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As It Was: Cats eat rats, rats eat cats, everyone gets rich Max Jacoby's store and Tolo Post Office circa 1910. Tolo was at the I-5 exit north of Central Point. Ben Truwe points out that the Cat Fur Farm story was "fake news." [Photo courtesy of Southern Oregon Historical Society, image No. 01043] Wednesday Jun 14, 2017 at 5:45 PM Jun 14, 2017 at 5:45 PM By Maryann Mason Southern Oregon Historical Society It is estimated more than 50 million fur-bearing animals, including cats and dogs, are killed each year for their skins, most grown on fur farms around the world. Southern Oregon historian Ben Truwe has resurrected a 1911 Medford newspaper story about a purported attempt to establish a cat fur farm in Southern Oregon. The promoters, Col. Frank Ray and Frank Frazier laid out the following scheme: Their farm at Tolo, south of Sam’s Valley, would start with 100,000 cats, which would produce 12 kittens each, resulting in 12 million skins a year. The skins would average 30 cents each, resulting in revenue of nearly $10,000 a day, after paying 100 men $2 a day to skin 50 cats each. “The cats will eat the rats and the rats will eat the (carcasses of the skinned) cats, and we will get the skins … a self-acting and automatic business.” Ray and Frazier sold stock for their project for a few days before leaving for San Francisco, maybe in a hurry, when investors realized the promoters’ revenue figures were based on sloppy math. The newspaper didn’t say how much money they raised and whether they ever returned. Sources: Rose, Marla. “Fur Is Dead!...Or Is It?” 22 March, 2010. http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2010/03/fur-is-dead-%E2%80%A6-or-is-it; Truwe, Ben. “Ray and Frazier to Start Cat Farm” Southern Oregon History, Revised at http://id.mind.net/~truwe/tina/s.o.history.html. — As It Was is a co-production of Jefferson Public Radio and the Southern Oregon Historical Society. As It Was stories are broadcast weekdays on Jefferson Public Radio and are available online at asitwas.org.