Murdo McKenzie

 - Cattle Baron of Montana -

( 1850 - 1939 )
 


* List of the stories he appears in :
- D 92008 : "The Buckaroo of the Badlands" (Lo$#3), from 1992, by Don Rosa ;
- D 92083 : "The King of the Copper Hill" (Lo$#4), from 1993, by Don Rosa.

 

* His biography :
     Murdo Mackenzie, cattleman, was born near Tain, County Ross, Scotland, on April 24, 1850, son of tenant farmers David and Jessie Mackenzie.
   He attended parish school until 1864 and graduated from the Royal Academy at Tain in 1869. He served as an apprentice in a law office and then in the British Linen Bank at Tain. He was hired as assistant factor for the Balnagown estate of Sir Charles Ross, and he  held this position for about ten years. In 1876, he married Isabella Stronach MacBain and had five children with her.
   In 1885, he was offered the managership of the Prairie Cattle Company, and so the Mackenzies moved to Trinidad, Colorado. He became an American citizen and served as mayor of Trinidad. In 1891 he was offered to manage the Matador Land and Cattle Company. Mackenzie was president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association from 1901 to 1903. He then became founding president of the American Stock Growers Association and served from 1905 to 1911. He testified before the Interstate Commerce Commission and congressional committees and in interviews with President Theodore Roosevelt presented evidence that was instrumental in the passage of the Hepburn Act of 1906, which secured fairer railroad rates for western shippers. Roosevelt appointed him to the National Conservation Commission in 1908.In 1912 Mackenzie left the Matador to accept the managership of the Brazil Land, Cattle, and Packing Company, an enterprise backed by French money. At the expiration of his contract with the French syndicate he returned to the United States in 1918 and was promptly elected to the Matador board of directors. In 1922, when Matador manager John MacBain died unexpectedly, Mackenzie was reappointed to the position he had previously held. During his second tenure at the Matador he worked to improve relations among those involved in the meat-packing industry. Declining cattle prices and changing tastes in the American diet during the 1920s caused Mackenzie to recommend to the Matador shareholders that the company abandon its northern pastures as leases expired and confine its operations to its two Texas divisions. The program was adopted and implemented, so that by the end of 1928 the withdrawal to northwestern Texas had been completed. Mackenzie continued in management affairs until his retirement in 1937.
   He died on May 30, 1939, in Denver and was buried there.
 

* His place in the Barks/Rosa stories universe :
    He appears in "The Buckaroo of the Badlands", which takes place in 1882, in which he hires Scrooge, who just fell from a train and is poor and alone, to take care of Vindicator, a competitions bull, and gives him a horse which is going to be called Hortense, after Scrooge's sister Hortense McDuck. The McViper brothers steal the bull, bur Scrooge, helped by young Theodore Roosevelt, catch them and brings the bull back.
   Then? in the beginning of "The King of the Copper Hill", in 1884, Scrooge leaves him to become a copper prospector. In this very story, he tells his employee that he leaves and takes his herd to Texas.
 

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