The Dundee Matadors

This is the extraordinary account of how a small group of Dundee businessmen, mostly connected to the flourishing jute trade, came to own and operate one of the largest and best managed cattle empires in the United States. They were the the Dundee Matadors. When the Matador Land and Cattle Company was funded in 1882 it was only one 31 British-owned ranching companies operating in the American West. The fact that it was by far the longest lived and the most successful owes much to the character and skill of the people involved on both sides of the Atlantic. This is their story. When the company's two main ranches were sold in 1951 it broke a link between Dundee and West Texas which had held strong for 69 years. Over that period the business had to cope with violent storms, searing droughts, and extreme market volatility but in the long term it prevailed. At its peak around 60,000 Matador cattle ranged over 1.5 million acres of land in Texas, South Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan. It was a world away from the Dundee jute mills which provided the finance to make whole adventure possible.