ElGIN Livestock sales

Grandpa Florian “Bud” Baum purchased the sale barn along with his partners, Bill Wirges, Alvin "Smokey" Moser, Ray Pelster, and Bill Kerkman in 1960. They sold all classes of cattle and hogs, even some sheep and horses occasionally. In 1979 the last partner was bought out by the Baum family.

Grandpa Bud passed on in 2002, but Grandma Doris Baum is in her 90's and continues to greet customers and do all the bookwork and payroll. Four sons, Dave, Dan, Ted and Chris, and their families continue the Baum Legacy. Ted, and wife JoAnn Baum manage the barn, consign cattle and gather videos.

Ted is an auctioneer, along with our head auctioneer, Corey Curtis. Dave, and wife Fran Baum own Ten West Feedyard and Dave is an order buyer. Dan manages the cropland of Baum and Bros, Inc., and is head of pen-backs, his wife Debbie manages the front counter, along with one of their two daughters, Ashley Bergman.

Chris and son, Trey Baum manage the cow herd out at the ranch, with Chris's recent eye sight loss, he has moved roles from head ringman to sorting and bringing cattle up horseback and Trey has moved up to head ringman and catches bids. Chris's wife, Jeanine clerks ringside with one of their daughters, Devon. Devon also monitors the bids coming in online, and runs the website and Facebook page and is the driver behind the weekly text message marketing. Rowdy Burke is our head yardman and helps out all over the place on sale days, but also many other days of the week. Jim Jennings can be found penning cattle out of the ring, usually horseback. Tyler Childers, along with Seth Williams push cattle into the ring and keep the mail funneling. Alice Morrison, Jason Koenig, and Mark Dinslage are also members of the team as well, floating from drive-in's to pen-backs. The Baum family feels blessed to continue the tradition of selling cattle and promoting the cattle industry. It may not always be easy to keep a family business thriving, but can be extremely rewarding with good customers and friends bringing good cattle to town. We are grateful to live where we do and serve the area that we grew up and raise cattle in.