convince Texans to raise hogs, the stockyards launched an aggressive 1903 campaign of cash prizes and a youth Pig Club program that sent hog processing soaring from about 150,000 in 1903 to over a million by 1917. Sheep numbers likewise climbed, and by 1936 Texas led the nation in both cattle and sheep. Demand surged again during World War II, when the yards processed more than two million sheep a year, cementing Fort Worth as one of America's largest livestock centers.