Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1896-08-06
ome secret project with

some secret project with less
hindrance.
The marquis was thirty-seven years
old His full name was Antonio Maria
de yallambrosa. His father is the Due
de Vallambrosa, a native Of the island
OF Sardinia, and son OF Spanish
parents. In 1882, when the Marquis
was twenty:three, he met in Paris Miss
Medora Won Hoffman, the beautiful
daughter of Louis Won Hoffman, New
York banker. and power in Wall
street. Miss Won Hoffman was doing"
Europe at the time, and after a short
engagement the marriage took place
abroad They journeyed to this coun-
try, and the marquis and his bride
planned a great western trip. Both OF
the young people had large fortunes,
but If de Moree had had the wealth OF
Monte Cristo it would have been too
small for some of the schemes he con-
ceived. When they got as far as Chi
cago the marquis toured the great
packing and slaughter houses. He dis
covered that the owners of these places
had amassed millions by killing and
dressing the cattle shipped to them
from all quarters of the great west. He
learned that the ranch men made
money, the killers and dressers made
money, the wholesale dealers and com
mission houses made money, and, fin
ally, than the retail butchers made
money.
These items of information stuck in
de Mores' head and soon developed an
idea which at one time seriously
threatened to revolutionize the ranch
ing, packing and butcher business. His
scheme was to raise his own cattle,
kill and dress it on the ranch, ship 1t
on his own refrigerator cars to the
eastern cities and there sell 1t to the
consumer over his own counters in his
own stores. To make his scheme ma
tional in scope he expected in time to
build complete chain of packing
houses from the Dakotas through the
great cattle countries to the PACING. In
this way he would buy up all the cattle
in the west as the ianchman would
have only a comparatively short dis
lance to drive their herds to reach one
of his packing houses.
This was a pretty big scheme for
man of twenty-three, but the marquis
always went in for big things. Just
south of the North Dakota bad lands,
and near the Montana line, is beau
tiful stretch of cour Try called the gar
den of Eden. There were $4,000 acres
in this strip and de Mores purchased 1t.
Then he mapped out town and called
it Medora, after his wife, He built
hotel, stores, postofiice, houses.
beautiful chateau for himself, and in
few months Medora had population OF
1000 people. He also built packing
house and made ready for business,
AS a trial he arranged for the purchase
of 30 600 cattle.
At each end of the valley is defile
between the table lands. The dealer
who arranged TO sell the 10000 head OF
cattle drove $4,000 through one deflle
and they were counted in the middle OF
the valley Then instead of driving
them into the corral he took them out
of the other defile and back through
the first one. He had continuous
chain Of cattle and each steer was
counted twice The dealer said after
ward that he could have palmed off the
$4,000 for 10000 cattle if necessary,
The marquis was considered fair
game for the whole country. When
he was in the market for horses the
dealers unloaded upon him the worst
lot Of vicious, bucking ponies in the
west But the marquis disappointed
them when he succeeded in riding the
toughest in the lot. He could not only