Plains Folk: A stockyards tussle
By JIM HOY
© Plains Folk
Back in the days when cattle were shipped into and out of the Flint Hills by train, the local stockyards was a bustling place. Whether at Hymer, Cassoday, Volland, or Matfield Green, whether on the Katy, the Santa Fe, or the Missouri Pacific, whenever there were cattle in the pens, there was often some excitement on the ground — a Brahma steer on the prod, a cowboy's horse suddenly breaking in two, a scuffle between humans.
The late Glen Clopton of Madison told me once about how as a teenager he stood up to one of the big cattlemen. Clopton had been with a crew that got to the Hamilton stockyards first that day, and after weighing their cattle they had put them in the pens closest to the loading chutes so that they could load out first.
As a kid, he had been left to watch the cattle while the rest of the crew went to eat. During this time the boss of an outfit that had arrived later started to move the steers so he could put his own cattle in the priority-loading pens.
"I stood in the gate and told him he'd have to move me first," Clopton told me. "He was madder than a wet hen, but he backed down."
Recently I ran across an account of a big fight in 1899 at the Bazaar stockyards in Chase County. The scuffle was not about loading steers, but about ownership of a steer. Here is the newspaper account, verbatim.
"The greatest fist fight that ever occurred in Chase or adjoining counties took place in one of the pens of the stock yards here last evening. Several parties were shipping cattle when Sam Stotler, living near the county line on the Verdigris, and Evander Bocook, living at Matfield, got into a dispute over the ownership of a steer. Bocook said if Stotler would make affidavit that the steer was his or under his control, he (Bocook) would let him have it. Stotler furnished the necessary evidence and Bocook, who was on the fence, said 'the steer is yours, but you are a — — ! — — ! — — !' Stotler returned the epithet and Bocook leaped to the ground but before recovering himself Stotler planted two blows in Bocook's eyes. Nothing daunted, Bocook recovered his equilibrium and tackled Stotler. John Leonard and Lewis McCrary were the only persons in the pen with the fighters and they attempted to part them, but they refused to be parted, and the battle was renewed. For 28 minutes they pounded each other, Stotler getting in mostly on Bocook's face, while Bocook showered blows on Stotler's breast and stomach, until both fell exhausted. Stotler broke his right hand and his breast and stomach was badly bruised. Bocook's eyes were nearly closed and his face cut and lacerated. Geo. Leonard dressed Bocook's wounds and he rode home in the Matfield carry-all. Stotler left for home on a horse. We hope the fight is over but some think they will renew the battle the first time they meet.
"The combatants are pretty well matched, each weighing in the neighborhood of 200 pounds, but Stotler is the oldest and heaviest. Bazaar has been the scene of many a set-to in which the manly art of self defense has been introduced to show how battles are lost and won, but the last was the best, the men giving and taking punishment like veteran pugilists."
Ironically, at the time of the fight the newly created Kansas Livestock Association had a detective investigating both men for cattle theft. Neither man was ever caught in the act, but it's obvious that neither had a very high opinion of the other's character, either.
