Aztec Land & Cattle Company (1884–1902)
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| Founded | 1884 |
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| Founder | Edward Kinsley |
| Headquarters | Phoenix, Arizona, USA |
| Website | azteclandco.com |
Aztec Land and Cattle Company, Limited ("Aztec") is a land company with a historic presence in Arizona. It was formed in 1884 and incorporated in early 1885 as a cattle ranching operation that purchased 1,000,000 acres in northern Arizona from the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. It then imported approximately 32,000 head of cattle from Texas and commenced ranching operations in Arizona. Because Aztec's was the Hashknife, a saddler's knife used on early day ranches, the company was known more famously as The Hashknife Outfit. The company has been in continuous existence since 1884.
Aztec was incorporated in New York, New York in 1885 by a group of investors led by Edward Kinsley, a wool merchant and member of the State Board of Railroad Commissioners of Massachusetts, and Henry Warren, a former lieutenant in the Union army with some, albeit limited, ranching experience. The investors were hoping to take advantage of the recent drop in cattle prices. In the early 1880s, drought had become a serious problem to ranchers in Texas. To recoup their investment, many of these ranchers left their cattle herds intact during the dry times with the intention of selling off the cattle when the market was better, which resulted in overgrazing. By 1885, the beef industry had collapsed because thousands of cattle in west Texas, held off the market for better prices, were either dead or starving on barren plains. Separately, the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad was having financial difficulties and sold 1,000,000 acres of Arizona grassland to Aztec at $0.50 per acre. Aztec then entered a joint venture with the Continental Cattle Company of Texas and began exporting droughted-out cattle from Continental’s Texas range to Arizona via and traditional cattle drives. The original Aztec headquarters was located across the Little Colorado River from Saint Joseph, Arizona (now Joseph City), but was moved to Holbrook, Arizona shortly afterward.
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