CONNECTION TO BUTLER COUNTY

Having moved to this area to develop land holdings he had purchased while living in Illinois, Robert Hazlett made Butler County his home for the rest of his life.  Even during his three years in Leadville, Colorado, he and his wife continued to call El Dorado home.  News of the Hazlett’s Colorado venture often appeared in the El Dorado Times during these years.

With early financial successes as a lawyer, banker and mine owner, he obtained his greatest wealth by reason of later oil developments.  But his greatest accomplishment came as a Hereford cattle breeder.  His herd of 600 perfectly balanced Hereford cattle, representing nearly half a lifetime of careful, studious, scientific effort on Hazlett’s part, focused world- wide attention on the county.

COMING TO THE AREA

Sixteen months before leaving Illinois, Hazlett purchased land in Butler County.  At this time he was in his second term as elected state attorney. He was told by many that he had an excellent chance at achieving high office in politics.  But he did not care to be a politician.

He and his wife discussed their options; they decided that if they came to Kansas, a Republican state, there would be no inducement to enter politics.

Hazlett also had a boyhood dream of obtaining a lot of cheap land and building it up so that it might some day be valuable. So they chose to move here.

 

Hazlett had an unalterable faith in Kansas since coming to the state in 1885, and remained steadfast to those convictions.

Butler County may have been chosen for land investment because others he knew from Illinois had located here.  Among them were John Foutch of the National Bank of El Dorado, J. H. Fullinwider, a farmer and land promoter, D. M. Bronson, attorney and real estate agent, and J. M. Robison, farmer and rancher.

The Hazletts made the move to El Dorado in January of 1885, where he opened a law office at 322 W. Central.  But his primary interest became buying and selling land, in which he was gained financial success.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Practicing law in Springfield, Illinois from 1874 to 1885, Hazlett was twice elected State Attorney of Sangamon County, even though he was a democrat in a staunchly Republican area.  He successfully prosecuted the conspirators who attempted to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from a Springfield cemetery.

Having invested in Kansas land, he moved to Butler County, where he engaged extensively in the real estate business during the boom time of the 1980s, while still practicing law.  In 1887, he formed an association with C. L. Harris under the firm Hazlett and Harris.

In 1889, Hazlett moved to Leadville, Colorado, to oversee his mining interests.  Prospectors would make discoveries but investment capital was required to develop the mines.  This was a difficult time for Colorado mining and Hazlett came close to bankruptcy.  But he persevered, resorting to working the mine himself.  Three years later, he sold the mine, just before the collapse of silver prices in 1893.

Returning to El Dorado, he invested this acquired fortune in additional land holdings and in banking, purchasing a large interest in the Merchants State Bank.  He expanded this bank to eventually become Farmers & Merchants National Bank.  In 1909, he disposed of his holdings in this bank and became president of El Dorado National Bank, purchasing a majority of its stock.

In March of 1897, Hazlett was a leader in organizing the Farmers Mutual Insurance Company of El Dorado, and served as its president for many years.  Warren Hall Coutts, Jr. later recalled that Hazlett started this company because he then owned 35 farms (rented out to tenant farmers) and was tired of paying insurance premiums on all of them.  He ranked first in the county and was among the leaders in the state in owning farm lands.  His Butler County holdings at one time reached over 10,000 acres, operated under his personal supervision.

In 1898, he made his first purchase of pedigreed Hereford cattle, from a desire to have a small breeding establishment to, in his spare time, enjoy owning and improving.  He succeeded far beyond his expectations.  Over the next 30 years, he developed this beginning herd of 16 head into the finest herd worldwide, while building fame as one of the greatest stock breeders of modern times.  One acquaintance noted his soft spot for his animals: he often petted and talked to his animals, walking from town nearly every day to see them.

Unusual among wealthy cattlemen, Hazlett was not simply a rich man who hired competent help.  He himself was the guiding force in the development of his herd.  He knew their names, characteristics, what they ate, and where they slept.

In breeding as well as in all his affairs, Hazlett had a keen mind and learned quickly from study and observation.  His success was largely due to his trait of becoming a student of every enterprise he entered.  He also strictly adhered to the principle that “any animal that is not good enough to be used by himself, is not good enough to be sold to someone else for breeding purposes.”

Herefords were recognized as a breed best suited to the difficult conditions of the prairies, with a reputation for making more beef off grass than any other breed.  Breeders raised purebred cattle, not for the market, but for sale to ranchers seeking to improve their own stock.

Hazlett concentrated on line breeding, a theory tried and discarded by others as too risky and too expensive.  He discovered that close blood concentration can be followed up much longer than was formerly deemed possible, provided that none but the soundest animals are mated.

To achieve success, he culled his herd mercilessly.  He followed the same reasoning of English breeder William Torr, who stated “it takes thirty years to make a herd and bring it to one’s notion of perfection.”  So distinctive was the type of Hereford produced, that the strain became known in cattleman circles as the Hazlett Hereford.

Later, his breeding methods became standard teaching in the field.  At an award presentation, Dr. W. C. McCampbell of Kansas State College’s department of animal husbandry said of Hazlett, “The Hazlett Herefords comprise the greatest herd of Herefords the world has ever known.  Because of this, Mr. Hazlett does not belong to El Dorado or Kansas or the United States; he belongs to the world.”

Owning land found in 1916 to be rich in petroleum, Hazlett plunged into that rough and tumble business, becoming one of the area’s big producers of the Mid-Continent oil field.  He helped in the organizing of the Inland Oil and Midland Refining Company, later to become Skelly Oil Company.  Along with Robert H. Bradford, he was owner of the El Dorado Refining Company (El Reco), one of the largest area employers of the day.

Hazlett made money in many other fields, but not on his cattle. The high quality associated with the name Hereford today is, in part at least, his gift to the world.

           
 

AWARDS, RECOGNITION

Hazlett’s Hereford cattle captured scores of blue and purple ribbons in world competition, along with numerous grand championships, with perhaps a record never equaled in the livestock industry.

Because of his high standing in the industry, a specially executed portrait of him was commissioned to hang upon the walls of the Saddle and Sirloin Club of the Chicago Stockyards, the inner sanctum where the elite of the cattle world met to dine and talk business.  This rarely attained distinction was “in recognition of accomplishing something genuinely worthwhile of the highest achievement.”

On July 6, 1927, Hazlett’s 80th birthday, he was awarded the title “America’s Premier Hereford Breeder” by the Breed Association.  Hazlett also received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the Kansas State College in Manhattan, Kansas.

           

BIBLIOGRAPHY / SOURCE LIST

William Galvani, Robert Hazlett: America’s Premier Hereford Breeder; BCHS, El Dorado, KS

Vol. P. Mooney, History of Butler County, Kansas; Standard Publishing Co., Lawrence, KS, 1916; pp 416-418

R. H. Fisher, Biographical Sketches of El Dorado Citizens; Thompson Bros., El Dorado, KS, 1930; pp 36-37, 209, 222-224

Jessie Perry Stratford, Butler County’s Eighty Years, 1855-1935, BCHS, El Dorado, KS, 1935; pp 258-260

Lawrence P. Klintworth, The Kingdom of Butler – Her People; BCHS, El Dorado, KS, 1980; pp 111

Lawrence P. Klintworth, True Tales of the Kingdom of Butler; BCHS, El Dorado, KS, 1981; pp 107, 108

R. A. Clymer, Farewells; BCHS, El Dorado, KS, 1986; pp 58-61

Family files, Clymer library, BCHS (ORIGINALS IN ARCHIVES)

Subject files, Clymer library, BCHS