S&S PORTRAIT COLLE C TION PAGE 10 Preface Duncan Alexander, President of the cornerstone on which youth can create a American Live Stock Insurance Company, was future visiting long time friend and partner, Frank complete with the ideals personified by the Harding at his home in Maine. On Duncan’s portrait gallery of greats. way back to Geneva, Illinois, he called Dale Dale, as an effective breed promoter, Runnion. publisher and editor, and Harlan, as an educator, Dale remembers the call some years lecturer and premier livestock judge, already ago as going something like this, “As we were have their portraits hung in the gallery. Richard visiting one evening, I (Duncan) said. Frank, is an educator who teaches livestock history you and your friends should produce a video and has developed measurable performance and record the history of the Saddle and Sirloin for beef breeders through EPD’s. These three Club…Frank’s reply was short and quick…call deserve a solid thanks for once again serving Dale and tell him to get at it.” the industry all three love. Dale’s reaction was quick also. He Reading of the history is stimulating, said, “I’ll help, but Harlan Ritchie at Michigan inspirational and authentic. It portrays the State has already gathered a lot of good high ideals of men of vision, performance material on the history.” When Dale called and respect whose portraits have been added Dr. Ritchie, Harlan said, “Dr. Willham at Iowa to the gallery this past 106 years. It provides State has a wealth of material on hand. We a challenge to youth to dream and set goals should call him.” So three guys, who shared in their lives. It is a portrayal of how men’s the experience of visiting the Club in their minds and hearts along with courage and hard youth, have written “Places for Dreams”, a work can achieve and benefit society. History of the Saddle and Sirloin Club and it’s No industry has such a documented Portrait Gallery. portrait history. This is a one of a kind These three leaders of our livestock publication relating a history that needs to be industry have shared their experience of being told. It documents the vast breadth of animal at the old and new Saddle and Sirloin Club and agriculture and industries therewith associated. their insights into the true significance of these The many dreamers of the past, present, and places for dreams in the industry. Their lives those challenging youth to achieve for the have been dedicated to our livestock industry. future, are illustrated skillfully by the authors. They have emulated the leaders captured in the oil portraits they first experienced. This is why they have devoted their time to this labor Dr. Don L. Good of love. It did take time to write the story and collect the images. This labor will become a Emeritus Head, Animal Science Department Kansas State University S&S PORTRAIT COLLE C TION PAGE 11 Home of the Saddle and Sirloin Portrait Gallery The Kentucky Exposition Center is pictured during the Kentucky State Fair. The Center is the home of the Saddle and Sirloin Club and its famous portrait gallery of livestock industry leaders. The Kentucky Exposition Center and sales of horses, dairy cattle and other (KEC), Louisville, Kentucky each November livestock. Over 4 million visitors each year hosts the world’s largest purebred livestock enter the Center, with over 200,000 during the show, the North American International North American. Livestock Exposition (NAILE). Exhibitors The greatest number of Saddle and with more than 22,000 entries from forty-eight Sirloin portraits hang in the West Hall of the states and Canada vie for more than $700,000 Exposition Center. The remaining portraits in premiums and awards each year. hang in South Wing C. Visitors are awed at With over 1.2 million square feet the quality of the tributes the 106 year old of exhibition space on one floor, over 260 tradition pays it’s livestock leaders. Each year events, displays and shows are held here each in November during the stock show another year. It is the home of the Kentucky State industry leader is selected by his peers and his Fair, the North American International, the All portrait is hung with due ceremony. American Angus Futurity, the National Farm Machinery Show, World’s Championship Horse Show, and numerous displays, shows S&S PORTRAIT COLLE C TION PAGE 12 Baronial Hall with its vaulted oak-beamed ceilings, paneled walls, state flags and portraits was reminiscent of the banquet halls of medieval England and was one of the most appreciated Tudor rooms in the Club. Livestock Industry Ideals The ideals of the giant livestock possess an atmosphere and a quiet dignity industry are personified in a famous