Lawyer, land speculator, mine owner, banker, cattle breeder, petroleum producer and refiner, Robert H. Hazlett’s greatest accomplishment was his award-winning purebred Herefords. Born in 1847 in Illinois, he moved to El Dorado, Kansas in 1885.    

   
Educated at the Illinois Industrial University and the University of Michigan, he practiced law and was elected state attorney. Moving to El Dorado, he worked as a lawyer and speculated in land. He invested his profit from a Colorado silver mine in the banking business, and continuing to buy up Butler County land. In later years, during the oil boom, he became an oil producer and refiner, operating El Dorado Refinery Company.

 

At age 50, he purchased a small herd of Hereford cattle, deciding to see what he could do to improve the stock. Through innovating breeding, this developed into the world’s greatest Hereford stock of the day.

 

In this accomplishment, Hazlett probably did more to put El Dorado and Butler County on the map than any other El Doradoan in the town’s history. He died on Dec. 29, 1936.