Thistle Ha’

Until recently, “Atha” Willie Miller and the history of Lakeside Stock Farm in Storm Lake, Iowa were somewhat of a mystery in the annals of the Miller family. Why did he go to manage this particular farm in the northwestern Iowa frontier in the 1880s? Thanks to key research contributed by Wendy Cooke of St. Louis, Missouri, we now have a better understanding of the fascinating story of this farm by the lake.

Document sources: Storm Lake Pilot Tribune newspaper; Miller, Robert Anker, Highlights of Miller History; Sanders, Alvin, Shorthorn Cattle: A Series of Historical Sketches, Memoirs and Records of the Breed and Its Development in the United States and Canada. Chicago: Sanders Publishing Co., 1916.
Photos: provided by, and used with the permission of Wendy Cooke, St. Louis, Missouri.

After the American Civil War, Illinois Central Railroad built a line from Chicago to Sioux City, which is located on the Missouri River on the western border of the state of Iowa. Since the “last spike” was driven just west of Storm Lake in 1870, it is possible that land speculators purchased land on both sides of the railway, including land that was to become Lakeside Farm.

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From mid-April until mid-December, 2011, the farmhouse was renovated. As the work progressed, daily progress reports and photos were posted to show the details of how our contractor started with, for example, this:

Before: old dining room (click on all photos to embiggen).

and ended with this:

After: Charlotte's new kitchen.

For those interested in reading about troubles and triumphs of this project from start to finish, all posts concerning it have been consolidated into an article entitled “2011 House Renovation”, located in the Pages section on the right-hand side.

As told by: Hugh Miller/Thistle Ha’.
Photo credit: Argentine Shorthorn Breeders Association.

Tarquinos cattle

While showing Shorthorns at the International Livestock Show in Chicago one year, Hugh Miller/Thistle Ha’ was introduced to Pedro Laco, Secretary of the Argentine Shorthorn Breeders Association. He remarked that the Miller name was famous in Argentina. Laco said that another John Miller, who “must have been a relative of yours” [debatable, sources differ whether this John Miller came from Scotland or England], sailed up the Ri­o de la Plata in the 1820s with the first pedigreed bull imported into Argentina – a Shorthorn bull named Tarquin. It was at “The Caledonia” ranch near Cañuelas, Buenos Aires that John Miller began crossbreeding Tarquin with native Spanish cattle, resulting in such a remarkable improvement in the quality of the beef that he is considered the founder of the modern beef industry in Argentina.

Laco added that Tarquin had white feet. This proved to be a bad trait on the pampas, since the white hair attracted ticks. Tarquin proved to be so prepotent that it took ten generations to completely eliminate white feet from his “Tarquinos” offspring.