Barber County Kansas
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Barber County Kansas |
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To the individual who for a period of twenty-five years has been exiled from forests, hills and running brooks, wrecked on a limitless ocean of prairie, with no rest for the eye and all their dread monotony, the natural beauties that environ D.L. Taylor's location are indescribable and only equaled by the natural adaptation of the place to the business in which he is engaged.Mr. Taylor, himself, is a pronounced type of the old time cattleman now fast disappearing from off the range: open hearted, open handed, gracious and free in dispensing the hospitalities of his home. He is one of the old-timers of Colorado, making his home at Trinidad, engaged in the cattle business more years than we can remember. He has been on the average successful in his ventures and amassed something more than a moderate fortune.
A little more than three years ago he conceived the idea of building up a herd of fine cattle and came to Kansas to secure a suitable location: After a thorough exploration of the country he selected one on Elm Creek, near the Elm mills, ten miles northeast of Lake City and fifteen miles northwest of Medicine Lodge, as combining in the greatest degree the natural facilities of summer grazing, agricultural lands for growing winter feed, shelter and water, necessary for the successful prosecution of his enterprise. He is an enthusiast in his work and having selected the Herefords as his favorites, has spared no expense in procuring thoroughbred, registered stock as the foundation of his herd, making his selections from such famous breeders as Gudgel and Simpson, of Indianapolis, and the Cross Sunny Slope herd, paying fabulous sums for males and as high as $800 for females. At the head of his herd, which he has named the Sunflower herd, is young Pretorian No. 71,784, by Don Carlos No. 33,734, the World's Fair prize winner in 1893. He is the prototype of his sire. Wide enough on top to serve a dinner course for six, his great round body set on short neat legs, wide and thick in his front, indicating perfect heart action, he is a massive creation of strength and beauty. His progeny show the marks of their ancestry; among them are seven-months calves weighing 750 pounds and at nine months 900 pounds.
Mr. Taylor's home is in a modest but roomy and neatly furnished dwelling set against the hills and fronting 160 acres of forest through which Elm creek, which is here something of pretentious stream, finds its way. His barns, granary and corrals, newly built after the most approved methods, are some distance east near a location where it is his intention to erect a new residence the coming summer. To each of his stock stables and yards, water is piped from a spring having its rise in the hills half a mile away.
Mr. Taylor's enterprise is yet in its infancy, but it will grow. His herd of Herefords is of blood as pure and lineage as long as any in the state, and his ranch, when his contemplated improvements are finished, will have no equal for picturesque beauty and practical utility.
Thanks to Ellen (Knowles) Bisson for finding, transcribing and contributing the above Medicine Lodge Cresset article to this web site!
It is one of a series of articles published together on 2 March 1900 under the title of Barber County Profiles: Men Who Have Taken a Prominent Part in Developing the Stock Industry in Barber County.
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