The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-09-15
NAYCOME To WICHITA
Geo. Theis, .Jry to Organize
Cattle Co. With $4,000.
LOOKING FOR LOCATION
How He Made Quarter of a
Million Dollars in Cattle.

George Theis, Jr., for years president OF
the Farmers and Stock Growers bank OF
Ashland, Kansas, and the heaviest deal
er in cattle now living in Kansas, was
in the city yesterday. He will move from
Ashland and contemplates locating in
Wichita, where he will form and incorpor-
ate a cattle company with $159, 900 capt.
tai within year. Mr.. Theis has been
shown extraordinary inducements to To-
cate in Kansas City and engage in bank
ing in connection with the cattle business
but he has not decided to go. He likes
Wichita. He has sold his banking bust
ness in Ashland to Messrs. Chandler of
Medicine Lodge and Bergman of Elk
City. for the snug little fortune of $685.
900. About the time this sale was made
Mr.. Theis also sold 1,02O head of cattle for
winter feeding to the Nebraska cattle
company for which he received s34, 600.
Reading of these two big trades enc
would be inclined to say that besides
leaving southwestern Kansas Mr.. Theis
had also disposed of all his property
there. This is not true by a long way
He still owns nearly 1000 head of cattle,
worth 1000; tract of land twenty
times as large as the corporate area of
Wichita, and has leased ranches amount
ing to $4,000 acres. He has enough left
out there to make his income bigger than
the salary of the president of the Santa
Fe, railway.
Fourteen years ago Mr.. Theis went to
Ashland with less money than 1t would
take to buy the most ordinary residence
in Wichita-less than $1,000. He is now
worth a quarter of million dollars and
has an income of nearly $4,000 year. He
is only 81 years old yet
kansas beats Klondike,' ne said to a
representative of the Eagle last highland
he is a living proof of his own statement
For Mr. Theis has made his fortune,
every dollar of it-and no other man in
Kansas of his age has made as much
right out in the territory that is some
day to help make Wichita the big town
OF the southwest
When Mr. Theis went to Clark county
Kansas was on a boom. Every quarter
section to the Colorado line had a home
Every county seat had rush of brick
blocks, real estate spectators big bust
ness ventures. When a dry year come
along and hammered the boom out fat
and building at county seat towns stop
ped and people found out that the ex-
IRENE southwest of Kansas was not made
for farming alone, the crowd left. Mr.
Theis saw the dawn of the cattle era and
he began at once to buy and sell in a
way He drove to the center Of the stu
alton at once as he does any business
proposition. In a few years he made
enough so that he bought cattle all the
time and sold when people wanted to
buy. There were ups and downs in the
market but Mr.. Theis saw the time ahead
when cattle wouldn't break on the bot
tom. He was everlastingly at it just as
all men are who succeed. He shipped
cattle from Arizona and New Mexico by
the train load. He got ranches of his
own ond increased them year by year.
Other men plunged, bought heavily and
stranded with slump. A heavy loss dis
courages most men but when Mr. Theis
lost on bunch of cattle he bought again.
Inc mllllon acre ranches IN the lndldn
territory broke before the settlement of
the county. Ranches everywhere began
to grow smaller as the contest for graz
ing land increased and Mr.. Theis saw his
policy win The day of bottom slumps in
the cattle market followed the days of
the million acre ranches and the cattle
baronS and there are thousands of
juicy little fortunes in the cattle business
in the country west of Wichita