The Bassett Livestock Auction is observing the 75th anniversary of the beginning of an auction in Bassett.  The Kenney family has been involved in the business for 46 of those years. Sitting in the office at the Bassett Livestock Auction, Rich Kinney reminisced of earlier days and the changes he has witnessed at the market.  Rich recalled one of the biggest changes has been in the

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Bassett Livestock Auction is hub for local Cattle industry
By Mary Schuberg [Rock County Leader, Bassett, Nebraska, July 26, 2006 -- used with permission of the publisher]

(cont'd) mode of transportation.  During the 1960’s the transport of cattle into the auction was primarily by straight trucks and pickups.  For the larger herds, driving cattle to market was a common practice.  Rich recalled Sandall, Buell, Dearmont, Merritt, Lackaff, Peterson, Stec and Hall ranches as having cattle drives in the fall.

During the 60’s, the freight trains were in operation and the purchased cattle were driven to the railroad to the south.  Hundreds of carloads of cattle were shipped out to the buyers feedlots as far away as Illinois and Indiana.  A representative from the Chicago Northwestern would be sent to the sale just to line cars up for the buyers; on occasion a special train would be sent from Long Pine.  In later years, the auction and buyers had to make their own arrangements.  Tom Thompson recalls as a kid helping to load the cars, sometimes at night.

The long cattle drives have mainly ceased in lieu of semi trucks and stock trailers.  With the capability of the bigger trucks and improved roads, the market is presently serving a larger area.  It is not uncommon for cattle to come in from ranches 100-150 miles from Bassett, while it used to be unfeasible.

Ranch management and buying practices have changed through the years as well.  Rich observed that with larger ranches, there are fewer individual consignors.  In earlier days, the time frame for selling feeder cattle was in the fall, particularly October.  Now the numbers are spread out through the year.  The cattle buyers are now mostly from Nebraska and Iowa.  With the coming of irrigation and more feed available, feed lots have increased in closer proximity to the market.

Rich added, “up until 10 or 12 years ago, 90 percent of feeder cattle were bought by farmer-feeders in attendance at the auction.  Now probably 90 percent of feeder cattle are bought by order buyers.”

First location was a snow fence
Bassett Cattle Sales Co., the forerunner of Bassett Livestock Auction, was started by Malter M. Fredrickson in the summer of 1930.  The first location was a snow fence erected for the ring with buyers and sellers standing around it.  Walt, as he was called, attended auction school and was the owner and auctioneer.  Dick Hunt was an early auctioneer and later Walt’s son, Jim Fredrickson called for 35 yrs.

A sale barn was erected in 1933 and another was constructed at the present site in 1936.  Rich said ownership of Otto Lamprecht, Howard W. Thompson and Paul Strand.  The ownership changed in 1959 to a group from Burwell.  In April 1960, Edd and Dean Kinney, father and son, took over the ownership.  Edd had ranched south of Ainsworth and had been an order buyer for a number of years.  Rich Kinney, who had been operating the ranch, joined his brother Dean in 1962 when Edd left for other interests.