america's historic stockyards: livestock hotels

This is the first comprehensive look at America’s stockyards

between 1865 and the 1980s. It is the colorful story of an

important era in American history.—

DAVID DARYauthor of Cowboy Culture, The Buffalo Book,The Santa Fe Trail, and other titles about theOld West

An excellent account of terminal markets and the role

they played in livestock marketing.—

DAN VAN ACKERENGrain Inspection, Packers and StockyardsAdministration, Washington, D.C., retired.

9!BMECL@:UTROSSoYjZ]ZiZdZ`

ISBN 0-87565-304-9

Livestock markets for the sale and distri-

bution of meat developed as early as the

days of colonial America. In the mid-nine-

teenth century, as westward expansion

increased and railroads developed, stock-

yards companies formed in order to meet

the demand of a growing nation. Contrary

to markets, these companies were centrally

organized and managed by a select few prin-

cipal partners. America’s Historic Stockyards:

Livestock Hotels is an examination of such

stockyards, from their early beginnings to

their eventual decline.

Stockyards helped to establish some of

America’s greatest cities. Early on the scene

were stockyards in cities such as Cincinnati,

otherwise known as “Porkopolis,” and stock-

yards and packing powerhouse Chicago,

considered the number one livestock mar-

ket in the nation. Markets eventually

expanded further westward to California

and Oregon.

Other smaller markets made large con-

tributions to the industry. The cow towns of

Fort Worth and Wichita never reached the

status of Chicago but had large livestock

receipts. Fort Worth, for instance, became

the largest horse and mule market in 1915, as

World War I produced an increased demand for

these animals.

Meatpacking moguls known as the Big

Four—Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, Nelson

Morris, and Edward Cudahy—usually financed

these growing markets, controlled the meatpacking

business and, in turn, the stockyards companies.

Although the members changed, this oligopoly

remained intact for much of the duration of the

stockyards industry. However, as railways gave way

to highways, the markets declined and so too did

these moguls. By the end of the twentieth century,

almost every major market closed, bringing an end

to the stockyards era.

J’Nell Pate’s examination of this era, the people,

and the markets themselves recounts a significant

part of the history of America’s meat industry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J’Nell L. Pate holds a Ph.D.

in history from the University

of North Texas. Her disserta-

tion became Livestock Legacy:

The Fort Worth Stockyards

1887-1987, which won the

Coral H. Tullis prize from

the Texas State Historical Association as the best

book on Texas history in 1988. A Fellow in the

Texas State Historical Association and now retired

from Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, she is

also the author of North of the River: A Brief History

of North Fort Worth, Hazel Vaughn Leigh and the Fort

Worth Boys’ Club, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie: Brave

Cavalry Colonel, a juvenile, and Document Sets for

Texas and the Southwest in U.S. History, a primary

source reader which she edited. She makes her

home in Fort Worth. — continued on rear flap—

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Project1 6/9/05 10:48 AM Page 1

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T C U P R E S S F O R T W O R T H , T E X A S

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Copyright © J’Nell L. Pate 2005

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pate, J’Nell L.

America’s historic stockyards : livestock hotels / J’Nell L. Patep.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-87565-304-9 (Hardback : alk. Paper)

1. Stockyards—United States—History. 2. Livestock—United States—Marketing. I. Title.

HD9433.U4P38 2005338.4’76360831—dc22 2004022004

Printed in Canada

Cover and text design by Bill Maize; Duo Design Group

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For all those folks—working in the big cities

or raising livestock in the countryside—

for whom stockyards represented a way

of life for many years, and, again,

as always, for Kenneth.

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TA B L E O F CO N T E N T S

Preface ix

Introduction xi

PART I: LIVESTOCK MARKETING IN AMERICA 1

CHAPTER 1 Stockyards Activities 3

CHAPTER 2 Early Livestock Markets—Colonial to 1850s 15

CHAPTER 3 Stockyards “Companies” Emerge—1860s to 1920s 21

CHAPTER 4 Uncle Sam Regulates Stockyards—1930s to World War II 31

CHAPTER 5 “Hotel” Occupancy Dwindles—1950s to the Present 41

CHAPTER 6 Looking Forward 51

PART II: TWO DOZEN BIG STOCKYARDS—THEIR ORIGIN AND GROWTH 57

CHAPTER 7 Early Market Cities 59

Lancaster, Pennsylvania 60

Cincinnati, Ohio 63

Louisville, Kentucky 67

St. Louis, Missouri 70

Chicago, Illinois 75

CHAPTER 8 Midwestern Markets 83

Milwaukee, Wisconsin 84

Kansas City, Missouri 86

St. Joseph, Missouri 92

Peoria, Illinois 94

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viii AMERICA’S HISTORIC STOCKYARDS: LIVESTOCK HOTELS

Indianapolis, Indiana 95

Omaha, Nebraska 100

Sioux City, Iowa 107

Denver, Colorado 111

South St. Paul, Minnesota 115

Fort Worth, Texas 118

Wichita, Kansas 124

San Antonio, Texas 127

Sioux Falls, South Dakota 130

CHAPTER 9 Later Stockyards 133

Portland, Oregon 133

South San Francisco, California 137

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 140

Ogden, Utah 145

Houston, Texas 148

Joplin, Missouri 151

CHAPTER 10 Other Stockyards 155

Appendix I: Tables 160

Appendix II: Comparative Livestock Receipts 162

Acknowledgments 165

Notes 167

Glossary 187

Bibliography 197

Index 213

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Americans have used meat as a large part of their diet from colonial times

to the present. While hunting wild game may have been the earliest source

of meat, especially on the frontier, domesticated animals quickly provided

the most readily available food. The story of how various types of livestock

have reached America’s dinner tables for the past four centuries forms a vital

part of this country’s heritage.

The historic marketing picture reveals various scenarios: driving animals

to “cow pens” during colonial days, slaughtering hogs on the Ohio frontier,

herding Texas longhorns northward to Kansas cow towns, transporting live-

stock by rail to big city stockyards, or, at the beginning of the twenty-first

century, selling animals from feedlots or by video, computer, or closed-circuit

television. From the 1860s to the 1960s and beyond, large stockyards

dominated livestock marketing in America. Two dozen of the largest are

featured in this book.

Phrases from a unique language—that of stockyards and meat-packing

workers, especially of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—

need to be preserved. Livestock workers used their own colorful terms to

describe the animals and their surroundings at the yards. A glossary

includes terms commonly used during the heyday of the big stockyards.

Much of this country retained an agricultural existence until the fourth

decade of the twentieth century, which meant that parents or grandparents

of many present Americans either handled livestock at stockyards, worked

in the packing plants, or loaded animals on railroad cars headed to market

from their own farms or ranches. I hope readers can learn what earlier gen-

erations of Americans readily accepted as the only way to sell their domestic

animals: through stockyards. Western historians will recognize the familiar

themes of livestock, railroading, and meat-packing entrepreneurship in the

Preface

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rise and fall of the nation’s big stockyards in the century when they proudly

called themselves “livestock hotels.”

One comment about style: the industry spelled “stock yards” and “live

stock” as two words for decades and then at mid-twentieth century combined

these to one word. Consistent with the time frame, this manuscript follows

the historical spelling.

x AMERICA’S HISTORIC STOCKYARDS: LIVESTOCK HOTELS

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IntroductionSymbolically and literally, the era of big stockyards in the United States

began with the opening of the Chicago Union Stock Yards on Christmas

Day 1865.The innovative livestock marketing strategies that would dominate

the business for the next century represented a welcome new beginning to

a nation torn by civil war and ready for healing. Indeed, cattle drives head-

ing north from Texas soon reached railroads that were building westward,

allowing cattle to travel to slaughtering plants near the Chicago yards. In

1869, the first transcontinental railroad united the nation east-west at

Promontory Point, Utah Territory, and a network of feeder lines made pos-

sible several cow towns in Kansas and Nebraska with rail connections to the

large Chicago market and to other similar markets that soon developed. In

addition to new markets, the revolutionary idea of shipping slaughtered

meat by iced-down, insulated railroad cars (and later refrigerated ones) set

in place elements that, for well over a century, made the big stockyards the

major means of marketing livestock.

After a long drive, cattle pens had to be available at railroad junctions

and pens readied for hogs that were shipped from midwestern farms. Meat-

packing companies (as the slaughtering plants were called) needed a ready

supply of all types of livestock to keep their plants operating; consequently,

the slaughtering companies invested both in stockyards and railroads. This

triumvirate of rail lines, stock pens, and slaughtering facilities dominated

livestock marketing in America.

Most nineteenth- and twentieth-century markets operated in big cities

at locations collectively called “the stockyards.” They actually consisted of

a stockyards company, meat-packing facilities, offices for commission

agents and dealers, market newspapers, cattle loan companies, market news

services, officials hired solely to run the operation, and harness shops,

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xii AMERICA’S HISTORIC STOCKYARDS: LIVESTOCK HOTELS

veterinarians, and restaurants. Thus, the term “stockyards” became an

umbrella designation for a variety of services. Also among these were pub-

lic utilities officials, livestock traders, meat inspectors from the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, officials from the Packers and Stockyards

Administration, buyers from the meat-packing plants nearby, and railroad

officials. All of these people and their customers made the livestock mar-

ket a place teeming with activity.1

Therefore, “stockyards,” in its broadest definition, became a place to

bring all kinds and classes of animals and people together. A relationship of

mutual benefit existed among the railroads, the stockyards companies, and

the slaughterhouses, making the three entities quite interdependent; prob-

ably none could have prospered without the other two.2 Along with other

related businesses, the three major players constituted the “market.” In

many instances ownership of the three business operations combined and

overlapped. The packers constructed refrigerator railroad cars in order to

protect their perishable product, and they also often built stockyards facil-

ities in order to guarantee a ready supply of animals for slaughter in their

packing plants.3 Louise Carroll Wade has called the livestock trade and the

meat-packing industry “Siamese twins.”4 “Triplets” better describes the

relationship between stockyards, meat packers, and the railroads, for the

latter first carried the live animal to the market and then transported the

slaughtered, refrigerated product away from the packing plant. The stock-

yards generally referred to the entire area in a city where all participants in

the process came together to do business.

Market participants used both broad and narrow definitions of “stock-

yards” as does this historical account. In a narrower sense, stockyards can

be defined as only the company that provided the pens and facilities where

livestock trading took place. A single company in each market, for example,

often furnished food and water in the holding pens, veterinary services,

loading and unloading facilities, weighing scales, and office spaces. A

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xiiiINTRODUCTION

stockyards company did not buy livestock; rather, it provided a convenient

place where buying and selling could occur. This unique system for mar-

keting livestock in America found its greatest success from approximately

the mid-1860s to the mid-1960s.

Compared to railroads and the largest meat packers, little attention has

been given to the stockyards companies, the firms that established this uni-

fied system. Clearly the holding area for livestock called “stockyards com-

panies” played a vital role in the entire process. A president of the Wichita

Union Stock Yards once used an analogy long accepted in the livestock

industry when he described the narrower definition of a stockyards as a

“hotel for livestock.” “For instance,” he said, “we rent ’em a room—a pen;

if they want to eat, we feed them. We furnish branding service as a hotel

furnishes a manicure; we have a veterinarian on duty, offering a complete

service, just like a hotel employs a house physician.”5 He further explained

that this livestock hotel charged the same rent, called yardage, whether the

“guest” remained one day or a week. The “desk clerks,” employees of the

stockyards, fed and watered the animal and weighed it as it “checked out.”

Principal sources of revenue for stockyards company owners included

the charges for market services and use of facilities. Normal charges were:

(l) yardage at a fixed price per head; (2) weighing at a fixed price per draft

(several animals); and (3) feed, if required, at a fixed margin above the cost

of the feed.

Quite properly, most businessmen chose sites for stockyards on the

south side of towns so that prevailing north winds would blow the accompa-

nying aroma away from residential areas—as in Omaha, South St. Paul, St.

Joseph, and South San Francisco. As it happened, the men who organized

the stockyards near Fort Worth owned fourteen hundred acres of land north

of town, so they built there; stockyards promoters at Wichita located their

pens to the north as well. Practicality and perhaps cheaper land overrode the

public’s sensibilities in the nineteenth century.

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xiv AMERICA’S HISTORIC STOCKYARDS: LIVESTOCK HOTELS

Eventually an association of livestock dealers or commission agents,

who sold livestock on commission for others in a central market, banded

together in a voluntary association called a “livestock exchange” or a “traders

exchange.” The association provided a gathering place where members

could meet and share views about the market. The major purpose of an

exchange was to assure every patron of the market fair and impartial treat-

ment in the sale or purchase of livestock and to bring about a uniform code

of ethics among members. An exchange admitted new members upon the

recommendation of an investigating committee. Various markets handled

such organizations differently.6

Interconnected and well organized, this livestock marketing network

involving big stockyards served the nation superbly for over a century. It

faltered in the last third of the twentieth century, when many of the large

stockyards began closing.

