Robert Harmon Hazlett was born July 6, 1847 on his father’s farm in Christian County, Illinois.  His parents were William Phe Hazlett and Zerelda Haggard Hazlett, who were among the original pioneer settlers in Illinois.  A successful lawyer and state attorney in Illinois, he later came to El Dorado to develop land investments made there.

Hazlett and his wife, Isabella Bradford Hazlett, had lived at 141 N. Emporia, in a house built in 1890.  In 1911, they built an elegant home at 115 S. Washington, using local limestone from the first Butler County courthouse.  Interior woodwork was of native walnut from their ranch, “Hazford Place.”

The name of this working ranch may have been a combination of Hazlett and Bradford, or of Hazlett and Hereford.  Both stories were circulated; the Hazlett’s never gave a definitive answer as to which it was.  They spent summers living at this ranch two miles north of town.

Robert and Isabelle were married January 7, 1884.  Having no children of their own, they raised Robert Hazlett Bradford, the motherless son of her cousin.  His father had been one of Hazlett’s closest friends.  Though raised as their own, the child was never formally adopted.  He called the Hazletts “Aunt and Uncle” and he was known as their nephew.

A lawyer, banker, and later a petroleum producer and refiner, Hazlett at one time owned over 10,000 acres of Butler County land.  He became owner and developer of the world’s greatest Hereford herd of cattle.

Modest, progressive, philanthropic and successful, he was known throughout the Central West as “The Ideal Citizen.”  He prospered through the sheer force of hard work, uncompromising integrity and prudent living.

Colleagues in the field of cattle breeding called Hazlett a “premier breeder” and “one of the five master breeders of beef cattle” of all time.  He held a vision of contributing something of lasting usefulness to humanity, hoping to build up a breed of cattle that should serve the food-producing industries of the world.  The name Hazlett became a sufficient guarantee of any animal’s breeding and quality.

Hazlett held memberships in the Saddle and Sirloin Club of Chicago, the Kansas City Club in  Kansas City, MO, El Dorado’s Kiwanis Club, the El Dorado Chamber of Commerce, and was a charter member of the El Dorado Country Club.  He also served as director of the American Royal Livestock Show in Kansas City and the International Livestock Show in Chicago.

He was president of both the El Dorado National Bank and Mutual Farm Insurance Company of El Dorado, and served as vice-president of the El Dorado Refining Company.  He was a member of the executive committee for the American Hereford Cattle Breeder’s Association, as well as serving at different times as its director and president.  Having served in the offices of director and president of the American Royal Livestock Show, he did much to draw attention to Kansas cattle.

Rolla A. Clymer wrote of Hazlett’s herd, “It [the herd] is not generally listed as one of the town’s assets, yet it has done far more to advertise the town in years past than the achievement of any other single individual.”

Robert Hazlett died on December 29, 1936. On the day of his funeral, held privately in his home, many local businesses closed out of respect.  Fellow influential businessmen from all over the nation came to pay their respects.

Six months after Hazlett’s death, a dispersal sale of his livestock attracted buyers from all over the world.  Thus was his herd broken up, and Butler County’s greatest attraction of the day became only a memory.