Mammoth Chicks

Tainter's Mammoth Hatchery was an important industry in Olathe during the early 1920s. W.G. Tainter settled in Olathe around 1910 and began raising chickens to service a “fast moving and hungry world.” He started his business with a 220-egg capacity machine, and within ten years owned a 55 x 40 “modern building of cement, stone and wood,” located on the north end of Kansas Avenue. Tainter's chick factory could produce a total of 51,000 eggs, according to a 1922 account in the Journal Herald.

Tainter allowed local people to bring their eggs to the factory for custom hatching in modern incubators. Despite his attempts to serve local residents, however, most of Tainter's business came from advance orders placed outside the county. A steady production of chicks of almost every breed began in February and continued through June. Seven Buckeye incubators performed the mammoth chick hatching in tainter's factory. Electric fans channeled fresh air over hot water pipes warmed to 100 degrees. The eggs were automatically turned to achieve the best results. The baby chicks were then packed in special boxes and shipped by regular mail to “all parts of the West, Middle West and South.” The Herald reported that the factory doubled its output in 1922 and predicted it would soon “become as widely known and famous as Hyer's Cowboy Boots.”

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