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The stockyards marketing phenomenon developed an “inevitable trend

toward economic centralization and specialization.”

—Sue Flanagan, Trailing the Longhorns a Century Later

LIVE STOCK

MAR KETI NG

I N AM E R ICA

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C H A P T E R O N E

Old timers in each market liked to refer to their operation as a “livestock

hotel.” Each stockyards preferred to think that someone on its own yards

coined the colorful expression, but just who, in fact, did so is difficult to

prove. The term, “livestock hotel,” however, was in wide use by the late

1930s.1

Procedures at the nation’s large stockyards resembled those of a hotel in

many ways. Included in an animal’s stay was its contact with “managers,

bell-hops, porters and maids” who “served” guests during the enforced

“visit.” The “guests” (cattle, calves, hogs, sheep, horses, and mules) averaged

a brief, twenty-four-hour stop. Although the thousands of involuntary vis-

itors mooed, squealed, bleated, or whinnied their discomfort, displeasure,

and sheer frustration at being herded and crowded into strange, noisy pens

(either in the hot sun or freezing cold wind), stockyards workers exerted

some effort toward their comfort. Employees supplied fresh water and hay

to each pen. If nature overtook the frightened animals, causing them to

relieve themselves on their clean hay or to tromp on it before they could eat

it, “room service” rarely provided any replacements. Workers, however,

learned to place the food and water above ground level to minimize such

accidental “guest” messing.

Indeed, housing the animals in the “hotel” represented only the begin-

ning of a stockyard’s duties. In 1959, Milburn Cross, general manager of the

Peoria Union Stock Yards Company described the yards as “sort of like a

STOCKYARDSACTIVITIES


combined hotel, stock market and fruit and vegetable market all rolled

into one.”2 The entire operation existed to provide a neutral ground—a

marketplace—where buyers and sellers could meet to transact business.

With meat packers or railroad stockholders sometimes being part owners

(even majority owners) of stockyards, one might question, at least in the

early days, the “neutrality” of the market situation, but the P&SA appeared

on the scene after 1921 to referee. In reality, stockyards fit well into the huge

meat-packing corporate structure of the nation’s largest industry in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.3 A stockyard’s president or gen-

eral manager might have worked his way up on the meat-packing side for

Armour, Swift, or one of the other large packers and then been appointed

to head a stockyards company. Or, he might have been a prominent official

on a railroad that held part ownership in the stockyards, moving from place

to place at the whim of his employers. In some smaller yards, members of

one family often passed down the task of management to the next genera-

tion. Stockyards ownership proved profitable.

One estimate puts profits to the “hotel” or stockyards company at the

St. Joseph Stock Yards for 1903–1907 at .078–.094 cents per animal.

During those years the industrywide average charge was a little less than 10

cents per animal. To those figures stockyards owners added receipts from

other endeavors, such as interests in railroads, banks, cattle loan companies,

land companies; in addition, they earned money from the rental of their

exchange-building facilities.4

In 1931, a quarter of a century later, at Joplin yardage charges had risen

to 35 cents for cattle, 25 cents for calves, 12 cents for hogs, and 8 cents for

sheep and goats. Sample commission charges in 1931 were 90 cents a head

for cattle, 40 cents for calves, 30 cents for hogs, and 25 cents for sheep and

goats. Most other markets charged similar rates.5

Independent of stockyards ownership, commission agents accepted

consignments of livestock (railroad car lots prior to the 1930s or truck

4 AMERICA’S HISTORIC STOCKYARDS: LIVESTOCK HOTELS


“drive ins” later) and sold the animals for a customer in exchange for a

small fee. Packer buyers purchased livestock for slaughter either for the big

entrepreneurs or for various small independent companies. A packer buyer

could estimate to within a few pounds how much the animal would weigh

when “dressed out,” (i.e., slaughtered and processed). If a packer buyer mis-

calculated by too much too often, he lost his job. Order buyers purchased

livestock for packers elsewhere or for customers for other purposes, perhaps

for a producer who wanted steers to fatten on the range. Dealer buyers also

roamed the yards, buying and selling on their own account.

Whether they were small farmers or large ranchers, producers some-

times accompanied their livestock to the market. If the stockyards was

distant, these producers either followed their animals or consigned them

to a commission agent whose judgment they trusted. Others found on the

yards besides actual stockyards workers, buyers, and sellers were telegraph

operators, market reporters, railroad representatives, market news service

employees, cattle loan officers, and, after 1921, field officers of the Packers

& Stockyards Administration.

Other than these stockyards regulars, many unskilled workers—the

“porters and maids” of the operation—handled the dirty work. They shov-

eled manure and hosed brick-floored pens after handlers removed a rail-

road car’s lot of cattle, hogs, or sheep. The workers forked fresh hay and

replenished the water for the next guests “checking in.” They repaired the

pens, herded the animals, ran the errands, and performed numerous other

necessary tasks.

Many of the unskilled stockyards workers, like their counterparts in

the nearby meat-packing plants, were first-generation immigrants. By the

beginning of the twentieth century at least eighty percent of the immigrants

entering the United States came from southern and eastern Europe,

because cheaper travel costs had made such migration possible. Part of the

“new immigration” to the United States—as opposed to the older and

5STOCKYARDS ACTIVITIES


slower movement from western Europe whose people found land on which

to settle—these newcomers knew that no free western homestead land

remained. They often disembarked from a ship and immediately boarded a

train to a major market city. Upon arrival, the new immigrant traveled

straight to the stockyards area seeking a job either with the stockyards

company itself or the packing plant. Many of the early twentieth century

immigrants came from Slavic, Jewish, or Catholic-Mediterranean back-

grounds and tended to settle together, sometimes in company housing

furnished by the stockyards or meat packers. Often well-defined ethnic

ghettos developed. Many stockyards workers at the St. Louis market, for

example, were Bulgarians and Macedonians who lived in the community

called Granite City.6 Workers at the Chicago market included Bohemians,

Germans, Jews, Lithuanians, Mexicans, Poles, and Slovaks. They lived

“back of the yards” or west of the stockyards in the town of Lake, an incor-

porated suburb of Chicago.7 In 1920 in the stockyards cities of over one

hundred thousand population, people of foreign parentage or birth

accounted for almost sixty percent of all residents. Overcrowding and the

absence of proper sanitation in such communities contributed to high rates

of illness and death.8

While they knew that many citizens looked down on their part of town

because of the horrendous smell of the thousands of animals, fulltime resi-

dents of the stockyards area (in any or all of the stockyards cities) often were

proud of their communities. Even the crowded tenements and rooming

houses, and the distinctive aroma reminded them that they had jobs in the

busiest business in town. Residents and workers often became so accustomed

to the smell that they hardly noticed it. Sometimes the new immigrants to

America earned more money in a month than their relatives made in an

entire year in the “old country.” They could endure the smell of manure.9

Wages and working conditions of stockyards and packinghouse workers

varied only slightly from city to city. In Chicago, industry workers in 1890



earned anywhere from $1.50 to $4.50 per day. Louise Carroll Wade, in her

study of Chicago’s packinghouse workers, writes: “Contrary to Upton

Sinclair’s 1906 depiction of packinghouse employment, workers in the 1880s

and early ’90s had comparatively good wages and many opportunities for

advancement in the expanding industry.”10 She referred to the muckraking

novel, The Jungle, in which Sinclair may have exaggerated working condi-

tions to try to convince the nation to adopt socialism in its major industries,

including meat packing. Cynics generally observed that Sinclair reached the

“belly” of the citizens rather than the “head” or political views, for an out-

raged public insisted on meat inspection laws rather than calling for a

switch to government ownership of meat packing in America as Sinclair

had urged. He stressed immigrant exploitation, but other writers have

pointed out that some newcomers welcomed the opportunities for jobs and

the variety of ethnic meat choices provided in their communities.11

Average annual wages at stockyards and packing plants in Chicago for

selected years in the first two decades of the twentieth century were: 1914,

$546; 1918, $1,015; 1920, $1,327; and 1921, $1,163.12 Unskilled workers in

both stockyards and meat-packing jobs earned $0.175 per hour during the

first fifteen years of the twentieth century. In St. Louis from 1907 to 1913

common laborers at the yards earned between $0.15 and $0.17 per hour.

Some, however, received as much as $0.30.13

In 1917 the Big Five meat packers (who owned stock in most stock-

yards) raised the minimum stockyards workers and meat-packer wages to

$0.275 per hour, the first raise in wages since 1904. Both output and prices

had risen much earlier, however, causing complaints that wage hikes lagged

too far behind. Some attribute the eventual pay raises to the actions of

William Z. Foster, a socialist (later communist) who began organizing

unskilled stockyards workers in Chicago. Foster, with fellow Chicago

Federation of Labor organizers John Fitzpatrick and John Johnstone, helped

form the Stockyards Labor Council on July 25, 1917. Two meat-packing



unions, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and the Butcher Workers of North

America, enrolled ninety percent of all workers on the yards (with separate

unions for blacks).14

By the 1920s, stockyards workers and their meat-packing cohorts had

demanded and received time-and-a-half for overtime work and double time

for the six holidays they enjoyed. The holidays were Christmas, New Year’s,

Decoration Day, July 4, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. This enviable situa-

tion did not materialize without great effort on the part of labor. Strikes in

1886, 1894, 1904, and 1921 paved the way. Owners often hired newly

arrived immigrants and blacks as strike breakers.15

Whether induced by the activities of Foster and Sinclair or labor agita-

tion, entrepreneurs Swift and Wilson created fringe benefits that included

pension funds. The common labor wage by 1931 had reached $0.325 per

hour at the meat-packing plants. Women made up almost twenty percent of

the workforce across the industry.16 In addition, race problems nationwide

affected housing, education, and economic equality both within and with-

out the livestock industry.

During the 1920s business leaders began a program that has been iden-

tified by the term “welfare capitalism” in which employers constructed

clean, safe factories for their workers with cafeterias and even sometimes

medical clinics. They also organized sports teams for off-duty hours.

Baseball teams set full schedules, wore uniforms provided by sponsors, and

advanced to playoffs. Blacks and whites found themselves on segregated

teams, however. Partly to forestall organized union activity, some employ-

ers, including the livestock industry, created company unions.

Businesses outside the livestock industry instituted practices that nev-

ertheless influenced it. In the automobile industry, for example, Henry Ford

doubled wages by instituting a $5 workday and in 1926 began a five-day

week for his employees. In addition, Ford claimed to have originated the

assembly line for his Model T cars, but livestock people reminded him that



slaughtering had used the technique for years—although in a “disassembly”

process.17

Stockyards and meat-packing workers within a short radius of the yards

formed close-knit communities. Many men went home for lunch. Families

had little money to spare after providing necessities, but a creative use of

resources found many free enterprise operations springing up after work

hours. During the Great Depression one enterprising Hispanic in Fort

Worth took orders for his wife’s ethnic cooking and carried meals back to

work with him during his own lunch hour. He later quit the yards and

opened a Mexican food restaurant that his grandchildren continue to oper-

ate in the same area, even though the stockyards have closed. Many other

immigrant workers similarly thrived and eventually prospered, forming

social networks that supplied assistance during crises.18

The arrival of a railroad carload of livestock set in motion a chain of

events at the stockyards. Selling through commission companies by what

participants called a “private treaty” characterized sales at all the major ter-

minal markets in their heyday. When stockyards workers unloaded livestock

from the railroad dock or from a truck, an employee of the stockyards com-

pany called a “key” man received the animals and locked them in catch pens.

Gate men from each of the numerous commission companies met these

carloads (or truckloads) and filled out a weigh bill on animals consigned to

their companies. Commission agents paid the railroad freight charges for

stock consigned to them. A gate man for a particular commission company

took the livestock “guests” from the stockyards catch pens and drove them

down alleys to the assigned pens of his company, signing with the key man

for the animals. In some cases the stockyards company delivered the cattle,

hogs, or whatever, to the commission firm. The gate man marked them indi-

vidually to keep different owners’ animals separate, using a wax marker to

place an “X” or a circle or other figure. He put the same mark on the weigh

bill. Various markets used different methods of distinguishing animals.



