Houston, Hudgins & History

If you know my professional background and a little about my family, you’d know that anything to do with agriculture holds a special place in my heart. Which is why when we started working J.D. Hudgins, they quickly became one of my favorite clients. 

The J.D. Hudgins family have been producing American Brahman cattle for over 100 years. Their family holds so much history in the Brahman breed. This modern generation of ranchers in Hungerford are truly a living legacy. 

With the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo happening, I thought I would share a little bit of history that goes along with these century-old cattle producers. 

J.D. Hudgins along with other southern livestock breeders, basically started the HLSR. There is a photo that hangs in the foyer of the NRG Center of the first Houston Fat Stock Show. J.D. Hudgins exhibited the first Houston Grand Champion Female named “Duchess”. 

Here is the story, retold by Mr. Coleman Locke, a descendant of J.D. Hudgins and founder of their cattle company. 

In the early 1930s several Brahman breeders took cattle to Ft. Worth to exhibit them at the Ft. Worth Fat Stock Show.  Upon arrival they found that the exhibitors of one of the old established breeds got together and refused to allow the Brahman cattle to be stalled inside the barn with the other breeds.

This action so infuriated the Brahman breeders that they went back south to Houston and put together their own show in 1932 – a show in which Brahman cattle were in the majority. From these humble beginnings grew the great Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

The first Houston show, held in 1932, took place in a large hall which had been constructed to house the 1928 Democratic National Convention.  We were at the first Houston Livestock show and 87 years later, we are still here.”