San Antonio Stockyard Closes

Kathy Coulehan, Voice of America
April 30, 2001

One of the most colorful businesses in San Antonio, Texas closed its doors permanently this month. After more than a century of operation, Union Stockyards has auctioned its last lots of cattle. It was progress that created, and destroyed, the stockyard.

Cattlemen won't hear the auctioneer's call any longer in San Antonio. Cattle sales at Union Stockyards have ended. Marc Judson runs the 14 hectare facility, whose past is tied into the Old West. "We've been open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day since 1889 basically to serve the agribusiness community," he says. "It was important to be open those long hours to receive livestock and have them ready for sale days." Auctions were held almost daily in this amphitheater built to hold 400 bidders. On the walls are old, framed, black and white photos of days when standing room only crowds of ranchers and buyers conducted business. In the last months, though, only a handful of men came to bid. "In the years past, you could see how it was declining," he says.

Julian Segura assists buyers by weighing and penning cattle. He's watched the numbers dwindle. "Three years ago, we were pretty busy," he says. "On Mondays we were bringing close to 2000. Now we're bringing barely 800."

The young Texan and 19 of his co-workers are now out of work, with only a month's notice. There are others, who relied on the stockyard, who are as deeply affected. Michael Hutchinson is here to pick up a load of 25 cattle. He's got a large trailer attached to his one ton pick-up, one of many in the parking lot. "Cattle hauling's been in the family for approximately 70 years," he says. "And I don't know how much longer it's going to continue to be. It's kind of a business that's ever changing like anything. It changes."

The stockyard has always managed to ride the waves of change. But it just couldn't compete anymore. Not when the middlemen and ranchers were using new forms of marketing like the Internet and video sales.

In the late-1800's, San Antonio was a simple gathering spot for cattle and cowboys. Herds were driven up to market along the Chisolm Trail by cowboys who charged a dollar fifty a head. Twelve years after the first train chugged into San Antonio, barbed wire enclosed the open plains. Railroad became the preferred method of moving stock. The Union Stockyard was constructed next to a railroad intersection. Sellers brought their herds from ranches throughout south Texas. Buyers loaded cattle directly onto railcars, most bound for fattening and slaughter at feedlots in Kansas. For the first time, the industry came together in one place.

Marc Judson married into the family that bought the Union Stockyard shortly after it was built. "This was a major area, of course. South Texas has been known for producing livestock," he says. "This was one of the key areas for bringing livestock together and moving them north." That's not the case anymore. Although the tracks still run next to the stockyard, trains have been replaced by trucks as the cattle industry's main form of transport. The small meat packing plants that sprouted like weeds in the countryside around San Antonio have moved on to bigger feedlots in the Texas Panhandle. And the lots have cut the stockyards out completely, by buying cattle directly from big Texas ranches.

Today's customers at the Union Stockyard are the smaller ranchers who haul their cattle in trailers behind pick up trucks. Julian Segura loads animals onto Boyce Needham's trailer. The small ranch owner from Gonzales, Texas, says he came here every week because he knew everyone. He bought more than he sold. The sales commissions were too high. "If I'm pulling a trailer, I'll take some to sell if I have to sell, but I always pull my trailer wherever I go," he says. "Because then I can buy whatever I want and I can truck them home. And I can take something there if I wish to."

Like many other small ranchers, Mr. Needham has learned he could make more money by selling directly to buyers. Sometimes, he uses the Internet. "It will cost me something like $8 a head on this Internet service that I use," he says. "Whereas if I went through here it would probably cost me fifteen to twenty dollars a head or it could be more. The overall bottom line is it's cheaper to sell cattle in large lots."

Mr. Needham points out the Internet won't work for small ranchers who only have one or two head to sell. So these cattlemen, the ones who used the stockyard auctions, now have to find other outlets. Some will go to day sales, smaller auctions held in country towns of the Texas Hill Country. Others will use videotapes to market their cattle. Union Stockyard won't cease to exist, it will be transformed into a warehouse district. Built on what were the outskirts of town a century ago, the Union Stockyard is today just across the freeway from a vibrant downtown San Antonio, one of the state's leading tourist areas. Of course, that makes these 14 hectares very valuable property. Marc Judson and his family will get into the business of property management. They expect it to be a lucrative endeavor.

Cattle hauler Michael Hutchinson is philosophical. His business may be affected more than most. But he says this is just another change in an ever-changing industry. Cattlemen, he says are a resilient breed. They'll weather this change, as well.

More TruthNews