100 Years Ago: Whole Buffalo on Display at Broadway Market in Alton

A December 4, 1925 article in the Alton Evening Telegraph announced that “Jake Schneider of the Broadway Market has a whole Buffalo on display at his market.” He had received it (already slaughtered) the day before. Schneider had purchased the buffalo (technically an American bison) from the famous Scotty Philip herd at Fort Pierre, South Dakota. After several days on display, the buffalo was skinned, cut up, and buffalo steak, buffalo roast, and “buffalo this and that” were sold to Jake’s customers. “The buffalo is a good-sized animal and Schneider is the authority for the statement that he is range-fed, had never been tamed, and is just the right age for good buffalo meat eating.” A Broadway Market advertisement printed in the Alton Evening Telegraph on December 9 invited the public to place orders for cuts of the buffalo. The ad stated, “You will find this delicious buffalo meat a splendid change for your next meal. Place your order early and get a choice cut. We have young buffalo.” We don’t know exactly how much the Broadway Market buffalo weighed, but a newspaper article from Logansport, Indiana, the same month, mentioned that a buffalo from the Scotty Philip herd weighing 800 pounds was on display in a butcher shop there. There are no more Broadway Market buffalo ads after December 9, so the meat must have sold quickly.

James “Scotty” Philip (sometimes mistakenly spelled Phillip) died in 1911, years before the Broadway Market purchased a buffalo from his herd. But Philip is a famous figure in the American West and in conservation, “noted for his efforts to prevent extinction of the buffalo.” Scotty Philip was born in Scotland in 1858 and emigrated to the United States when he was fifteen years old. A few years later, he settled in Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and married Sarah “Sally” Laribee in 1879. Since Sally was half Cheyenne, the Philips were given a plot of treaty-protected Native American land on the Great Sioux Reservation where they raised cattle. Their ranch was located along the Missouri River north of Fort Pierre, South Dakota. (Sally was the daughter of French settler Joseph Laribee and his Cheyenne wife, Shahunwinla. She was also the sister-in-law of Lakota chief Crazy Horse.) In 1899, Scotty purchased fifty-seven bison from Pete Dupree’s estate with the intention of preventing the animal from going extinct. By Scotty’s death in 1911, the herd had grown to almost 1000, which at that time was the largest in the world. Many of the bison at Custer State Park, South Dakota’s first and largest state park, are descendants of the 36 bison purchased from the Scotty Philip herd in 1914. (Sixty more bison were added from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1951.) Custer State Park now has nearly 1,400 free-roaming bison, and there is a Buffalo Roundup held annually. The Roundup allows for some of the animals to be sorted out of the herd (approximately 200-500) and sold at public auction. Those bison are used by the buyers to supplement an existing herd, to start a new herd, or to eat – just like the bison on display 100 years ago at Broadway Market.

Special thanks to George Fuller for research help with this week’s article. This article is dedicated to my mother, Leslee D. Spraggins, who helped bring American bison back to Iowa and Illinois during her career at The Nature Conservancy.

Sources

“800 Lb. Buffalo Received Here.” Logansport Pharos Tribune (Logansport, IN), December 15, 1925.

“Jake Schneider Buys a Buffalo.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), December 4, 1925.

“James Phillip.” Madison Daily Leader (Madison, SD), July 25, 1911.

“James ‘Scotty’ Philip.” National Buffalo Foundation, 2025. https://www.nationalbuffalofoundation.org/hall-of-fame-honorees/james-scotty-philip/

“Legacy James ‘(Scotty)’ Philip.” South Dakota Hall of Fame, 2025. https://sdexcellence.org/James_(Scotty)_Philip_1978

“Scotty Phillip's buffalo ranch.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-pcrd-1d06813 https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2024693202/

“‘Scotty’ Phillip Dead.” Chicago Livestock World (Chicago, IL), July 24, 1911.

South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. “Buffalo Roundup and Arts Festival.” State of South Dakota, 2025. https://gfp.sd.gov/buffalo-roundup/

South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. “Custer State Park History.” State of South Dakota, 2025. https://gfp.sd.gov/csp-history/

Wendt, Lonis. “The Life and Times of Scotty Philip.” https://www.nationalbuffalofoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/1982-james-philip-The-Life-Times-of-Scotty-Philip-by-Lonis-Wendt.pdf

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