Kansas Pacific Stockyards

Kansas Pacific Stockyards. Historical Plaza Walking Tour Stop 7. , The stockyards were to your left on the location of today's old CK elevator. The photo to the left was actually taken from a location west of here. It shows scattered buildings in the background. Ellsworth was slowly growing to the north., In 1871, Shanghai Pierce, a prominent South Texas cattleman, found conditions less than favorable in Abilene for marketing cattle. He directed his herd to turn toward Ellsworth. But on seeing the inadequate stockyards here, he was said to have "set up a roar that was heard all over the town and the prairies." By the shipping season of 1872, the stockyards had been expanded to several acres. Seven loading chutes allowed eight men to load from 150 to 200 rail cars per day. R.D. Evans, a former drover, was the yard superintendent. In 1873, to combat the competition from the Santa Fe Railway at Wichita, the Kansas Pacific surveyed a more direct route from Sewell's Ranch on the Chisholm Trail, entering Kansas west of Caldwell, through Kingman, and crossing the Arkansas River at Ellinwood. The list of men who marketed cattle through these yards reads like a "Who's Who of the Texas Cattle Industry". Many of them were the founders of today's American cattle business. R.D. Hunter joined Albert G. Evans in the commission business in Kansas City in 1873. The firm of Hunter and Evans became known as one of the most influential commission houses in the livestock industry. They maintained ranching operations throughout the West.