At the commission company’s pens, the yardman for that company

assumed responsibility for the animals and placed them in separate pens

according to owners, making note of ownership on a card. Each commis-

sion company usually retained two or three cattle salesmen, some specializ-

ing only in calves, others steers, or cows and bulls. A salesman took buyers

to the pens of his company, showing the animals for sale, until he obtained

a bid that he thought represented fair market value. He might show the ani-

mals to four or five buyers before he was satisfied with the price. Bidders

did not know what anyone else had offered earlier. When the commission

agent had accepted a bid, he notified the yardman of his company to weigh

the animals that he had just sold. Some salesmen claimed that they did all

of this work by memory and became so adept that few if any mistakes were

made. From memory the salesmen wrote down the animals sold, to whom,

and for how much. (Others on the market claim that no one could have

remembered that much.) The commission firm kept track of railroad


Buildings for weigh scales were scattered throughout Wichita’s many acres of wooden pens. Tofacilitate sales, stockyards officials assigned commission companies to courtesy specific scales nearthe pens they used. Photo courtesy Kansas State Historical Society.


charges by weight or carload, yardage fees by head, and sales at price per

pound.

The number of scales available depended on the size of the stockyards.

During the busiest years of the Fort Worth stockyards, for example, the

company operated seven scales for weighing animals, and it generally

assigned commission companies to certain scales. The commission company’s

yardman lined up the sold animals in the alley to be weighed, opened the

gate, put the animal or group on the scales, called out the purchaser, and at

what price. The weighmaster wrote the resulting information on the scale

ticket, weighed the livestock, and stamped the weight on the ticket. Several

animals weighed at one time were a draft. Ownership changed hands as the

weighmaster pressed a button to register the weight of a load.

Once the animals stepped off the scales on the opposite side, the

responsibility of the commission company ended; the newly weighed live-

stock became the property of the new owner. Responsibility for holding an

animal or draft of animals until it left the stockyards usually reverted to the

stockyards company, but not in all cases.

The commission company’s work continued as the head yardman

picked up several weigh tickets from the weighmaster and took them back

to the various salesmen (of his company) who had sold the animals listed on

the tickets. The salesmen checked the tickets, marked the price, and ini-

tialed them; then a runner carried the tickets to the office of the commis-

sion company, usually located in the livestock exchange building. As they

modernized, stockyards provided pneumatic tubes to send tickets to the

offices in the exchange building.

The office staff of the commission company figured the amount of

money due to the seller of the animal or animals and made up a bill to give

the buyer. From the 1920s through the 1950s two or three women sorted

the bills to buyers, packers, dealers, and others in a small room with wooden

shelving like post office boxes. Even railroad freighters had a box. The



commission company’s office girl or boy picked up the bills and took them

back to the company. Packers picked up their tickets. Even though all of

this was accomplished by hand, the process was surprisingly efficient.19

The commission company collected its fee and paid the stockyards

company for yardage and handling, deducting that amount and also the

railroad or trucking rates from the sale price due the livestock producer.

Commission fees for each sale in the mid-twentieth century usually averaged

$0.50 per animal. On the late evening or night of the sale, the office staff

wrote a check to the stockyards company so that it would receive payment

the following morning. In most markets the commission company collected

the money before noon the following day; the process did not usually

operate on credit. From fees collected, the commission agent paid rent to

the stockyards and wages to clerks and bookkeepers or salesman and kept

the rest as profit.

The farmer, rancher, or other livestock producer who turned his ani-

mals over to commission companies (referred to as selling by private treaty)

took no part in the sale unless he was so knowledgeable and traded animals

so often that he knew all the buyers. In that case he might tell a buyer that

he had some good animals in such and such a pen for sale that the buyer

probably would want to see. The salesman for the commission company,

however, retained control of the sale, although the commission company

only acted as agent for the seller. The seller retained ownership and could

stop the process at any time prior to the moment when the animals stepped

off the scales.

When the animals officially became the property of the new owner, the

stockyards company received livestock in catch pens, and the animals

remained there until some representative of the buyer came to the key man

and signed for the animals. The representative then drove the animals to his

own pens—if he had any—sorted them out, and prepared to deliver them

to the new owner. During the heyday of stockyards activity, some workers



did nothing all day but go to the various weigh scales and receive cattle for

their employers and take them to pens.20

Livestock producers used commission agents to sell their cattle on the

large terminal markets for practical reasons. Most important was the com-

mission agent’s knowledge of market prices because it allowed him to get

the highest possible price for his customer in an efficient manner, usually

considerably higher than the farmer or rancher could get for himself. A

commission agent represented the producer (or whoever consigned the

animals) and no one else. He was therefore under no obligation to accept

the highest bid in any market day, particularly if he did not think the bid

was high enough. He could wait until the next day, forward the cattle to

another market, or even tell the rancher to wait a while, although these

situations rarely happened.

Actual sales transactions at the big terminal markets took place by word

of mouth. Longtime market participants continually repeated the mantra

that their industry was one of the last big businesses where a man’s word was

his bond, believing that their “western values” created honesty and integrity.

They prided themselves on this assumption.21

Different markets varied the sales procedure, but the pattern remained

reasonably similar on all the major yards. Producers did not always sell to

packers, for dealers might want to purchase animals to stock their own or

others ranges, to fatten them, and to sell them later. The stockyards com-

pany or commission agent never owned the livestock. When packers pur-

chased the animals, they tried to slaughter them the same day to keep from

paying a charge to the stockyards company for holding them overnight.22

Joseph G. McCoy was the far-sighted entrepreneur credited with

starting a market in 1867 at Abilene, Kansas, and engineering the cattle

drives up the trail from Texas to that city. In his 1874 book about the cattle

industry, he described stockyards employees’ activities in Kansas City in

the 1870s; these activities duplicated the methods previously described,



indicating that procedures did not change much over the years. According

to McCoy:

As soon as a train bringing stock arrives at the yards and is

drawn up to the platform for unloading, the employees of the yard

company (of which there are many) at once open the car doors, put

down a small bridge from the car floor to the platform, and drive

the stock out and down the inclining platform into the alleys, along

which they are hastily driven to a yard of proper size, into which

they are turned. Soon after, they are watered and fed according to

order of shipper. Large barns for storing baled hay and corn are

provided, and a shipper can have his stock fed either or both, and

only has to pay for the amount he orders; and if no sale of his stock

is made, no charge is made for yardage or reloading, which is done

by the yard company. Only in case of sale are charges of yardage

made for stock, which includes weighing. A large building is pro-

vided for the business offices.23

Private treaty sales took place on terminal markets and generally

required several commission agents. The sales marketing process that

evolved by the 1960s had added an auction to this long-held practice of

private treaty sales. The purpose was to compete with small auctions that

had developed in small country towns. Other marketing methods included

direct sales to packers from feedlots and, by the 1980s, full-color video shots

of entire herds grazing on their own range.



The roots of America’s livestock marketing lay on the east side of the

Atlantic. In medieval England, as early as the twelfth century, livestock

raisers drove their animals to market. A market called Smithfield existed in

the time of Henry II (1154–89); it was located in an open field outside the

gates of the city by that name. Later, south of London on a three-and-one-

half-acre, cobblestone site, wooden rails secured animals awaiting sale.

Country drovers timed their journey to the outskirts of London with their

herds to arrive on Thursday for a Friday market or on Sunday for the even

larger Monday sale day.1

English trading practices crossed the Atlantic to North America along

with the Puritan religion, Anglo-Saxon ideas of free enterprise, and repre-

sentative government. Boston became the earliest market town in New

England. As early as 1640 cattle for sale began to move overland to the

coast from areas due west and northwest. Within the next twenty years

Hampshire County, Massachusetts—located one hundred miles inland—

specialized in grass-fed cattle for the Boston market. One of the earliest

public livestock markets of record in the colonies existed nearby at

Brighton. John Winship constructed holding pens there in 1756 to serve his

own slaughterhouses. Located just across the Charles River from Harvard,

the Brighton market later provided meat for George Washington’s army

and continued as the livestock market for all the New England states for

twenty years after the American Revolution.2

C H A P T E R T WO

EARLY LIVESTOCKMARKETS

Colonial to 1850s


Trade also developed in the middle colonies. In 1641 the Dutch on

Manhattan Island led colonial North America in livestock sales. New

Amsterdam’s pens stood on the north side of what later became Wall Street

in New York City, with refuse from slaughterhouses draining into the East

River. An annual total of four thousand cattle and even more hogs arrived

there by the mid-seventeenth century. In 1659 the burgomasters of New

Amsterdam designated the space before the town’s military fort as a “market

for fat and lean cattle” to be held continuously for forty days each autumn.

They constructed a building with a tiled roof, later called the “Broadway

Shambles.”3 During colonial days, livestock fairs became popular in

Pennsylvania, and at the end of the seventeenth century markets for farm

animals existed at Philadelphia, Chester, and New Castle. Philadelphia even

exported livestock and packed meat to the West Indies in 1700.

Because Lancaster later became the most important inland town in

Pennsylvania on the path to the West and because people continually

moved west, the place emerged as one of the first important trading points.

Pioneers purchased wagons, food, rifles—and livestock—there before head-

ing west of the Susquehanna River.4

Livestock raising flourished in the southern colonies because of the

warm climate and rich soil. In the Carolinas cattle owners moved into the

foothills of Appalachia to save room on the fertile coastal land for agricul-

tural crops. Animals grazed freely on the lush pastureland until time came

to collect them in cow pens and later to drive them eastward to Charleston

and Baltimore.5 As the population increased, the large areas available for

cattle and cow pens began to shrink.6 North Carolina farmers in the mid-

eighteenth century drove hogs to market as far away as Philadelphia and

then exported swine to the West Indies as well. Scottish-Irish immigrants,

descendants of the Celts, had been “grazers” of animals rather than farmers

in the Old Country. They turned their cattle, sheep, and hogs loose to fend

for themselves in the thick woods of the southern back country.7



As the population of the thirteen English colonies increased, drovers

with herds of cattle, swine, or sheep became commonplace on roads leading

to the markets at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and

Charleston. In these principal centers, activity began at 7 A.M. with the

ringing of a bell on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. In keeping with

English practice, farmers could sell only at the designated market, and no

one could buy animals to sell the same day for profit until after sales had

taken place for two hours.8 Both auctions and sales by private treaty took

place at these markets. At the time of the American Revolution, herds on

the way to market often numbered in the thousands. Some farmers owned

two hundred head of cattle, although an average farmer probably possessed

no more than twenty cows. During George Washington’s administration,

Alexander Hamilton’s whiskey tax made unprofitable the practice of

farmers’ turning their corn into alcohol. For that reason, farmers fed corn

to livestock, thus increasing cattle and hog production, and they drove their

animals eastward across the mountains. Settlers along the way sometimes

bought stockers to fatten and sell. By the end of the eighteenth century,

promoters moved livestock markets to country fairs in rural areas, and

markets in larger cities became less important.9

Until after the War of 1812, Ohio valley drovers took their animals to

seaboard markets like Philadelphia or Baltimore. Estimates suggest that a

hundred thousand hogs annually traveled east from Kentucky alone. During

winter months farmers killed some of their livestock and smoked or cured

meat for their own families’ needs. If surpluses existed, farmers might take

their animals to local markets on the Ohio-Mississippi River network.

Buyers then would ship downstream, relying on flatboats or keelboats for

the river trade. An equal number of livestock moved on the hoof, however,

until steamboating emerged after 1816.10

The Erie Canal opened in the mid-1820s, and the Ohio and

Pennsylvania systems came a decade later. Livestock trade expanded, creating

17EARLY LIVESTOCK MARKETS


the need for more pens or yards to hold animals awaiting transport.

Enterprising folks soon built hotels, taverns, and livestock pens to accom-

modate both men and animals traversing the newly developed canals or

trails. Some called the pens “drove stands.” The drives to market remained

seasonal during favorable weather, usually from February to August.11 By

the 1830s Kentucky became the leading beef cattle state, and her fairs

attracted buyers with large amounts of cash.12

Ports of the Ohio River and later the Mississippi became the nucleus

of the early midwestern meat industry. Farmers often examined fall prices

to determine which product seemed more profitable to market: corn, or cat-

tle and hogs. If corn prices were high, farmers sold grain. If not, they fed

their crop to the hogs and later marketed the animals. During the 1840s

and 1850s, the American annual per capita consumption of pork reached

122 pounds. In the 1843–44 season, over ninety-six western towns, half of

which were in Ohio, together packed more than 1,245,000 hogs.13An 1846

article in the Maysville [Kentucky] Eagle urged farmers to bring hogs there.

Maysville was located sixty miles above Cincinnati on the Ohio River.

