The Swan Land and Cattle Company, Limited ... To be Incorporated ... Capital £600,000, in 60,000 Shares ... Prospectus

Edinburgh, 1883. 4pp., plus a 1-page unaccomplished form of application and banker's receipt. Folio. Unbound, usual folds. Minor tape repairs to short separations at folds. 4pp., plus a 1-page unaccomplished form of application and banker's receipt. Folio. At its height in 1882, the Swan Land and Cattle Company held upwards of 100,000 head of cattle, grazing on almost 4.5 million acres of land in Wyoming, with a capitalization at the time of nearly $2 million. The company had been founded by Alexander Hamilton Swan in the mid-1870s, and was largely owned and operated by Swan and his brothers. With cattle prices surging as high as $60 per head (and costing only $2 to raise) investment in large western cattle operations by eastern and foreign bankers reached a frenzy and Scottish investors were brought in to invest in the company. "After many offers and counter-offers, the Swan Land and Cattle Company Ltd. was registered in Scotland on March 30, 1883. The capitalization was between $2.6 and $2.9 million, about $60 and $67 million in today’s dollars. Alex Swan was named manager at a salary of $10,000 per year, or approximately $231,400 in today’s money, with the freedom to spend some of his time on other ventures ... For the years 1883 and 1884, the company paid its shareholders a dividend of 9 and 10 percent respectively. Thus, during its first two years, the Swan company outperformed almost all the other major cattle companies" (https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/inland-empire-swan-land-and-cattle-company-ltd). In the ensuing years, however, prices of cattle dropped precipitously, heavy losses were sustained during the harsh winter of 1886-87 and charges of financial mismanagement (viz. over representing the number of cattle actually held by the company at the time of acquisition) were levied. In 1887, the board of directors dismissed Swan as manager and lawsuits ensued. (Inventory #: 370889)