Golden Valley chronicle. (Beach, Billings County, N.D.) 1905-1916, 1907-10-24
, THE WESTERN COUNTIES
sELic on oLD RoMANoE-DF -MoREs, ABATToR BURNED

RELIC OF OLD ROMANCE DE
BY the burning of the old Abattoir
OF the Marquis De Mores at Medora,
few days ago, the dream of the 70.
mantle young Partisan whose career
attracted widespread attention in the
early eighties, has vanished in smoke
and the last chapter in remarkable
attempt to corner the beef market of
the country has been written.
In the minds of many of the pres.
ent generation of Westerners, the
memory of the daring but impractical
youth is still fresh. A graduate of st.
Cyr, the French West Point, superb
rider, dead shot, a skillful swords.
man, De Mores' parents chose for him
the traditional career of the family
in the French army, where he might
win renown and thus perpetuate the
coat of arms of his grandsire, the Due
de Dalambroza, created by the first
Napoleon. But the young man had
other aims. He had a large income
from his landed estates. and with this
he mapped out wondrous wealth in the
unknown Western country of America.
De Mores came to New York about
1888. Soon afterward he married Me-
dora Won Hoffman. the daughter of
Wall street banker of wealth, who
possessed a fortune in her own right.
and, together, they came West to
carve out the vast schemes in the
wilds of North and South Dakota that
filled the active mind of the young
Frenchman.
Fails at tho Start.
At a point on the Little Missouri
river, four miles east of the state line,
between North Dakota and Montana,
De Mores chose his home. He took
up large ranch and set to work. His
first venture in South Dakota was the
purchase of $4,000 head of sheep
which he put out on shares. Scabies
killed them off the first year. Moth
ing daunted, he set out on a wilder
scope and proceeded to buck the then
rising packing house trust on a large
scale.
He first built huge abattoir on his
ranch, where he intended killing all
the beef he could procure in Montana
and the Dakotas and the country west
of there. His scheme included the
establishment of cold storage houses
in Duluth, Bicmarck, Fargo, Helena,
Spokane and Portland and wholesale
houses in both New York and Wash
tngton. In this way he believed that
he could kill his beef West, ship it
East and find ready market, but he
figured without his bi-product, which
he had no means of handling. Medora,
the town, named after his American
wife, lay directly on the Northern Pa
cific, and he believed it an easy thing
to ship his beef East, but the packers
promptly put the price of their East
ern slaughtered beef so low that De
Mores could not meet it, and 100000
went to Join his sheep losses.
Stage Line His Next Idea.
Still De Mores persevered. In those
days what little mail there was from
Montana to the Black Hills came by
courier from Miles City, and then
around by Spearfish. De Mores con-
ceived another brilliant scheme. He
established a handsomely equipped
stage line between his ranch at Me-
dora and Deadwood, using Concord
coaches and having resting stations
every ten or twelve miles along the
route. Passengers were few, but that
did not worry the marquis, for he had
bigger game in view. He had learned
that bids we're about to beadvertised
for carrying the daily mail from Mon
tana to the Black Hills. so he offered
to do this stupendous task for the pal
try sum of $4,000 annually. Back in
Milwaukee contractor, who bid on
all things and we'll knew the few let
ters he would have to carry, bid but
$4,000, and. of course, secured the con-
tract.
Then, at last, De Mores' spirit
tagged. Everything he touched seemed
to turn to ruin or loss. And about
this time another of his projects went
under. De Mores had learned of the
wealth of coal. deposits around Alad
Jill. WyO., d1lU Was UcAt Ou UuAlOAA6
a railroad there from the Hills and
supplying Deadwood with coal. One
day he drove into town in his splendid
coach and eagerly sought interviews
with the business men of Deadwood
and Lead ON the subject, but met with
frigid reception from those who had
learned to look askance ON his flights
of fancy. So he turned his steps east
ward
With Seth Bullock. now United
States marshal for South Dakota, the
marquis haunted Wall street for back
ing for his railroad. His father-ip, law,
Won Hoffman, would have none Of it,
nor would the other financiers, who
scented an approaching panic on the
street.
Killed in Africa.
Disheartened and chagriped at con-
slant failure, De Mores, then but twen-
ty-six years old. returned to his hand
some home on the Little Missouri and
sold out everything he could. A scant
two years after his debut in the West,
he turned up in Paris as an anti-gov-
MAX RESIDENTS IN TROUBLE.