“Good pens for keeping Hogs will be in readiness and corn furnished at the

lowest rates, to feed when necessary.”14 The place was an early stockyards or

livestock hotel. During the latter half of the 1850s, the two largest pork

markets with big enough pens for the trade included Cincinnati, Ohio, and

Louisville, Kentucky, with each town slaughtering on average two hundred

thousand hogs per year.15

By the mid-nineteenth century, railroads forged change in the livestock

marketing industry—producers could ship to market year-round at lowered

costs. Because they moved where steamboats and canals could not, railroads

soon altered the pattern of production and distribution, eventually shifting

production westward. American rivers carried products both north and south.

Both meat-packing plants and cattle pens began to concentrate at main rail-

road terminals, introducing a new trend that would last for over a century.16



The Civil War temporarily disrupted the regular flow of animals to

market and created high demands for food for the soldiers. As a lasting

result of the war, the total number of markets and packing establishments

declined; those that survived grew larger. The major livestock markets at the

time consisted of Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and Chicago in the

Midwest; and Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington

in the East.17

Soon the major livestock markets shifted to the Midwest and formed

large stockyards complexes as the nation’s railroad network built westward

as well. One historian has called the stockyards marketing phenomenon

that soon developed an “inevitable trend toward economic centralization

and specialization.”18 The rapid creation of railroad-based markets after the

Civil War began the exciting stockyards story.

19EARLY LIVESTOCK MARKETS


Following the Civil War the phenomenon known as the long drive burst on

the scene with all its color and romance. Texas cattlemen rounded up

immense herds of longhorns that had multiplied in South Texas during the

war. Cowboys drove the cattle to railheads in Kansas to be shipped to

Chicago, St. Louis, or, eventually, to new markets in Wichita or Omaha.

This truly western aspect of the livestock trade introduced a new breed of

animal, developed first in Spain and brought to the Spanish Southwest by

Francisco Coronado and other early explorers. Originally of Andalusian

extraction, the strong, wiry animal became famous as the Texas longhorn.

It dominated the cattle trails and midwestern markets for nearly two

decades. To accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Texas cattle moving

northward, large incorporated stockyards companies organized at railroad

junctions. Midwestern farmers, meanwhile, continued to meet the huge

demand for pork for American breakfast and dinner tables.

Finally, the three elements necessary to the century-long reign of large

stockyards or terminal markets came together: efficient stockyards compa-

nies, interconnecting railroads, and modern meatpacking facilities in the

same location. The new stockyards companies developed in several places:

Chicago, incorporated in 1865; Milwaukee, 1869; Kansas City, 1871; St.

Louis, 1872; St. Joseph, 1873; Peoria, 1874; Indianapolis, 1877; Omaha,

1884; Sioux City, 1884; Denver, 1886; South St. Paul, 1886; Fort Worth,

1887; Wichita, 1887; San Antonio, 1889; and Sioux Falls, 1889. Most

C H A P T E R T H R E E

STOCKYARDS“COMPANIES”

EMERGE

1860s to 1920s


markets followed the pattern of Chicago, which officially called their com-

pany a “union” stockyards, because promoters united several previously

existing small stock pens and stockyards into one larger, more efficient

operation near the major railroads.

Immigrants from central and eastern Europe began flocking to

America after 1890. Because free land on the frontier had ceased to exist,

many of the newcomers sought jobs in livestock market cities. Over fifteen

million immigrants arrived in the United States during the two decades

after 1890, creating a need for more food and providing a workforce for

large meat-packing facilities. Company towns developed near the stockyards.

Local business leaders and livestock interests generally recognized the

benefits to a town with a large stockyards in its midst. Consequently, during


Nelson Morris—Born inHechingen, Germany, in

1838, Morris came to theU.S. in 1850; his family set-

tled in Buffalo, New York.By age sixteen in 1854, he

had walked most of the wayfrom New York to Chicagoand got a job in the Myrick

stockyards as a protégé ofJohn B. Sherman. Morris

became a cattle trader andwas a major supplier to the

Union Army in the CivilWar. He later established

packing plants in Chicago,St. Joseph, and Kansas City,

owned interests in stock-yards in several markets, and

operated ranches in theDakotas, Montana, and

Texas. By 1873 his businesswas earning more than

$11,000,000 per year. Hedied in 1907. Photo courtesyKentucky Fair & Exposition

Center.


the years 1890–1920, these local men created as many of the new stockyards

companies as did railroads or meat packers. Because the cattle industry had

not recovered from a disastrous winter of 1886–87, cattlemen after 1890

sought alternative means of financing their operations. Eastern investment,

which had provided most of the financing, declined tremendously after

1890. An 1893 nationwide financial panic choked off new money.

Local business leaders, forerunners of official chambers of commerce in

their western communities, created their own markets. They invited one or

two of the large meat packers to visit their city, donated land, built roads,

and added utilities to induce the packer or packers to build new facilities in

their town. If the meat packers purchased most of the capital stock in the

new stockyards adjacent to the packing plant, that was acceptable too. The

creation of several thousand jobs and the resulting economic prosperity

would be worth it. Some men in Oklahoma City appropriated the only

automobile in town to give a grand tour to Thomas E. Wilson, who in 1910

was the executive vice president of the Nelson Morris Company. Several

other cities, including Fort Worth, used similar tactics, even raising money

and presenting bonuses to Armour, Swift, or other meat packers, if they

would build slaughtering facilities.1 After 1900, cattle loan companies,

regional banks, and later government bureaus replaced eastern capital in

livestock marketing.2

Newer stockyards companies created during these years included

Portland, early 1890s; South San Francisco, 1894; Oklahoma City, 1910;

Ogden, 1916, and other smaller yards in California. Expansion of railroad

lines, construction of new meat-packing plants, and incorporation of stock-

yards companies reached a peak in the 1920s.

In the large transcontinental market (and later world market) that

opened up for the nation’s livestock products, the management of the

industry made a transition. According to Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., the “vis-

ible hand of management” replaced what Adam Smith had labeled the

23STOCKYARDS “COMPANIES” EMERGE


“invisible hand of market forces.” The market still generated demand, but

the meatpacking, railroad, and stockyards managers took over the coordi-

nation of the flow of goods through production and distribution. They

reasoned that they could produce more of their product at lower cost and

higher profit by planning more efficiently rather than waiting on market

forces to act. They moved a larger volume of animals through the entire

process of acquisition, slaughter, and distribution. Chandler called it

“managerial capitalism.”3

In some instances the big packers owned both railroads and stockyards.

Farmers and cattlemen of the Midwest and West often complained of the

railroad rates and the stockyards charges for handling livestock, protesting

both in the courts and to their elected representatives in Washington.

Congress responded on February 4, 1887, by passing the Interstate

Commerce Act, which sought to regulate high railroad rates.4

Then in mid-May 1888, a Senate committee headed by George

Graham Vest of Missouri investigated the dressed-beef industry, accusing

it of monopoly. The committee said that the nation’s meat packers acted in

collusion, fixed prices in the East, and squeezed the livestock raisers with

high charges for railroad freight rates and stockyard fees but paid low

prices for their animals. Indeed, by 1888 a group of packers called the Big

Four (Armour and Company, Swift and Company, Morris and Sons, and

George H. Hammond) produced almost two-thirds of the nation’s supply

of dressed beef and slaughtered almost one-half of the nation’s total meat

supply. The Vest committee helped persuade a reluctant Congress to pass

the Sherman Anti-Trust Act two years later, although the provisions

against monopolistic practices proved difficult to enforce. No one packer

exerted monopolistic control. The situation resembled an oligopoly rather

than a monopoly; the Big Four, and later a Big Five, dominated.

(Hammond died in 1886, and the Cudahy brothers of Omaha entered the

fray, along with Schwarzchild and Sulzberger of New York.)5



Mary Yeager, in her study of the meat-packing industry, concluded that

in the first decade of the twentieth century the industry was oligopolistic

and had been so for a quarter of a century. She contended that livestock

marketing and processing entrepreneurs set out to cooperate as an oligop-

oly rather than to compete in a market environment that had a large capi-

tal investment for the large players. The meat packers concluded that it was

easier to work together than to risk their large investments.6

This concentration of meat-packing giants into four and later five large

firms resulted because the companies owned their own refrigerator cars and

because they controlled the largest stockyards in the country. Their explana-

tion: they had to control the railroad cars to guarantee that their perishable

product would arrive intact at its destination, and they had to own stock-

yards to guarantee a ready supply of live animals for slaughter. If the local

railroad that served a city would not construct a branch line directly to the

stockyards or meat-packing facilities, the two businesses often built and

owned a railroad jointly to assure efficient service. This further illustrates the

triangular relationship between railroads, meat packers, and stockyards.7

Vertical integration existed in the industry to the extent that a large

meat-packing firm like Swift or Armour (the two largest of the Big Four and

later Big Five) would own a ranch, the cattle that fed on the grass, the rail-

road cars that carried the animals to market, the stockyards, the company

town around the yards, the utility company in town, a bank, and the refrig-

erator cars that carried slaughtered meat to waiting buyers.8

As the twentieth century arrived, the public began reading reports of

“monopoly” in an era that President Theodore Roosevelt influenced with

his trust-busting activities. The combination of stockyards, packing plants,

and railroad facilities in one place, often managed by overlapping boards of

directors, produced the success of the new “managerial” livestock marketing

process, but it looked a whole lot like a “trust” to struggling farmers. Indeed,

the Farmers’ Union, which began in 1905, two years later claimed nearly



three million members and “acquired substantial political influence” as the

voice of the farmers in the Progressive Era.9

Extending from 1890 to 1920, the progressive period was characterized

by industrialization, technological advances, immigration, urbanization, and

the beginning of government regulation reforms that the Populists had

advocated in the 1890s. As the twentieth century began, politicians argued

over what role the government should take in solving the problems brought

by progressive changes in society.10

The progressive reforms that came during the administrations of

Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson resulted from two or three previous decades

of lobbying by organizations like the Grangers, the anti-monopolists, the

Greenback Party advocates, various farmers’ alliances, and the Farmers’

Union, as well as the Populists. Farmers formed large voting blocs in these

organizations, although historians point out that most progressive reforms

originated in the cities and towns. Women in many cities became active in

the movement, some in stockyards’ cities such as Chicago, where Jane

Addams established Hull House.11 Hull House was a settlement house

that helped poor families, many of them near the stockyards. Although

similar centers developed in slum neighborhoods in other cities, Addams’

was the first.

One product of the Progressive Era, idealistic twenty-year-old socialist

Upton Sinclair, spent seven weeks observing conditions in the Chicago

stockyards in 1904. He witnessed a Lithuanian wedding supper at a saloon

and found his characters for The Jungle, in which, two years later, he

attacked the packing industry. The public outcry over the conditions

Sinclair dramatized resulted in the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food

and Drug Administration, but the public remained unsatisfied.12

During World War I when reports became public concerning the profits

of the meat industry, an outcry ensued, charging unfair competition. Several

things encouraged the public demands: the American Federation of Labor



decided to challenge the Big Five’s resistance to collective bargaining;

Senator Robert M. LaFollette and President Woodrow Wilson at the

behest of progressives called for stricter anti-trust legislation; consumers

feared a food monopoly throughout the nation because packers had

expanded into nearly every food line, including a fresh fruit trade on their

refrigerator cars; farmers and ranchers in the western states remained con-

cerned over the low and fluctuating price of meat animals; and farmers

worried that commission men might tend to favor packer buyers because

the commission companies rented their offices in the exchange buildings

that the packers owned.13

Calls for government regulation came during World War I when the

livestock industry made great profits supplying meat for the war effort,

even before the United States entered the war. As a result, President

Woodrow Wilson, in February 1917, requested that the Federal Trade

Commission study the packing industry to determine if agreements in

restraint of trade and other monopolistic practices had occurred. A study

of major meat packers meant an investigation of stockyards as well, because

the same ownership in most cases controlled both industries. After several

months of hearings and investigations and five volumes of collected mate-

rial, the FTC concluded: “It appears that five great packing concerns of the

country—Swift, Armour, Morris, Cudahy, and Wilson (who had replaced

Schwarzchild and Sulzberger as a member of the Big Five in 1915)—have

attained such a dominant position that they control at will the market in

which they sell their products, and hold the fortunes of the competitors in

their hands.”14

In one chart the FTC report listed thirty-one major stockyards, show-

ing percentages of ownership by the Big Five. The report indicated that the

five large companies controlled over fifty percent of all but two of the yards

mentioned, and the percentage of ownership usually ranged in the eighties

or nineties. Armour and Swift owned large percentages of stockyards shares



in Sioux City, St. Paul, St. Joseph, Fort Worth, Denver, Kansas City, St.

