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Fenton Pratt, Sheepman
and Entrepreneur
Fenton Pratt became a very
successful sheep rancher. His business ledgers indicate
that in March and April 1891 he shipped 3,566 pounds of
wool to markets in St. Louis and Philadelphia. In
addition to selling wool and dealing in the livestock
trade, Fenton served as the local financier. He accepted
livestock, farm implements, and land as collateral
against loans he made to dozens of people in the area.
In the 1890s Fenton constructed a stone house and
buildings. He also planted many cottonwood trees and
named his home Cottonwood Ranch.
By 1888 Fenton felt he was
prosperous enough to have his fiancée in Ripon, England,
join him in America. Jennie Elizabeth Place made the
long journey to Kansas alone, arriving at Lenora,
Kansas, the end of the rail line, on December 30, 1888.
She and Fent were married the next day. The couple had
two daughters, Hilda (1889-1980), and Elsie (1894-1975).
Except for Elsie, they all essentially lived at
Cottonwood Ranch until their deaths.
Jennie had to adjust to
the challenges of providing hospitality in her new home.
She recalled:
Everybody who came pulled
up at the table. Strangers and everyone! When people
came to call, they brought their bedding with them. The
men slept on the floor and the women in the beds, as
long as the beds lasted.
Fenton died in 1937. Hilda
never married and remained on the home place with her
mother. After the death of Mrs. Pratt in 1959, Hilda
loved alone at the ranch until 1978. She died in 1980.
In 1982
the State of Kansas purchased approximately 23 acres of
the original Cottonwood Ranch.
Today, the Kansas State Historical Society
administers the property as one of the state’s
last surviving legacies of English settlement in Kansas.
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