Way Back When – September 23, 1970: Guymon Wins Livestock Recognition

The city of Guymon, centered in the high plains of the Oklahoma Panhandle, has earned even firmer recognition as the livestock capital of the southwest by winning a many-city competition to be designated a delivery point for live cattle future contracts by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

There are only four other such delivery points in the country. And all four are large cities, Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City, and Peoria – Peoria was named at the same time Guymon was.

What the designation says is that the 500 member Chicago Mercantile Exchange recognizes that the Guymon cattle market is of a proportion to be influential in the nation's total livestock trading picture.

The announcement caused some horn tooting by the Guymon papers which said the city received a “million dollars worth of publicity and a status rarely obtained by cities twenty times larger in population.” (1970 preliminary census report lists Guymon at 7,488 an increase of 29.9 percent over 1960.)

“By selecting Guymon as a delivery point, the Chicago Exchange Board of Governors was confirming their faith in Guymon's beef industry future. The new status is expected to be a drawing card for other industries and a virtual “insurance” that Guymon will be come one of the major beef centers of the world”

For the present, however, being named a delivery point means that the daily cattle future market quotations at Guymon will be carried on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ticket tape service along with current quotations at the other delivery points.

Virtually every brokerage office, commodities office, packing house, stock yards, feed lot, and agricultural news gathering service in the country and many foreign lands is an Exchange subscriber. Guymon thus is thrust into a key position in the nation's livestock commodity market.

“Why Guymon?” Oklahoma Pep inquired of Dr. John Goodwin, Oklahoma State University agricultural economist. He was responsible for most of the statistical evidence in a race with several cities vying for the distinction.

“Firstly,” Goodwin said, “Guymon is the center of the great southwestern plains area where the beef cattle industry is developing the fastest in the nation. The area comprimises the Texas Panhandle, parts of New Mexico, Colorado, western Kansas, and the Oklahoma Panhandle, and presently extends roughly south, to Garden City, Kansas on the north, and about 150 miles east and west.

“Secondly,” the economist continued, “It is a recognition by the marketing interests of the remarkable expansion in cattle feeding and marketing that has already taken place in the area in just ten years.”

“Beef catle production in the southwestern plains has risen from 8 percent of the nation's total in 1960 to a fraction of a point under 25 percent last year,” Dr. Goodwin said.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange began a location study for a southwest plains delivery point over a year ago. When the choice narrowed to between a Texas Panhandle city and Guymon, the race was on.

Dr. Goodwin said, “A lot of work, a great deal of traveling and numerous trips to Chicago by groups from both cities, went into the final bidding. I could call off a list of names who worked in support of Guymon including several from Kansas and even Texas itself.

The OSU professor attributed the growth of the cattle industry in the area to one basic factor: Irrigation. “This used to be all wheat country, but wheat doesn't lend itself well to deep well irrigation practices. Feed grains such as Sorghums and corn do; and wherever feed grains grow the cattle business inevitable follows.”

Dr. Goodwin said the immediate effect on Guymon would be more psychological and inspirational than economic. The real significance will be felt in the long haul, for the professor foresees a continual growth over the next 30 years, “which is about as far ahead as we dare look.”

For the feeder, the cattleman and the area market delivery point status offers three important advantages not now realized.

The southwest plains futures market will have a dependable basic differential between it and other markets.

It will tend to ease the risk finance agencies and institutions have had to face heretofore.

It should loosen long-term investment capital, which in turn, will contribute further expansion of the industry.

Supporting the professor's optimism are surveys which forecast a continual supply of irrigation water for a long time to come. “Due to the excellent recharge characteristics of the water bearing strata underlying the area,” Goodwin said, “our studies, projecting demand to year 2,000, indicate no water table problems.

Dr. Goodwin sees the beef industry in a continuing expansion both in the southwestern plains area and up into northeastern Colorado and the Nebraska Panhandle as well. To the professor this means Guymon will inevitably assume an increasing, if not a leading role, in the nation's cattle marketing business.