Louis, Omaha, Louisville, Newark, Milwaukee, Brighton, Portland, and

Cleveland. In fact, the Big Five packers owned financial interests in twenty-

eight central markets and held an average of over eighty percent of the

stock in each yard they controlled. The percentages ranged from twenty-

three at Philadelphia to total ownership of the yards in Denver. The FTC

also charged the Big Five with making agreements to buy cattle in specified

percentages.15

Critics of federal regulation insisted that the government never proved

that the degree of major packer ownership of the stockyards in which they

operated, in and of itself, gave them a significant competitive advantage.

These critics claimed that the Federal Trade Commission “assumed” a col-

lusive oligopoly rather than proving it, using faulty statistical documenta-

tion in many cases. They further asserted that the packers’ profits resulted

from continued cost cutting, improved administrative coordination, greater

use of existing facilities, and expansion overseas. Cities had invited, even

begged, the packers to expand into their communities by giving them shares

of stock in stockyards companies after under-financed local businessmen

had failed to keep a market going. The big packers came in and succeeded

because of their financial superiority, thus providing jobs and booming

economic activity for the cities involved.16

Almost as an immediate result of the FTC report and under authority

of a food control law passed the previous year, President Wilson issued a

proclamation in June 1918 that as of July 15, 1918, all commercial stock-

yards must have a federal license as must all commission merchants and

livestock dealers. Regulatory power would be in the hands of the secretary

of agriculture, but he delegated his power to the Bureau of Markets.17

The Sims Bill, H.R. 13324, introduced in the House of Representatives

in November 1918, attempted to authorize government ownership of

stockyards, exchange buildings, terminal railroads, rendering plants,



market newspapers, and other market facilities. The action, regarded by

market analysts as a part of the war psychology, was quickly defeated once

the war ended.18

Uncle Sam, however, would soon be regulating the nation’s livestock

hotels.



“The cattle business is a damn risky one . . . . But I’ll take my chances if the

government will give us a flat playing field and give everyone the same shot

at it. Unfortunately, it’s not that way,” wrote one Texas cattleman decades

after government regulation began.1 Livestock producers with similar atti-

tudes expressed their anger, claiming that the packers unethically and

unlawfully colluded and took advantage of farmers and ranchers. They also

complained about excessive railroad rates. In a 1920 speech to the American

National Live Stock Association in Spokane, Washington, John B.

Kendrick, president of the organization, called for government legislation to

regulate the packers, who operated at each stockyards, and to allow a “free

American market.” Kendrick, at the time a U.S. senator from Wyoming,

helped support such legislation, although sentiment to regulate the packers

was not unanimous within the organization. By 1919–20 opponents of the

packing industry had become better organized than proponents. Seizing

on the findings of the Federal Trade Commission’s 1918 report, the

opponents began a legislative barrage. Major leaders included Senators

Kendrick, William S. Kenyon of Iowa, Asle Gronna of North Dakota and

Representative Gilbert Haugen of Iowa.2

A difference of opinion existed in the livestock industry concerning

the guilt of the packers or the need for strict regulation. One writer blamed

the furor and calls for legislation on wholesale grocers, who publicized the

C H A P T E R F O U R

UNCLE SAMREGULATES

STOCKYARDS

1930s to World War II


FTC report, although he said the charges from the grocers were never

substantiated or “made to form the basis of a real court action.”3 Some

cattlemen defended the packers, saying that they were the only group

large enough to expand worldwide, thus providing a good market for their

animals. The breakup of their arrangement could hurt producers, it was

argued. Robert J. Kleberg, owner of the huge King Ranch in South Texas,

predicted that government regulation would be “ruinous to packers, meat

producers, and consumers.”4

To try to forestall regulation that might entail government ownership

of stockyards, the packers requested a meeting with Attorney General A.

Mitchell Palmer where they proposed to clean up the industry from with-

in. They signed a Packers’ Consent Decree in 1920 in which they agreed to

dispose of their interests in public stockyards, railroads, market newspapers,

and cold-storage warehouses. They further promised to relinquish their

business in unrelated lines and to stop the use of the rail distribution system

for anything other than meat products. They also promised to stay out of

retail businesses. Some livestock producers accused the meat packers and

the attorney general of making a deal which would allow the packers to

avoid prosecution.5 Litigation began over the decree almost immediately

and continued for a decade, during which time the packers did not comply

with all its provisions.6

Months of committee hearings continued after the original FTC report

came out as both the Sixty-fifth and Sixty-sixth Congresses tried to pass

legislation to regulate the packing industry. A new organization, the

American Farm Bureau Federation, created in 1919, met with senators

from agricultural states in the spring of 1921 to push for the regulatory

legislation. With their support, Midwestern farm bloc congressmen

insisted that Congress not adjourn until it passed the agricultural legislation

that included a bill to regulate packers, plus a provision that they could no

longer own stockyards.7



Gray Silver, a former member of the Senate from West Virginia, knew

his way around Washington, so the American Farm Bureau Federation

hired him to lobby for legislation that they believed many farmers and live-

stock producers wanted. Silver lived on a large farm two hours drive west of

the Capitol and commuted daily. Later, when the vote for the agricultural

legislation became crucial and his work heavier, he stayed long hours at his

office and slept in town.8

Silver’s work and that of others paid off. On August 15, 1921, Congress

passed H.R. 6320, commonly referred to as the Packers and Stockyards Act,

which took effect in September 1921 to “regulate interstate and foreign

commerce in live stock, live-stock produce, dairy products, poultry, poultry

products, and eggs, and for other purposes.”9 It became unlawful to engage

in unfair deceptive practices, to give undue preference to persons or localities,

to apportion a supply among packers in restraint of commerce, to trade in

articles to manipulate prices, to create a monopoly, or to conspire to aid in

unlawful acts.10

In essence, the law represented a legislative code of fair practices that

the secretary of agriculture must enforce. The Packers and Stockyards Act

made stockyards quasi-public utilities and required yard officers, agents, and

employees to register with the government. The law forbad stockyards

from dealing in the livestock they handled. Yards had to maintain orderly

accounts and accurate weights and measures and must pay shippers

promptly. Packers could not own stockyards, apportion livestock supply

among themselves, manipulate to control prices, or create a monopoly. The

secretary of agriculture possessed the power to regulate the rates that

stockyards companies and market agencies charged and to issue fines for

violations.11

To implement the law, officials identified eighty public stockyards as

subject to the new rules, those of a size larger than twenty thousand square

feet of pen space. The government then created field offices at nineteen

33UNCLE SAM REGULATES STOCKYARDS


stockyards. Chester Morrill, an attorney from Missouri, became the first

head of the Packers and Stockyards Administration, reporting directly to

Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace. Another provision of the act

limited jurisdiction of the Packers and Stockyards Administration to trans-

actions only at subject stockyards. By the end of the first year, the govern-

ment had registered over 3,400 dealers and 1,000 market agencies. The

operating budget for the first year totaled $200,000.12

The Big Five packers challenged the P&S Act immediately, arguing

that the sale of livestock in stockyards was not an integral part of interstate

commerce. Chief Justice William Howard Taft in his opinion against the

packers said that the act was a permissible regulation of a business affected

by public interest. The stockyards were “great national public utilities” that

promoted interstate commerce in livestock. The law thus was confirmed as

constitutional.13

Packers used the courts to block enforcement of the law; and because

of their delaying litigation, no drastic changes occurred immediately in

the nation’s stockyards. The P&S Administration monitored activities at

the nation’s larger terminal markets, but their regulations did not extend

to the small auctions that began to spring up in the country towns in the

1930s.

The packers made no move to divest themselves of their stockyards until

forced to do so. One immediate result of the P&S Act, however, became the

packer-instituted practice of buying livestock directly from producers in the

country—called direct marketing—rather than waiting until the animals

arrived at the public terminal markets. Farmers complained that the packers

sought to pay lower prices and to avoid the federal regulation at the large

stockyards. Many Midwestern farm groups agitated in the mid-1920s for

amendments to the P&S Act to prevent the packers’ direct marketing.14

Of course, the farmers could have refused to sell directly to packers, but

organization among farm groups proved difficult to achieve. The P&S



Administration obviously could not enforce any sanctions against individual

farmers who wanted to sell directly and save shipping costs; farmers were

not a “stockyards” so were not subject to the act. Seventy years later a market

analyst wrote: “Sure enough, direct buying increased through the decades

and no doubt contributed to the downfall of major stockyards.”15

Even a farmer with a two-wheeled trailer or sideboards on a model T

could turn it into a truck in the 1920s, allowing him to haul a couple of

calves or several hogs to market rather than put them in a railroad car with

other farmers’ animals. The trailer-truck, which became available to more

producers, also made possible the local livestock auction market where

farmers could take their animals and thus ignore large stockyards. By the

end of the 1930s an auction market existed in nearly every rural county or

within at least a two-hour drive for every farmer throughout the country.

The manager of a large New Mexico ranch in the 1920s believed that

the federal appointees to the FTC, the Interstate Commerce Commission,

and the Packers and Stockyards Administration opposed the interests of

farmers and stockmen. He said that the P&S had “adopted an attitude of

masterly inactivity,” adding, “[if ] it has done anything except to proceed

against a couple of yard traders for alleged insolvency . . . the news of it has

not reached me.”16 His comments represented an attitude of opposition to

government regulation that was common in much of the West.17

Before the end of the 1920s, Armour created a company to hold all its

shares of stock in the various stockyards companies over the country, calling

the new corporation General Stockyards. Swift delayed until 1936 before

transferring its similar stock to a new corporation created for that purpose,

United Stockyards.18

Thus in the 1920s and 1930s the Big Five began selling off their stock-

yards investments and their interests in railroads, cattle loan companies,

banks, market newspapers, and similar facilities which they had owned at

the markets. Packer Nelson Morris had died in 1907, and his sons chose to



sell their father’s meat-packing plants rather than the stockyards interests,

because they could not own both. After obtaining federal permission, they

sold their packing operations to Armour, thus reducing the number of

major packers to a Big Four again.

To create an unbiased daily market report, Congress established a

national Livestock Market News Service in 1924, setting uniform stan-

dards throughout the industry. The reports assured each market of accurate

information.19

NEW STOCKYARDS OPEN

Livestock prices dropped at all stockyards during the Great Depression.

Sometimes the prices were so low, one wonders why farmers bothered to

sell. For example, Jay Marcy of Rushville, Nebraska, shipped two hogs to

the Omaha stockyards in 1934. After commission agents deducted their fee,

paid railroad freight charges and feed costs at the stockyards, they mailed a

check to Marcy for $0.03. Marcy’s nephew fared even worse; he shipped

two hogs and got a bill for $0.08 from the commission firm. Shippers to

most markets related similar stories.20

Livestock marketing associations began organizing nationwide as

farmers joined together to sell their animals in an attempt to reduce costs.

Finance companies often began operations within a marketing association

in order to assist producers who suffered economic setbacks. Also, livestock

owners established cooperative commission companies at the St. Joseph

Stockyards in 1917, at the Kansas City yards in 1918, and at Wichita in

1925. Any member who would pay a small fee could sell animals through

the cooperative. By 1929 cooperative commission companies existed at

twenty-two of the nation’s central markets and handled over twelve million

head of stock annually. The influence of the cooperatives declined in the

1930s as more country markets opened, but sometimes, through the coop-

eratives, large terminal markets received animals marketed first at country



auctions.21 In addition, a number of smaller stockyards began operation

during the 1930s and 1940s, and trucking joined railroading as a means

to move cattle to local markets. These new markets included Port City

Stockyards in Houston, 1931; Joplin Stock Yards, 1931; West Fargo, North

Dakota, 1935; and Billings Union Stock Yards, in Montana, 1940.

Because government regulation of meat packers and stockyards became

a fact of life with the P&S Administration, owners of large stockyards felt

justified in creating stronger ties among themselves. The need to share

information and work together resulted in creation of the American Stock

Yards Association. They wanted to reverse the growing trend of farmers

selling directly to packer buyers or to sales at small country auctions and to

bring those animals back to the larger stockyards in the cities.

The efforts of President Herbert Hoover to build trade associations

among businesses no doubt influenced the stockyards owners in the 1930s.

Hoover believed that a modern economy needed coordination and national

planning but with the cooperation of the people and businesses involved,

calling it “managerial cooperativism.” Hoover thought the meat-packing

industry was in trouble because of its competition and wanted to convince

the owners that they should not be disorganized but adapt “more associa-

tionalism to maximize profits.”22 Stockyards company owners listened as

well as meat packers. In addition, cattlemen’s associations advertisements

urging consumers to “eat more beef ” eventually began to pay off.23

The major argument of the new stockyards organization, a valid one,

was that more competition to purchase livestock existed in the well-estab-

lished larger markets. Livestock producers, the argument went, would

cause the prices they received for their animals to drop if they sold to

smaller markets where fewer buyers bid on them. Large stockyards

remained the place where price setting occurred, and livestock producers

obviously benefited by receiving high prices. If more and more business kept

shifting to the country auctions, then fewer receipts at the large markets



would attract fewer buyers with the eventual result of lower prices.