gallery that reflect the ideals of the industry. of oil portraits of industry leaders. This But, above all else, the collection was created in the collection is a source historic Saddle and Sirloin of inspiration to youth “…let us hope that in the Club near the Union Stock wishing to excel in our years to come it will give Yards in Chicago starting in still further assurances to vastly different livestock 1903. Industry leaders have those of the present and industry today. A modern been honored by their peers the future who may render place for dreams has been and their portraits displayed outstanding services along created around our legacy in a place of dreams, the these lines, that their of the Saddle and Sirloin Club. work and the influence of Club and the gallery of In 1977, the their example shall not be portraits of industry gallery was moved to the allowed to perish”. leaders. Kentucky Exposition Center …… A. Sanders 1915 In this work, we in Louisville, Kentucky, have liberally used the where the North American well-turned phrases of International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) Alvin H. Sanders, the dean of livestock is held. A new portrait of an industry leader journalism and editor of the Breeders Gazette is selected each year and added to the that so aptly convey an abiding love for the collection. In 1978, Dr. Hilton M. Briggs, ideals of a place of dreams. The writings president of South Dakota State University, of Sanders inspired generations of youth to was the first leader to be hung in the new become industry participants and leaders. home at Louisville. Today, after trials of time, fire and displacement, the portraits S&S PORTRAIT COLLE C TION PAGE 13 Eighteen railroad truck lines and Great Lakes shipping quickly made Chicago a livestock and grain market hub. Chicago - Nature’s Metropolis Before the history and traditions of the began to hum. A hustler, William Ogden, arrived Saddle and Sirloin Club can be told, the setting and in 1835 with a dream that Chicago could become stage for this place for dreams needs to be related. the hub of commercial agriculture. Ogden made This stage is part of the rich, romantic heritage of Chicago nature’s metropolis by first creating a shell our livestock industry. of a city. Our fledgling nation won independence In six years, the first bumper crop on the at the Treaty of Paris in 1783 after eight years of western prairie rewarded him. The Chicago Board war with Great Britain. Creating a government of, of Trade that handled agriculture commodities by and for the people, as Lincoln so aptly said in opened in 1848. Ogden invited Cyrus McCormick his Gettysburg Address, was but the first step. The second was for people with dreams, who now had the freedom to act, to put their dreams into action. Our industrial revolution followed that of the British in the middle of the 19th century. Because of geography, abundant resources and freedom to act, our changes quickly dwarfed those of Europe. The commercialization of agriculture, a part of the second phase, was enacted in Chicago. The Erie Canal that linked the Great Lakes to the seaport of New York opened in 1825. What was to become Chicago was 800 miles inland, but in 1833 a sand bar was opened on the Chicago The Chicago Board of Trade opened in 1848, the River, giving the city a harbor and lake traffic year telegraph lines and Cyrus McCormick reached Chicago. The canal was dredged and construction started on the first railroad. to Chicago to mass produce farm machinery and International Harvester was the result. But what made Chicago the hub was the coming of 18 railroad trunk lines that carved their way over the Appalachian mountains using the drovers’ trails that were used to bring animals for slaughter and consumption back east in the 1850’s Chicago was the junction between the prairie harvest and the masses of people back east. Due The Erie Canal offered an important avenue to the to Chicago’s location…in the middle of the richest east coast for mid-west agricultural products. agricultural land in the world…it became the S&S PORTRAIT COLLE C TION PAGE 14 largest railroad center in the nation. Each of the railroads had their own yards to receive livestock for trade. After ownership changed hands, most livestock had to be driven over Chicago streets to the riverside packing plants. In 1864, Samuel Allerton and John Sherman, Chicago business men, livestock producers and traders, began advocating “one stockyard accessible to all Chicago railroads” to more efficiently handle the volume of stock arriving for trade. That fall, John B. Sherman opened a “yard” in 1849 as a drop- off spot for the Chicago and Galena RR.