Sign of the Times-St. Joseph Stockyards Closed

It's the end of an era. As of Wednesday, May 19, the St. Joseph Stockyards in St. Joseph, Missouri is closed. The last auction was held that day.

After 134 years in business, the business had to close for various reasons. Maybe one big reason is that the stockyards, it's land value in particular, was at peak prices and hard to pass up for selling to potential buyers according to a story in April from kq2.com. From the information gathered in the article the future at that time was uncertain. Other than the sale no plans had been released to the public about the stockyards and the land it was on.

For over 100 years more than a million cattle had been through the gates at the St. Joe facility. Another stockyard in the area in Maryville had closed a year earlier so it was uncertain where cattleman would go to sell and buy livestock.

The St. Joseph Stockyards saw many generations of farmers and ranchers at the facility. It was very common to see many familiar faces when attending a sale.

The St. Joseph Stockyards had been owned by Canal Capital Corporation, a New York based company, since 1963. In September, 2012, a local buyer purchased it and held the stockyards until the recent selling of the property.

Another stockyard of notoriety was the K.C. Stockyards. It started out in 1871 and was in business until 1992. According to a story about the K.C. Stockyards on Wikipedia:

The stockyards straddled the state line across the Kansas river with two thirds of it in Kansas and one third in Missouri. At its peak 16 railroads converged at the yards.