Saddle Up to the 50 Most Cowboy Cities in Texas

Howdy, pardners! It’s mighty nice to see you here at the Movoto Real Estate Corral—er, Blog. Now y’all might be wonderin’ why I’m typin’ with a Texas twang. We’ll, that’s ‘cause I’ve been spendin’ a lot of time thinkin’ about the Lone Star state as of late.

I’m not exactly sure how anyone can talk like that all the time, but what I do know is that the fine folks of Texas take their cowboys very seriously. That’s why my fellow bloggers and I thought it would be fun to rank the biggest cities in Texas by how cowboy they are. Meaning, how they fare in a bunch of different criteria representing America’s rugged icons of the Old West.

What’d I find? Well, although Bandera, TX claims to be the “Cowboy Capital of the World,” the true title of the Most Cowboy City in Texas actually goes to a town called Tyler, just a stone’s throw from Dallas—a city that didn’t even make the top 10. Here’s what that looked like.

The 10 Most Cowboy Cities in Texas:

1. Tyler, TX
2. San Angelo, TX
3. Odessa, TX
4. Bryan, TX
5. Longview, TX
6. Amarillo, TX
7. Waco, TX
8. Wichita Falls, TX
9. Austin, TX
10. Lubbock, TX

Now, don’t be too sore if you don’t see your hometown up there. There’s a chance that it made the top 50, which you’ll find at the bottom of this post. In the following sections, I’ll go over how I ranked the cities and what exactly is so darn cowboy about them. So, lasso yourself up a sarsaparilla, put a saddle on your chair, and make your eyes Texas-size for some mighty interestin’ reading.

How’d I Rustle Up This Ranking?

Now, coming up with a definitive list of the most cowboy cities in Texas isn’t as simple as just picking names out of a ten-gallon hat. It involves research, and before that can even start, you need a set of criteria to go on.

If you’ve read any of our trademark Big Deal Lists in the past, you’ll know how this works. First, I had to come up with my criteria. What makes a city “cowboy,” exactly? Here’s what I decided on:

Western wear stores per capita
Steakhouses per capita
Saloons per capita
Gun stores per capita
American truck dealerships per capita
Country radio stations per capita
Rodeos per capita

As for why I picked each of these, I’ll tell y’all about my reasoning—and which cities did especially well in each category—next. Before you mosey along, though, I should point out some caveats to consider. First of all, this ranking only looks at the top 50 most populous cities in Texas, which is why places like Bandera (population 859) didn’t make the cut. Then, in terms of geographic area, I only looked at businesses, rodeos, and radio stations actually located and held within city limits. All retail data came from Yelp, rodeo details came from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and radio station details came from the FCC.

I ranked each city on the individual criteria from 1 to 50, with 1 being the most cowboy and 10 being the least. This was done on a per capita basis, so the fewer people per western wear store, for example, the higher the cowboy rank. Then, I averaged the individual criteria scores together to end up with an overall Big Deal Score for each city. Like with the individual criteria, the lower the number here, the better.

Now get along, little doggies!