Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1902-04-08
THE CAREER Of DE- MORES
Western Career Of the Marquis De
Mores Recalled by Coming Trial
of His Murderers.
Immense Enterprises Built up in the
West for a Time With His
Lavish Expenditures.

There is considerable interest in the
western part of North Dakota in the
report that the trial of two of the al
legged murderers of the Marquis de
Mores will begin at Tunis, Africa, May
20.
The career of de Mores in the west
was meteoric and tinged with all the
elements of romance. A young French
mar of high family and dashing i'm
pulses, he came to the west in the early
eighties and built an immense beef
Strengthening plant at Medora, a little
town in the heart of the famous Bad
Lands, which he made famous for a
time. His expenditures in the west for
buildings, beef, stores, ranch supplies
and all the app%urtenances of his i'm
lion. He built refrigerators along the
line of the Northern Pacific from Hell
n to Chicago and engaged in fierce
competiti n with eastern beef packers.
On the bank of the Little Missouri
river he built a fine residence, where he
lived part of the year with his wife, a
daughter of l. Won Hoffman, a wealthy
New York banker. From. this resi-
dence he outfitted for his numerous
hunting expeditions. Hundreds of men
were in his employ, cowboys, butchers,
slaughter house men, and his plentiful
dollars were lavishly expended in his
schemes to revolutionize the beef pack
ing industry. Thousands of his beef
steers roamed the prair1es and hills of
the Bad Lands. and for several years
he was easily the most conspicuous
figure i'm the then new west. He over
Swallowed even the splendid person
ality of Theodore Roosevelt, who was
then a Bad Lands ranchman, with hi
implusive recklessness, immena
schemes and lavish expenditure of
money.
Those were troublesome times in the
cattle region of the west, and de Mores
did not escape them. There were bad
men with regulations to sustain
through the wild country, and some
Of them threatened de Mores, declaring
that he must leave the country. The
fiery Frenchman was not easily aft
frighted, and had he been better
known possibly the death of one man
would have been avoided. At any
rate, out of the threats and counter
threats that were passed, there grew a
shooting ARRAY on the banks of the
Little Missouri river. De Mores and a
party of friends were crossing the
river, and two plainsmen were rounding
a bluff on the opposite side of the Lit
tie Missouri. Shots were exchanged
between the two parties, and one of the
opposite firing party was killed. De
Mores was arrested and tried at Bis
marck for the killing, but was acquit-
ted.
His western life was full of excite
ment and adventure. He throve on
the wild life of the west, but his beef
packing Industry proved a failure, and
the immense plant was shut down; his
cattle disposed of, his fine residence
shut up, and the west knew de Mores
no more, except by report of his adj
ventures elsewhere. He went to
China, and was there interested in
French railway concessions. Return
ing to France he plunged ardently into
politics and several duels resulted. in
each of which he came off victorious.
France, however, despite the field Of
politics, proved too tame for him, and
ne plunged again with all the fervor of
his disposition into an African vent
ure, which cost him his life. Setting
Off from Tunis, through the wild and
desert country, he took with him alone