Cattle and Colorado were ideal for each other . Colorado offered ideal conditions for grazing even in the winter . The climate on the plains was temperate in the winter . There was enough water and plenty of food . The state ’ s trees , mountains , ravines , and gulches provided excellent protection from winter storms and summer heat . The wild grasses , buffalo and grama , could survive trampling , close grazing , and drought . In addition , there were over 200 varieties of grasses growing in the Colorado territory . The practical discovery of the value of grazing of these new grasses was made by wagon train bosses . One such man , A . J . Williams , left 18 foot-sore , scrawny oxen on the prairie near Fort Lupton to die in the fall of 1858 . When he returned in the spring , he found them fat and content and was able to take them to market in Denver where he made good money from them .
Colorado and the Texas cattle industry are closely related . Originally , Colorado provided forage for large herds of cattle passing through the state . These cattle , in the beginning , were cull cows . They were destined for the meat market and needed to be fattened before being sold . The first recorded herd was brought to Colorado by Oliver Loving in 1857 . Three years later , Loving partnered up with Colonel Charles Goodnight , to bring another herd to Colorado to be fattened in the Arkansas Valley . Their route became one of the most famous routes for moving cattle north to market and was named after them , the Goodnight- Loving Trail . The cattle were to be sold to the people on the Apache Reservation ; however , the demand for beef increased when the gold miners came to the state in 1859 , and the herd was sold in Pueblo . Gold fever caused an estimated 100,000 people to head to Colorado increasing the demand for beef . In 1860 , Samuel Hartsel , a pioneer of South Park , came to Colorado looking for gold . He found no gold so he began herding oxen . He bought foot-sore and sore-necked oxen from people hauling freight to Colorado . He put these cattle out to eat grass so they would become fat . He paid $ 10- $ 20 per animal and sold them when they got fat for $ 90- $ 100 . The demand for beef by the miners was great . Realizing that a profit could be made raising cattle , Hartsel started to improve his herd . Another person who got his start in the cattle business by buying foot-sore cattle from immigrants was John Wesley Iliff . In 1864 , Iliff also bought the wild Texas longhorns brought to Colorado by Goodnight and Loving . The herd was originally bound for New Mexico Territory but Indian raids caused the herd to be diverted into Southern Colorado where Iliff bought the entire herd . He became Colorado ’ s first cattle baron and became known as the Cattle King of Colorado . In 1868 , the partners Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight joined together again to bring large herds numbering in the thousands of cattle into Colorado . They followed the trail they had used previously in 1857 and 1860 . Moving the cattle slowly along the trail allowed the cattle to graze ; thus , fattening the cattle so they were ready for market when they reached their destination .
On average , what was Mr . Hartsel ’ s profit ( sale price - purchase price = profit ) on each animal he bought and sold ?