Ultimately, lower prices at the price-setting large markets would depress

prices industrywide.

The American Stock Yards Association published a booklet, Dollars

and Sense in Livestock Marketing, which they made available in bulk to

member stockyards. The association hoped members would distribute the

material to their farmer and rancher customers and anyone else who would

read it. The association also produced an educational film, This Little Pig

Went to Market, for use in schools, 4-H, Future Farmers of America meet-

ings, and elsewhere It explained the economics of marketing. Stockyards

ownership copied ideas from each other, shared expertise, hired market

analysts, and tried everything to try to slow the decline in livestock

receipts.

Stockyards management may have believed that their move toward

association was succeeding in the 1940s, for the nation’s two dozen largest

markets enjoyed record receipts in livestock and profits during those years.

The boom, however, was related to the nation’s production of meat for U.S.

troops and American allies in World War II. Had war not erupted, the shift

that began in the 1930s to smaller country markets might have continued

slowly and steadily. Because during the war the nation had to move large

numbers of animals rapidly, railroad networks continued and packers

stepped up production at already established large market centers. Farmers

and ranchers cooperated fully with the war effort. Most stockyards set

records that would never be broken.24

During the war the country auction centers remained in place, ready to

expand once the war ended. Local auctions often became the only way

folks in the small towns could obtain animals for meat, since everything at

the large market was rationed and destined for the war effort. In addition,

the unregulated country markets paid higher prices during wartime price

freezes than the large stockyards where the government more easily



enforced its controls. Not unexpectedly, with wartime controls, a black

market developed at some large stockyards. In order to leave no record of

sales, buyers paid cash to stockyards workers who cooperated.25

Various factors caused the drop in livestock receipts at the large mar-

kets after the war. Chain grocery stores expanded, tempting the consumer

to demand top-quality, grain-fed beef and forcing the cattle industry to

produce better beef. A few feedlots had existed during most of the early

twentieth century, but the number of them would multiply many times in

the coming decades.

The number of “guests” in the livestock hotels of America began to

dwindle rapidly by mid-century.



Following the close of World War II, livestock producers in some parts of

the country shifted more and more to marketing their animals at country

auctions rather than the big city stockyards. In an attempt to save their

larger, big-city markets, stockyards companies tried delaying tactics. The

stockyards and the market centers they represented added auction barns

like the smaller country towns possessed; they changed their animal pens

from holding railroad-car size loads to accommodating gooseneck trailers.

They added modern feeding and watering facilities.

By the mid-1950s most of the large, multistory meat-packing plants in

use were at least fifty years old. Their facilities needed to be updated, but

packers believed that it was not cost effective to do so when animal receipts

kept dwindling. Within a few years, new packers built modern, one-story,

conveyor-belt processing plants near feedlots or where the greater supplies

of cattle existed. Energetic entrepreneurs, experienced in the industry

because of working for others, began to take risks on their own to build

newer, more modern meat-processing plants near the feedlots and rural

farms and ranches. They moved in ahead of the slower giant packers who

took too long to decide to abandon their aging facilities in the cities and to

strike out with new plants in the country.

Railroads carried less livestock, as farmers could easily load three or four

head in a pickup or gooseneck trailer and carry them to a nearby auction

C H A P T E R F I V E

“HOTEL”OCCUPANCYDWINDLES

1950s to the Present


market in a rural small town. Indeed, a Union Pacific spokesman, John

Bromley, explained that at least three things put an end to the need for cattle

trains: decentralization of meat packing, increasing competition from trucks,

and the development of the interstate highway system.1

From Portland to Peoria all the major livestock markets faced the same

problems: declining use of railcars, increased truck traffic, outdated packing

plants at the yards, and the new feedlot phenomenon that drew meat-

packer buyers to the country and enlarged country auctions. Many stock-

yards cut back sales to Monday through Thursday, then to two days a week,

or even one.

A Texas cattle feeder, A. L. Black, looked back on livestock marketing

and remarked, “The mode of transportation has always dictated the way we


Introduced at most older stockyards in the late 1950s, the livestock auction required a specialbuilding. Most were similar with theatre-type seats, an air conditioned facility, and a snack bar.The St. Louis market here hosted a horse auction. Photo by Russ Maxwell AD-PIX Photo, EastSt. Louis. Courtesy St. Louis National Stockyards.


market cattle. First there were cattle drives—the only way to deliver cattle.

Then the railroads arrived . . . and we drove cattle several miles to the rail-

roads, for the beginning of their trip to the central markets. By 1952, there

were 2,500 livestock auction markets in the country. They, along with direct

buying by packers, soon put the big central markets out of business.”2 In

1960 the American Stockyards Association (the name changed to singular

in the 1950s) listed 50 terminal markets as members. In contrast, the

Certified Livestock Markets Association cited 837 active markets, which

included the smaller country auctions.3

FEEDLOTS

An increased emphasis on what had been around all along—feedlots—

began sweeping the plains by the 1960s, creating what seemed to many an

entirely new phenomenon. While cattle or hog feeding had existed on a

small scale for three hundred years in the United States, farmers originally

created feedlots to use up excess grain. In the late nineteenth century, cattle-

men even had competed with cottonseed oil mills, which fed cattle mainly

to dispose of meal and hulls, by-products of their oil. Around the turn of the

century, some large ranchers copied this practice or fed alfalfa and other

grains. A few large feed yards appeared in Texas and the Midwest as early

as the 1930s. In the mid-twentieth century, however, feeding intensified

purposefully to increase the weight of the animal and to improve the qual-

ity grade.4

Consumer demand gave impetus to the feedlot phenomenon. Several

things contributed to this demand for better cuts of beef. Population

increased rapidly after World War II, because of the “baby boom” after

soldiers returned home. Gains in per capita income meant that consumers

had the money to pay for choice cuts of beef or to dine more frequently in

fine restaurants. In addition, large supermarket chains spread rapidly across

the nation, and their bulk buying power increased.5

43“HOTEL” OCCUPANCY DWINDLES


The only way to assure a better quality of meat was to feed grain to the

animals rather than grazing them solely on the range. The result was that

large feedlots sprang up in the grain country of the Texas Panhandle,

Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Colorado. Additional

feeding shifted to corn-belt states such as Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and

South Dakota.6 As early as 1963 two-thirds of the steers and heifers

slaughtered in the United States that year had been fed in feedlots.7

The growth of feedlots in Texas is an example of the rapid acceleration

of the nationwide change in production methods. In 1956 only 63 feedlots

with capacities of over a thousand existed in Texas, but in 1964 the figure

had increased to 207. Businessmen created a Texas Cattle Feeders

Association in 1967, and two years later their directory listed 280 members

with nearly 1.5 million cattle being grain fed in feedlots.8

Jess Egurrola, an officer of the Denver Livestock Market, Inc., reported

that feedlots were “everywhere,” and so it surely seemed to stockyards officials

accustomed in the past to seeing their large market as the only one in an

entire state.9

Population shift was another factor in the rise of the feedlot. Many

small farmers sold out and moved to the big city to enter other occupations.

Producers invested more money, often borrowed, to finance larger opera-

tions to feed a larger population. Large feedlots generally operated more

efficiently at cheaper percentage costs than small yards, for the feeder’s abil-

ity to market cattle during the entire year helped to stabilize profit and loss.

Ranchers or feedlot operators bought feeder cattle and grazed the animal on

grassland before sending them to “finish” for 120–150 days at the feedlot.

Financing the large feedlot operations became a major factor in commercial

banking as well; many large and even small banks maintained an agricultural

loan officer who specialized in the field.10 Because of fluctuations in cattle

prices, bankers sometimes became hesitant to finance livestock ventures or

were stricter in their oversight, often preferring to finance feeding operations,



which could claim a better price, and sometimes using financial pressure on

ranchers to achieve their ends.11

Following the feeding trend, packers in the 1960s constructed modern one-

story slaughtering plants with conveyor equipment near the feedlots.

Modernizing the older, multistory facilities in the large cities at the terminal

markets would have been too expensive. Feedlots built near the new meat plants

multiplied rapidly. In 1970 eighty percent of all slaughtered cattle received

some feed prior to marketing.12 By 1984 the figure reached ninety percent.13

FEDERAL OVERSIGHT

Although the 1920 Packers’ Consent Decree with the U.S. Attorney

General and a decade of court cases delayed the implementation of govern-

ment regulation, by the mid-1930s stockyards owners began complying

with the regulation laws.

During the last half of the twentieth century Uncle Sam kept his eyes

on the entire process through the continued efforts of the Packers and

Stockyards Administration. Congress passed various amendments to the

P&S Act through the years. In 1935 an amendment of the law extended

the agency’s jurisdiction to all persons engaged in the marketing of live

poultry. Two major changes came in 1958: the jurisdiction of the secretary

of agriculture expanded to include all stockyards, market agencies, and

dealers operating in interstate commerce whether at a terminal stockyard or

auction market (before that, jurisdiction of the P&S applied only to yards

of over twenty thousand square feet); and the new changes defined the

areas of jurisdiction for the P&S Administration and the Federal Trade

Commission in meat packing, meat food products, livestock products, and

poultry and poultry products industries. (Confusion had existed over the

responsibilities of the two agencies.) The P&S had prohibited packers from

owning custom feed yards, but packers challenged the regulations and won,

so they were able to own and feed cattle.14



Because they believed that economic conditions had changed after

three decades, in 1956 three large meat packers (Armour, Cudahy, and

Swift) asked the government to cancel the provisions of the 1920s Consent

Decree. The meat packers wanted to be able to sell at retail, which the

decree prevented. Judge Julius Hoffman denied their request, claiming that

the conditions warranting the original decree still existed. Then in 1971

the government substantially amended the decree and allowed the meat

packers to sell 114 previously prohibited non-meat products at wholesale.

But they still could not market meat at retail. In 1979 the government

relaxed the decree even further, letting the packers acquire firms that

retailed the 114 products if the companies’ annual sales totaled less than

$100 million or if they controlled less than fifty percent of the market.15

With two or three thousand small markets existing by the 1970s, P&S

agents continued their focus primarily on competition, fair trade practices,

and financial protection. From primarily stressing rule enforcement in the

1940s and 1950s, the agents in the 1980s and 1990s placed more attention

on monitoring competion in the industry. A drop in cattle prices during the

1970s and a rise in grain costs forced numerous feedlots into bankruptcy.

Many others survived, some when grain companies themselves began feed

yard businesses to protect their grain markets. Even though the number of

feedlots in the Southwest decreased, those that survived became larger, and

the number of cattle on feed increased.16

The Packers & Stockyards Administration saw the national stockyards

picture change dramatically through the years, for the original Big Four

and Big Five packers and stockyards owners no longer survived requiring

the government to monitor them. United Stockyards, which Swift created

originally in the 1930s to own their stockyards, had quickly bought out

Armour’s General Stockyards. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, United

Stockyards owned or leased eleven central public stockyards, making it

the nation’s largest owner of stockyards. But the number of active yards



United owned dropped to seven in the 1990s. By the beginning of the

twenty-first century, United had relinquished ownership of the yards to its

holding company Canal Capital, which retained only three of United’s

former large stockyards: Sioux City, Sioux Falls, and St. Joseph. Sioux City

closed in 2002.

