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McGregor Land and Livestock Company and McGregor Family Papers, 1886-1968

Overview of the Collection

Creator
McGregor Land and Livestock Company
Title
McGregor Land and Livestock Company and McGregor Family Papers
Dates
1886-1968 (inclusive)
Quantity
6.5 Linear feet of shelf space, (8 Boxes)
Collection Number
Cage 902 (collection)
Summary
This collection contains records generated by the McGregor family from the 1880s through the 1960s. The bulk of this collection consists of a variety of documents pertaining to the operation and management of the McGregor family's multiple business interests, including orchard and mining pursuits, land transactions, livestock raising (primarily sheep), and wheat cultivation and production.
Repository
Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections
Terrell Library Suite 12
Pullman, WA
99164-5610
Telephone: 509-335-6691
mascref@wsu.edu
Access Restrictions

This collection is open and available for research use.

Languages
English
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Historical Note

The grandsons of Scottish immigrants to Ontario, Canada in the 1840s, Peter and Archie McGregor moved to Washington Territory in the United States in 1882. Settling in the Palouse region of the Columbia Plateau, Peter and Archie began to operate a business in the open range sheep trade in the mid-1880s and owned 22,000 sheep by 1890. Peter and Archie were joined by brother John McGregor in 1886 and another brother, Alex McGregor, in 1900.

In 1905, the four McGregor brothers established the McGregor Land and Livestock Company. Through this corporation, the McGregors leased, cultivated, and pastured tens of thousands of acres of grazing land and created a general merchandising business through which they could buy and sell cattle, sheep, hogs, wheat, apples, and farm equipment. In 1908, the McGregors purchased the Bar U cattle ranch and created the Taylor Land and Livestock Company to manage it, and in 1917, they purchased the Palouse Irrigation and Power Company and incorporated it as the Hooper Realty Company. To house and supply employees, the McGregors bought up property in the town of Hooper, including a hotel, general store, blacksmith shop, and lumberyards.

In 1956, the McGregor Company was created as a separate company to operate the McGregor fertilizer and farm equipment ventures. As of 2018, the McGregor Company remains in operation and serves over 35 Pacific Northwest communities, with McGregor descendants serving as chairman and president of the company.

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Content Description

This collection consists primarily of documents detailing the varied business interests of the McGregor family, and were used by Alex McGregor as sources for his 1982 book, Counting Sheep: From Open Range to Agribusiness on the Columbia Plateau. These materials include government correspondence with entities such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Interior, as well as business correspondence and papers relating to construction matters, livestock, harvest concerns, and the family's various mining pursuits. There are also materials from the Palouse Irrigation and Power Company and the Taylor Land and Livestock Company. Materials related to the family's sheep business such as memo books, sheep tally ledgers, grazing leases, payroll ledgers, summer range photos, and correspondence between sheep foremen and the McGregors figure prominently in this collection. There are also several documents dealing with the McGregors' land use, including property deeds, holdings, acquisitions, and leased lands.

This collection also contains personal papers of McGregor family members. These include letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, and naturalization papers. There are also personal papers belonging to some of the McGregors' employees, largely generated by John (Jock) Macrae and Emile Morod who served as sheep foremen for the McGregor family. Most of the memo books and tally ledgers in this collection were also generated by Macrae and Morod. Additionally, there are items specific to the town of Hooper, WA, including a church record book and a resident interview (transcript).

Series 1: Business and Personal Correspondence and Papers, 1895-1956, contains business and personal correspondence, papers, financial statements, and miscellaneous records belonging to various McGregor family members and employees.

Series 2: Livestock Totals, Time Books, and Miscellaneous Materials, 1886-1968, contains statistical data consisting largely of sheep counts and time books. It has a few miscellaneous ledgers with store merchandise and wheat harvest inventories as well as one school book and photos of a sheep summer range camp.

Series 3: Abstracts of Title, 1896-1947, has documents from Washington's Adams, Franklin, and Whitman counties and Idaho's Latah County. These abstracts of title detail land plots in places such as Rock Lake, Palouse Orchards, Palouse Falls, and Washtucna, and document the history of real estate owned, leased, or used as a right of way by the McGregor family's various business enterprises.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions apply, and the McGregor Company has retained its intellectual rights to these materials.

Preferred Citation

[Item description]

McGregor Land and Livestock Company and McGregor Family Papers, 1886-1968 (Cage 902)

Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in three series, each organized alphabetically.

Acquisition Information

The materials in this collection were donated to the Washington State University Libraries in 1987 by Alex C. McGregor (MS 1987.44).

Processing Note

This collection was processed by Laura Briere in June 2018

Related Materials

McGregor Land and Livestock Company Records, 1887-1949 (Cage 16)

Preliminary Guide to the McGregor Land and Livestock Company Records, 1962-1976 (MS 1982.04)

Unprocessed accessions MS. 1980.12, MS. 1982.39

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Finding aid prepared by Laura Briere
2022

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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