Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876–1936); original portrait by James R. Stuart
Murdo Mackenzie
MACKENZIE, MURDO (1850–1939), inducted 1907
Born to tenant farmers in County Ross, Scotland, Murdo Mackenzie eventually became one of the largest cattle operators in the world. While apprenticing in a bank, a customer hired him to be an assistant factor, helping to oversee the agricultural interests of a 500,000-acre estate. Ten years later, in 1885, an Edinburgh syndicate hired him to manage the Prairie Cattle Company in Trinidad, Colorado. Mackenzie quickly became a US citizen and was elected mayor of Trinidad. In 1891, Mackenzie took over the Colorado and Texas herds for the Scots-owned Matador Land and Cattle Company, and he improved the herds dramatically by investing in purebred cattle. He was president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and then became founding president of the American Stock Growers Association.
Mackenzie’s congressional testimony helped the Hepburn Act of 1906 pass, securing fairer rates for western shippers. President Teddy Roosevelt appointed him to the National Conservation Commission in 1908. In 1912, he moved to São Paulo to become manager of the Brazil Land, Cattle, and Packing Company. There, he acquired and stocked tens of millions of acres of land and established one of Brazil’s first packing plants. Murdo Mackenzie returned to Colorado and Matador in 1918. He retired in 1937.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 132