A RANCHMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS 



Civil War, Philip D. Armour became convinced that 

 he needed a location nearer the source of beef pro- 

 duction. Accordingly in 1870 he located a packing- 

 house in Kansas City, devoted largely to the slaugh- 

 ter of beef, although the hog was an important 

 factor in the business. The Kansas City stockyards 

 were simply a holding-place. Crude cuts of the yards 

 in the McCoy book show them to be made like good- 

 sized railroad feed and rest pens of the present day, 

 probably about twice the size of those at Parsons, 

 Kans. 



Some trading was done in the yards, but in the 

 main packinghouse buyers went out to Abilene, 

 taking real money with them, and making their 

 purchases as trail herds came in. G. W. Tourtelotte, 

 familiarly known as "Charlie" Tourtelotte, later 

 superintendent of the Kansas City plant for twenty 

 years, was Armour's pioneer buyer. I wish that 

 space permitted my going into details concerning the 

 reminiscences that I have heard him relate. He was 

 a man of unusual balance, likable, competent and 

 dependable. He did not believe, even in those early 

 days, when it was so much in vogue, in mixing 

 "booze" and business. From others I have learned 

 that his great asset with the men whom he came in 

 contact with in those early days was his absolute fair- 

 ness. He established for his company that most 

 valuable of all business assets: "A good concern to 

 do business with." 



[II] 



