Port City Stockyards opened in 1931 in Houston, on a site that is now the University of Houston campus. It served as a terminal market for the Gulf Coast cattle market, according to Marie Hughes, director of the Chambers County Museum at Wallisville, who wrote the account.
Hughes said the idea came from James W. Sartwelle after a severe cold snap in December 1924. The freeze killed about 1,500 head of cattle on his ranch in Matagorda County. Sartwelle moved his family to Houston in 1925, where he studied law, passed the bar and started a real estate company.
Hughes wrote that Sartwelle still wanted to improve the Gulf Coast cattle market. The Sartwelle family had bred registered Brahman cattle since establishing the Sartwelle Brothers Ranch in 1920. Bill White of the White Ranch told Hughes that the region's conditions call for Brahman-influenced cattle.
In an interview, J.D. "Bubba" Sartwelle Jr., who was president of Port City Stockyards until his death, said a Gulf Coast market was needed. He said cattle had been shipped by train to Fort Worth and barged to New Orleans before then.