Congress amended the P&S Act in 1976 to require that meat packers

be bonded, largely because an Omaha meat-packing firm filed for bank-

ruptcy owing $22 million to livestock sellers. This amendment brought

stability because the bond ensured that producers would be protected and

would be the first to receive any recovered funds in the event of a packer

bankruptcy.17 Bonds vary, depending on the amount of business conducted,

but in no case is the bond coverage less than $10,000. In addition, the P&S

Administration required that every packer, live poultry dealer, stockyard

owner, market agency, and dealer (except a packer buyer registered to

purchase livestock for slaughter only) to file an annual report.18

Two cases illustrate the type of problem the P&S Administration

monitored. Agents found the Fort Worth auction engaged in fraudulent

weighing practices. One incident involved a man equipped with a two-way

radio who was in the scale pit during an auction. The man stayed in contact

with the dealers with whom he worked. When the dealers purchased cattle,

the pit man manipulated the scale lever system to short weigh the cattle

purchased, thus favoring the buyer. Conversely, when the dealers sold cattle,

he reversed the procedure to favor them with heavier weights. A sharp

observer discovered the scheme when the man in the pit lit a cigarette and

smoke wafted up through the scale platform.19

The other case involved “price-and-weight mark up on livestock pur-

chased on order, false records, and destruction of records.” A judicial offi-

cer described a Portland violation as the “most important case ever brought

in the (at that time) history of the Packers and Stockyards Act.” The situ-

ation, involving a Portland commission company, tested the authority of



the secretary of agriculture to suspend “for a reasonable specified period” a

registrant who had violated the act. The ten-year suspension ordered was

the longest suspension period imposed in a litigated case under the act.20

Originally twenty-six P&S offices were scattered throughout the

nation. By 1963 the number was reduced by half. In 1991, as the agency

celebrated its seventieth birthday, only two of the original P&S field offices,

Denver and Omaha, remained located at the same stockyards posted in

1921. (Even though the Denver stockyards had closed, the office remained

in the exchange building.) Field offices existed in only six of the original

cities: Atlanta, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Portland, and South

St. Paul, although some of the stockyards had closed. In 2003 field offices

existed only in Denver, Des Moines, and Atlanta. In addition, thirty agents,

geographically placed across the country and working from their homes,

reported to these field offices.21

Partly as a result of the changed conditions, a new meat monopoly

developed, beginning on a fairly small scale. As it took the lead in slaugh-

tering a large percentage of the nation’s meat supply, the new company

caught the industry by surprise. Currier Holman and A. D. “Andy”

Anderson, founding fathers of the new beef giant, started in 1960 with a

$300,000 loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration. They opened

a packing plant in Denison, Iowa, near corn-fattened, feedlot cattle.22

Originally calling their company Iowa Beef Packers, Holman and

Anderson pioneered a concept of “boxed beef ” in which they shipped

chilled packaged meat ready to place on a supermarket meat counter.

Consequently, wholesalers and retailers did not have to retain onsite butchers

to divide carcasses into smaller cuts. With a name change in 1970 to Iowa

Beef Processors, IBP constructed a string of modern plants, locating them

in rural cattle country. This action allowed IBP to negotiate for cattle

directly rather than using the “cumbersome stockyard system” (as they called

it) that added time and transportation costs to the price of beef. In addition,



their profits rose because they paid lower wages to mostly non-union, rural

workers.23 IBP’s concept of “boxed beef ” became one of the major innova-

tions in the packing industry, nearly rivaling the advent of the refrigerator

car of an earlier day. Sadly, the nation’s “grand old terminal markets” or

“livestock hotels” had become—in modern terminology—a “cumbersome

stockyard system.” By 1980 IBP dominated the U.S. boxed-beef business

even though other companies had also entered the market. Such concen-

tration of slaughtering into one company meant that one-third fewer

meat-packing and processing facilities operated in 1983 than had existed

in 1945. By the 1980s approximately one-third of the major stockyards had

ceased operations as well.24

Within a decade, a meat-packing Big Three emerged, one that included

IBP (Iowa Beef Processors, fifty-one percent of which was owned by

Occidental Petroleum with annual sales in the billions and exports to

Europe and Asia); Excel Corporation, (formerly MBPXL Corporation and

in the 1990s a subsidiary of Cargill Corporation, the world’s largest grain

trader); and Con-Agra, Inc., (which owned Swift Independent Packing

Company, abbreviated SIPCO). Swift, one of the turn-of-the-twentieth-

century Big Four, survived longest as a remnant of the nation’s former

meat-packing giants.25 Tyson Foods acquired IBP/Foodbrands in 2001 in

a $2.7 billion takeover. Another large packer on the scene at the beginning

of the twenty-first century was Farmland National, formerly National Beef

Packing.26

But the modern Big Three—IBP, Excel, and Con-Agra—slaughtered

nearly seventy percent of all steers and heifers in the United States in the

1990s. In some cases the Big Three killed as many cattle or hogs per hour

as some packing plants had in an eight-hour shift forty or fifty years earlier.27

The new Big Three decreased the power of the meat-cutters union and

hired non-union workers at lower wages. Vertical integration existed to the

extent that the Big Three contracted in advance for cattle or they owned



feedlots to produce their own beef for slaughter. In 2000, the nation’s four

largest packers either owned or controlled 38.2 percent of the cattle they

slaughtered, which perhaps lowered the market prices for cattle and elimi-

nated any stockyards-auction method for marketing the feedlot livestock.

The P&S is continuing to monitor this new oligopolistic situation.28

Only fourteen of the old-time, once booming, large terminal livestock

markets survived to the mid-1990s: Indianapolis, Joplin, Lancaster,

Louisville, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Peoria, St. Joseph, St.

Louis, San Antonio, Sioux City, Sioux Falls, and South St. Paul. By the

beginning of the twenty-first century only Lancaster, Milwaukee,

Oklahoma City, Peoria, St. Joseph, San Antonio, Sioux City, Sioux Falls,

and South St. Paul remained in operation. Of these, Lancaster, San

Antonio, and Sioux City have closed and some of the other markets moved

to smaller facilities elsewhere.

A P&S Administration official in Omaha wrote near the end of the

twentieth century: “The central public livestock markets may be declining

in influence as the evolution of the livestock marketing industry continues,

but they will be fondly remembered by most of the people associated with

the livestock industry.”29 He grossly understated the feeling that most

stockyards old-timers experienced recalling the grand old, once-booming

markets. Bill McCoy, president of the Lancaster Stockyards, said: “I don’t

have any regrets for coming in and staying in this industry. Buyers and sellers

traded with [a] shake of their hand; that was the deal; there was implicit

trust. That’s refreshing.”30



Historians try to understand the past. Frontier historian Frederick Jackson

Turner attempted to describe the migration of people westward from settled

societies to the frontier as an orderly movement. The development of the

huge livestock industry with the accompanying large stockyards became a

part of that nineteenth-century progression. Turner “saw a process of social

evolution, from the simplest forms of society to the level of complexity

which we call modern civilization.”1 Corn, cattle, hogs, railroads, packing

plants, and stockyards all thrived in the Midwest. “The meeting point of

corn and cattle has led to the development of the packing industries,”

Turner observed.2 He identified the Midwest as an important “mediator”

between Canada and the United States and between the manufacturers of

the North Atlantic states and (at that time) the “sparsely settled Western

mining, cattle raising, and agricultural states.”3 The largest stockyards

developed in Turner’s Middle West. To many observers, the stockyards,

those grand old terminal markets, represented the ultimate in complex

marketing management and advancement, but they too have become a

casualty of a more modern marketing technology.

Contemporary historian William Cronon, sometimes a Turner critic,

suggests that “the central story of the nineteenth-century West is that of an

expanding metropolitan economy creating ever more elaborate and intimate

linkages between city and country.”4 The growing livestock market centers

C H A P T E R S I X

LOOKINGFORWARD


that drew animals from the surrounding rural areas accomplished Cronon’s

linkages. He argues that the rural setting, or frontier, did not always evolve

into the city, thus causing its overflowing inhabitants to move farther west-

ward. Instead, both city and town, urban and rural were interdependent, each

supplying the other’s needs, and they often developed together.5 The meat

packers, the railroads, and the stockyards met in the cities all over Turner’s

Midwest. In the present-day meat-marketing industry, indeed, the current

Big Three abandoned the older trilogy of meat packers, railroads, and stock-

yards in the urban areas and chose for their arena of operation the rural

Midwest with its grain production and feedlots. The large industrial metro-

politan areas depend upon the meat products of that rural Big Three.

The half-dozen stockyards that remained open three or four years into

the twenty-first century faced a new problem, one no one had conceived of

a century earlier: animal rights activists and pro-vegetarians crying “meat is

murder.”6 Indeed, consumers’ dietary habits changed to include more chicken

and fish, displacing beef and pork on the dinner tables of many modern

Americans. The twenty-first century has ushered in a world that livestock

producers and handlers of an earlier day could not have foreseen. Even call-

ing a stockyards a “livestock hotel,” a common practice throughout the

industry, offends some people today. This terminology manifests a frivo-

lous attitude, they say, toward the treatment of animals whose most likely

destination is a slaughterhouse. Early businessmen and livestock pro-

ducers—removed by a couple of generations from animal rights protests—

saw cattle and hogs as food and as a business. Current producers still do.

Market fluctuations present a continuing problem. David Simons, of

the Texas Livestock Marketing Association, claims that the cow business

often runs in ten-year cycles with mid-decade often the down part of the

cycle. He hopes that a better marketing system, as magnificently efficient as

the large stockyards were in their heyday would reemerge, preventing

extreme price fluctuations and that producers, grazers, feeders, and packers



can somehow integrate their activities in order to operate with more preci-

sion and prediction of success.7 Even when prices are high, as they were in

2003, an unforeseen problem like the mad cow disease scare can rapidly

affect exports and prices.

Other frustrations for livestock marketing in the twenty-first century

include the continuing drop in the water level of the Ogallala Aquifer of the

Texas Panhandle and Great Plains. Feedlots in that area could experience

water shortages in the foreseeable future.8

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Market News Service continued

in the latter twentieth century to place reporters at the remaining large

stockyards markets to report prices, but it also cited prices at country auctions.

The service also recorded video sales in order to assist the nationwide indus-

try in keeping abreast of prevailing prices.9 Video sales comprised about five

percent of the market in the last decade of the twentieth century and the

beginning of the twenty-first; auctions and private treaty sales made up the

other ninety-five percent of livestock activity. Obviously, buyers no longer

must travel to stockyards for livestock, nor must animals be shipped by rail

to central city stockyards—transportation and communication technology

have revolutionized livestock marketing. 10

Few livestock market analysts want to predict the future. Some stock-

yards, located in central areas of their state, such as Oklahoma City, are

easily accessible to trucks because of the intersection of modern highways.

They will continue as a viable part of the nation’s livestock marketing for

some years. But owners will have to learn to use electronic technology to

manage large livestock operations. Computer sales have become a major part

of the industry. Agricultural technology will prove challenging for future

industry personnel. Environmental protection laws and stricter pollution

regulations create problems for owners and will continue to do so.

Opportunities to trade more extensively in cattle futures will be a factor

in the industry in the coming years as well. The idea of live cattle futures

53LOOKING FORWARD


may have originated in several places at about the same time. One story is

that J. D. Sartwelle, then president of the Port City Stock Yards of Houston

wanted to find a way to avoid cyclical losses, so in 1962 he asked a friend

about cattle futures. The friend suggested that he talk to Everett B. Harris,

president of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. On Harris’ next visit to

Houston, the two men visited over dinner, and Harris liked the idea of

futures. Both Sartwelle and Harris discussed the idea with several cattle-

men, who initially reacted unfavorably; the idea of selling cattle before they

were fed, or even purchased, sounded risky to them.

Packers who spoke through a Mellon Bank representative in Pittsburgh

said that they wanted a beef carcass contract. Sartwelle replied, “No, cattle

feeders want a live contract.” 11Because there were more feeders than packers,

Sartwelle got his way, and on November 30, 1964, a new live cattle contract

was offered. It opened at $24, closed at $23.67; volume was 191 contracts.

Exactly a quarter of a century later, on November 30, 1989, the open was

$75.25; the close was $74.97, and volume reached 13,142 contracts.12 Live

cattle futures is a phenomenon that caught on and will continue to expand,

although some cattlemen avoid the risk. “If you like to gamble, it is fine, but

don’t ever play any more than you can go home and go to sleep and forget it,”

one cattleman advised.13 Superior Livestock Auction, Inc., of Fort Worth in

January 1987 began to use video technology to sell cattle. More than a decade

later the company remains the only truly national firm to sell cattle by

video. Customers from Canada to Mexico and across the United States

watch cattle grazing on their own pastures via a special video channel and

send in bids. Sales reached 1.3 million animals in 2000, according to Paul

Branch, an official of the company. A new challenger was Western Video

Market, serving states in the West and selling around 600,000 animals per

year. Of course, anyone with a computer can set up a website offering photos

of cattle for sale, and more such websites are beginning to appear.14 Computer

marketing will emerge in the twenty-first century as a major player.



Because numerous small producers still exist, most analysts agree that

country auctions will continue to have a place in livestock marketing.

Increasing in activity will be the video sales, livestock and specialty breed

shows, the creation of new breeds, and order buyers flying around in airplanes

to view animals before purchase. The practice of slaughter sales going

directly from feedlot to meat packer will continue. Also, direct marketing

will link producers to consumers; from “ranch to retail” as some in the

industry call it.

