Kansas City Stockyards
The Kansas City Stockyards in the West Bottoms west of downtown Kansas City, Missouri flourished from 1871 until closing in 1991. Jay B. Dillingham was the President of the stockyards from 1948 to its closing in 1991.
History
The stockyards were built to provide better prices for livestock owners.[citation needed] Previously, livestock owners west of Kansas City could only sell at whatever price the railroad offered. With the Kansas City Livestock Exchange and the Stockyards, cattle were sold to the highest bidder.
The stockyards were built around the facilities of the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company which had outfitted travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and Oregon Trail following the Kansas River. The company went out of business in 1862 following the failure of its Pony Express business from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California.
The stockyards were established in 1871 on the Kansas side of the
According to the Kansas City Kansan:[1] "In the heyday year of 1923, 2,631,808 cattle were received at the Kansas City yards. Of these, 1,194,527 were purchased for use in Kansas City by the packing houses and local markets; the remainder or about 55 percent was shipped out. Of 2,736,174 hogs received, 879,031 were shipped out; of 377,038 calves, 199,084 were shipped out; of 1,165,606 sheep, 445,539 were shipped and of 42,987 horses and mules, all but 1,664 were shipped out."
The stockyards flourished through the 1940s. At its peak only the
The stockyards straddled the state line across the Kansas river with two thirds of it in Kansas and one third in Missouri. At its peak 16 railroads converged at the yards.
Recently
In 1974 the City of Kansas City and the
References
- ^ How KC became one of the great stock markets of the world (accessed June 23, 2010).
- ^ "Kemper Arena will now be called Hy-Vee Arena". FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. 2018-05-17. Retrieved 2018-12-03.
Further reading
- Art Work on Eastern Kansas; Western Photogravure Company; 1900. (contains photos of stockyards)