Mr. Holt Hickman

Holt Hickman, an early manufacturer of auto air conditioners who used part of his fortune to revitalize Fort Worth's Historic Stockyards as a major tourist destination, died Saturday evening after a long illness, his son Brad Hickman said today. He was 82.

While Hickman spent decades building local companies that sold air conditioners and cruise control devices to automakers around the world, the cowboy-hatted entrepreneur is best known for rescuing the "world's largest" honky tonk, Billy Bob's Texas, and transforming the struggling Stockyards to what is now a magnet to more than 3 million annual visitors. An even bigger Hickman project for the district is in development.

"Holt was a visionary," said H.B. "Hub" Baker, one of Hickman's numerous partners in various investments and executive director of the Cowtown Coliseum and the Stockyards Championship Rodeo. "He had love and heart in his soul for the Fort Worth Stockyards. This is a one-of-a-kind thing and he realized that. I loved him for that."

Mr. Hickman was born in Fort Worth but grew up in Weatherford after his parents divorced. Attending Southern Methodist University on a swimming scholarship, he worked vacations at his father's battery business.

After serving as an officer in the Air Force, he and his wife pulled together $25,000, half from savings - "It was every penny Jo and I had in the world" - and half borrowed to start Lone Star Manufacturing to make ACs. He sold the company in 1978, and formed Specific Cruise Systems the next year, merging it with another manufacturer in 1990 to form SCS/Frigette, which brought him back to producing auto air-conditioning systems. In 2006, he sold most of the company for $70 million.

According to longtime Stockyards businessman Steve Murrin, Mr. Hickman got interested in the Stockyards district in 1988 when Murrin mentioned that another local millionaire, Richard Rainwater, was in the running to invest in Billy Bob's, which had closed after its founder, Billy Bob Barnett, over-extended himself in non-income producing real estate.

Mr. Hickman, Murrin and Don Jury, a former financial officer at Justin Boots, formed a partnership to reopen Billy Bob's later that year.

Then Hickman, alone or with various partners including Dallas heiress Lyda Hunt Hill, began acquiring property after property. Among them were the Livestock Exchange Building and Stockyards Station, once crumbling hog and sheep pens for the annual Fort Worth Fat Stock Show before it relocated to the Cultural District. He also built what is today the 101-room Hyatt Place Stockyards Hotel on Exchange Avenue.

"Holt was a wonderful husband, father and grandfather and we will all miss him greatly," Brad Hickman said.

Hickman is survived by his widow, Mrs. Jo Hickman, son Brad and daughter Mrs. Brenda Kostohryz. A service is planned for 10 a.m. Wednesday at University Christian Church, followed by burial at Greenwood Cemetery.