In 1840, the Alexanders settled in Morgan county, then a cattle range bounded only by the horizon. Mr. Alexander accumulated a herd of steers, pastured them on the public domain, and for half a decade prospered in a moderate way. As the country became settled, it soon became evident that he must own land or get out of the cattle business as far as that locality was concerned. In 1848, he purchased 3,000 acres of land at prices ranging from 87 cents to $3.00 per acre. This land was adjoining the half section that he had originally homesteaded. In 1855, he acquired another 1,000 acres at $30.00 per acre. This indicated how rapidly the price of land was advancing. In 1857, he bought 700 acres more at $50.00 per acre, and in 1859, he acquired 1500 acres of the Strawn estate at $30.00 per acre. In 1864, he secured 853 acres at $60.00 to $70.00 per acre, making him the owner of 7,233 acres of the choicest land in Illinois. In 1866, he purchased the stock farm of Michael Sullivan in Champaign county, Illinois, containing 26,000 acres at $11.00 to $12.00 per acre. It was during this period of purchase that John T. Alexander acquired the title of "cattle king." His transactions were on an enormous scale. His buyers searched every nook and cranny of the cattle producing region of the Mississippi valley, and Alexander, on the Wabash railroad in Morgan county, Illinois, was the largest cattle shipping station in the world. Entire trains of cattle, destined for eastern markets, were daily loaded there and almost the entire population was on the Alexander pay roll. Thousands of other cattle, for which he paid but never saw, were loaded at innumerable points for eastern markets. From a pastoralist, he had emerged into a speculator on probably the most gigantic scale the live stock industry has ever witnessed. He ruled the markets of the East and was the Napoleon of the cattle trade. His name was more familiar to the West than that of Vanderbilt or A. T. Stewart. His annual cattle shipment for many years exceeded 50,000 head, and in 1868, reached 75,000. For a lengthy period, his sales on eastern markets exceeded $4,000,000 annually, and it is related that prior to his Champaign county purchase, an inventory of his assets showed 7,233 acres of land, averaging $75.00 per acre in value, $100,000 in bank, 7,000 cattle on his Morgan county pastures, and not a dollar of debt.