The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-06-24
MONTANA NEEDS
CENTRAL MARKET
BIG HOLE STOCKMAN FAVORS
BUTTE FOR LOCATION OF
STOCKYARDS
Roberts Brothers Started Stockyards
of Spokane on Shoestring a Few
Years Ago; Last Year Did a Bust
ness of $4,000, 900; Much of it
From Montana.

Walter Roberts and his brother
John Roberts, started a central stock
yards a few years ago in Spokane "o1
a shoestring," according to o. B. Can
field of Wisdom. Last year they
did a SO, 600 business. Facts
in connection with the packing and
s~tockyards business are appalling but
financial figures are not more amaz-
ing than some of the gyrations OF
Montana stock in their travels from
farm to Market" Garfield said.
ga short time ago." said the Wis
dom stockman, Joe Shaw shipped
seven or eight carloads of cattle to
Kansas City. The long trip made the
cattle too poor for killing and they
went sent on to Sioux City, Iowa, to
be fattened. In due time they were
conditioned and Walter Hansen then
bought them and shipped them back
to Butte, where they were butchered.
OF course, the producer is the one
who really paid the freight for these
cattle tourists.
81 don't wish to cast any reflec-
ton on Mr.. Hansen, whose business
has meant so much to Montana stock
men, but he can hang up only so
much beef at one time and there be-
ing no distributing facilities here nor
cattle market, at certain seasons of
the year he must go out of the state
or to feeding centers for his stock.
Last week II carloads of cattle
were shipped by the H~untley's from
Spokane and unloaded at Anaconda.
This stock probably originated in
large part in Montana but was sent
to Spokane for feeding as Spokane is
the closest cattle market where there
are feeding facilities. If Butte had
a union stockyards, which is synony-
nous with being a cattle market,
these cattle would never have left
the state and the farmer would have
saved the freight to Spokane and
back again.
"Butte can become a distributing
point and be of inestimable benefit to
the entire state as we'll as profiting
itself immensely. With the proper
stockyards facilities stockmen of va
rious sections of the state could ship
to Butte, sell here the stock which
local plants would buy and reloading
ship east or west the overgrown stuff
for which there may be only a de-
mand in eastern centers. The local
rancher could buy feeders in Butte,
drive them to his farm in the fall and
return them to Butte in the spring
for killing.
'"There are thousands of head of
cattle fed on sugar beet pulp in the
state of Idaho which are now far
from a market and which undoubted-
ly would be shipped to Butte if a
market were established here.
SIN the Big Hole country little
stock is kept in the summer time
while the hay is growing. Our stock
men sell the fat stock in the spring
and after the hay is stacked go to the
nearest market and buy poor cattle
to fatten up during the winter. The
cattle could just as we'll be sold in
Butte in the spring and bought in
Butte in the fall. On each transac-
ton the stockmen would save freight
charges.
''The need for making Butte a
s~tockyards center and distributing
point is SO apparent it is surprising
that a movement has not been inau-
gurated for it years ago."