Livestock marketing associations and exchanges, which have existed for

many years, will continue to assist producers. Several of them are currently

celebrating birthdays of three-quarters of a century or more. “Producers, by

joining forces, have a stronger voice, and create a more stable environment

in the livestock marketing industry,” according to Larry Ayers of the

Indiana Livestock Exchange.15

An advertising program that the Cattlemen’s Beef Board operated for

the last fifteen years of the twentieth century came under fire at the end of

the century. Under the “check-off ” plan, $1 was deducted automatically from

each animal sale to fund an $85 million advertising campaign to promote

beef consumption. Larger producers in the industry favored the plan;

smaller ones opposed it. A November 2002 Montana court decision upheld

the program. In another case it was declared unconstitutional at the lower

court and at the Eighth Circuit Court. On December 8, 2004 the U.S.

Supreme Court heard arguments on the two cases, Veneman v. Livestock

Marketing Association and Nebraska Cattleman v. Livestock Marketing

Association. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association polls members

yearly and affirms that over sixty percent of beef producers support the

check-off plan.16

The future may hold other new marketing strategies. “Change is the

rule in the livestock industry, rather than the exception,” according to

longtime market analyst Ed Uvacek, Jr., of Texas A&M University.17

55LOOKING FORWARD


Allan W. McGhee, who wrote for The Drovers Journal in Chicago for forty-

two years, the last quarter century and more as editor-in-chief, said,

“Having seen in my career what changes can be absorbed by an industry,

I would not feel safe in making a guess.”18

The heyday of the large central markets, that colorful time when prac-

tically all the nation’s livestock was marketed in big-city stockyards, has

come to an end.



As soon as a train bringing stock arrives at the yards and is drawn up to the platform for

unloading, the employees of the yard company . . . drive the stock out and . . . into the alleys.

—Joseph G. McCoy,Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest

TWO DOZ E N

B IG STOCKYAR DS—TH E I R OR IG I N

AN D GROWTH


Trade centers east of the Mississippi River naturally expanded first as

Americans began to cross the Appalachian range of mountains and to move

westward. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, became a livestock market center, and

then much later incorporated its own stockyards company that survived into

the twenty-first century. Cincinnati, Ohio, profited from flatboats floating

down the Ohio River to join the mighty Mississippi as it surged southward.

Predominantly German settlers in Cincinnati slaughtered increasingly

larger numbers of hogs for sausages, hams, and bacon in an antebellum

society that depended almost solely on pork for its meat diet.

Louisville, Kentucky, located only a bit southwest of Cincinnati on the

south bank of the Ohio, launched its Bourbon Stockyards from a travelers’

tavern. The market survived for over 150 years, even as the frontier moved

westward. The long-established former French trading center, St. Louis,

Missouri, then became the mid-nineteenth-century “jumping off place” to

the American West. Because Chicago, Illinois, developed as the center of a

large railroad network, that city became the largest livestock center of all

and maintained its dominance for more than a century, even after later

stockyards opened in the Midwest as cattle drives brought thousands of

Texas longhorns northward. By 1880 the population of Illinois had reached

three million people, but more than that number of animals soon began to

arrive in Chicago annually.1

C H A P T E R S E V E N

EARLYMARKET CITIES


The story of how these livestock markets began, the personalities who

shaped them, and their records and successes deserve coverage. Often the

ownership of a stockyards facility and a meat-packing establishment

became intertwined, and both emerged simultaneously at a new market. As

the history of each livestock city illustrated, the activities of stockyards,

meat-packing and railroad connections grew interconnected. The develop-

ment of a livestock market city was as important as the establishment of a

specific stockyards company whose ownership and name could and often

did change over time.

LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA

An incorporated stockyards may not have opened in Lancaster in the earli-

est days of settlement, but by the eighteenth century cattle trading certainly

took place. Travelers used a road from Lancaster to Columbia in 1734 and

followed the route from Lancaster to Harrisburg three years later. Because

Lancaster was the most important inland town in Pennsylvania on the path

to the West at that time and because animals and people continually moved

west, Lancaster became one of the first important trading points. The first

turnpike in the United States opened between Philadelphia and Lancaster

in 1792, featuring a stone track for Conestoga wagons, stagecoaches, and

horseback travelers. Towns quickly sprang up along the road. Pioneers

drove their animals with them at the rate of about ten miles per day.

Travelers purchased wagons, food, rifles—and livestock—in Lancaster

before heading west of the Susquehanna River.2 One of the first records of

a livestock market in Lancaster was an advertisement in the August 19,

1797, Lancaster Journal for the sale of forty yoke of “New England broke

oxen” at Abraham Witmer’s house on the turnpike near Lancaster.3 By the

latter part of the eighteenth century the movement of cattle became quite

common on the turnpike, and toll collectors charged drovers $0.25 for every

ten miles of road driven.4



Promoters constructed the first official stockyard company in Lancaster

in 1868 on a lot owned by James Stewart and located at North Plum Street

and New Holland Avenue. Covering only six acres, the pens faced an

adjacent railroad. Owners soon enlarged the amount of space for live-

stock, and a hotel was built to serve customers.5

The Stewart yards eventually became overcrowded. In 1895 the

Pennsylvania Railroad created the Union Stock Yard Company on a farm

belonging to the James Buchanan family, fifteenth president of the United

States.6 Located on Marshall Avenue, the twenty-six acre facility featured

a hotel, office building, and pens. Gradually dealers at the older yards

moved to the new facilities.

By the 1920s, during some periods of the year the yards handled more

livestock than any similar facility east of Chicago.7 By the mid-1950s they

were being called “one of the leading industries” in the Lancaster area as

more than 100,000 stocker and feeder cattle passed through the market

annually to be placed on farms for fattening. Fourteen commission com-

panies operated, and some called it the “stocker and feeder capital of the

East,” with the volume of business ranging from $60 million to $93 mil-

lion annually.8 The Lancaster facilities, once the biggest on the East

Coast, sold animals for consumption in Boston, New York, Baltimore, and

Washington, D.C.

Following the trend nationwide, the stockyards added an auction barn.

As happened at the other markets, business dropped off considerably, a thirty-

six percent decline from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. Cattle sales of

260,000 animals in 1956 dropped to 108,000 in 1986. Hogs and sheep

showed receipts of 146,000 and 28,000, respectively, by the mid-1980s.9

New ownership made up of livestock exchange members purchased the

yards in 1972 from the Pennsylvania Railroad that had owned them for

three-quarters of a century; they changed the name to Lancaster

Stockyards. One of these, Bill McCoy, indicated that his grandfather came

61EARLY MARKET CITIES


from the St. Paul Stockyards, and both he and his father continued at the

Lancaster market.10 His brother Patrick McCoy also became a partner.

Well into the 1990s a viable feeder market as well as a slaughter market

operated in Lancaster. Numerous small butchers frequented the market as

well as buyers from a large packing firm in Philadelphia. Because of many

Jewish residents in the area, sales of animals for the kosher market began

doing well. Mennonite and Amish farmers used the market, and it drew

250,000 animals each year early in the 1990s.

The sheep and goat market soon attracted 100,000 animals yearly.

Increased immigration of people of the Middle Eastern culture to the east-

ern seaboard and their demand for mutton fueled the market rise. Owners

later moved goat sales to a sale barn outside of Lancaster. Near the end of

the twentieth century, the Lancaster area became the highest priced market

in the nation for sheep and goats.11 As a terminal market throughout the


Covered pens dominated at the Lancaster yards, located in the heart of this historic Pennsylvaniatown. Sheep and goats, which needed cover, constituted a large part of livestock receipts in thelate twentieth century. Photo courtesy Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.


twentieth century Lancaster served as a price setter for the eastern seaboard

as cattle came from Nebraska, Montana, the Dakotas, Texas, and Oklahoma.

At the end of the century, however, the stockyards became increasingly

empty, and the pens deteriorated. The last auction took place in the summer

of 2000. The owners received a bid of $200,000 per acre for their land on

which a developer wanted to construct a shopping mall, but the city refused

to rezone because of the historic significance of the stockyards district.12

The pens were still receiving a few cattle, but real operations at

Lancaster had ceased. A local reporter described the Lancaster Stockyards

as “quiet alleys and weathered wooden fences.” That description fits many

of the nation’s formerly busy stockyards—unless they have already been torn

down and turned into industrial parks or shopping centers.13

CINCINNATI, OHIO

Call her Queen City, Porkopolis, or Hogopolis, Cincinnati became the chief

pork-packing center in the early-nineteenth-century West because of its

location on the Ohio River. A ready supply of both labor and salt also

helped the city compete in an era when “meat packing” literally meant the

packing of slaughtered hogs into barrels of salt brine for preservation.14

Transportation patterns in the nation explained why some cities became

market centers and others did not. In the first half of the nineteenth century,

particularly 1820–40, water transportation—flowing mostly north to

south—dominated in America. Cincinnati’s business owners took advantage

of the city’s fortunate location on the Ohio, first using flatboats and then

steamboats to transport both hogs and cattle downriver to New Orleans,

along with other agricultural products, such as grain and corn (or whiskey).

Westerners’ eating habits, as well as those of most of the rest of the

nation, favored pork as the meat of choice; therefore, farmers concen-

trated on hogs as a money crop and for home consumption. The first meat

packer of record in Cincinnati was Elisha Mills, who began operations in



1818.15 Another early local entrepreneur was a Welsh Quaker named

Jason Evans who has been described as “tenacious” and “pugnacious.”16

Settling early at Waynesville, Evans first established a gristmill, but when

this did not turn out profitably, he tried farming. Often it took him a

week to drive his four-horse wagon to Cincinnati to sell his hogs and

other produce. Along with other traveling farmers, he slept in taverns or

in his wagon in the woods. Eventually this background of farming,


Because so many Midwestern farmers began driving their hogs to market in Cincinnati, thecommunity became the first major meat-packing center in the early-nineteenth-century West.Known as Porkopolis, Cincinnati enjoyed excellent water transportation in the first half of thecentury. Photo courtesy Cincinnati Historical Society.


milling, and trade connections persuaded Evans to start a pork-packing

business—Evans, Eulass, and Pierce later Evans and Swift. Rivals who

challenged Evans included Samuel Davis, Jr., Hartshorn and Childs,

Miller and Johnson, R. W. Lee, and Lot Pugh and Company. Even so, his

business stayed near the top for nearly twenty years until Cincinnati’s

market began to decline.17 During Cincinnati’s boom of the 1820s,

exports totaled $740,020 in 1826 with $223,000 of it pork, lard, hams, and

bacon. In the 1826–27 season Cincinnati finally surpassed Baltimore, once

the major pork city.18

Major livestock markets began moving west along the Ohio River, and

by 1830 a system of canals made Ohio the principal hog-producing state.

Cincinnati slaughtered 150,000 hogs each year. The community also

became the most populous western city by that time with 30,000 people.19

By mid-century pork production reached a peak of over 400,000 hogs with

forty-two plants. Cincinnati had become the principal pork market in the

world, truly Porkopolis.20 Packing, with its adjacent stockyards of pens,

dominated until trade spread westward into Illinois.21

The pork trade diminished, but Cincinnati remained an important city

because by the time water travel gave way to rail, the community had diver-

sified the economy to include more than livestock sales. Cincinnati’s share

of the total western hog-packing market slowly declined from twenty-eight

percent in the 1840s to nineteen percent in the 1850s. At mid-century,

pork and lard furnished only fifteen percent of the city’s total receipts and

shipments, and by the early 1850s Cincinnati began losing control. The

population at that time had reached 115,000, and the Queen City remained

the largest city in the West until 1860.22

Chicago pushed ahead of Cincinnati in 1862 to become the world’s

largest packing center.23

Increased railroad connections and new settlers going primarily

east/west explained Cincinnati’s livestock decline, but in addition, the local



hog supply became unstable. Rival markets competed for trade, and the

river city continued to rely too heavily on her water routes.24

Cincinnati investors tried to remain competitive in 1871 as they organ-

ized the Union Railroad Stock Yard Company with a capital of $1.25 million.

Officials acquired fifty acres on which they constructed covered pens and

sheds with a capacity of 75,000 head of stock. They built a hotel called

Avenue House with offices on the first floor for brokers. The centrally

located facility on Spring Grove Avenue provided railroad sidings sur-

rounded by shipping pens. Within two years when four of the city’s largest

packing companies constructed new plants adjoining the stockyards, a

multi-million-dollar livestock industry continued. The next year the

stockyards hosted a livestock convention in September as an attempt to

set uniform standards and solve trade problems.25 During the 1870s

Cincinnati packed over a half million hogs a year, but by then Chicago had

surpassed her for good.26


Artist’s rendering of the Cincinnati Union Stockyards before 1900, showing mostly covered pensand the large exchange building. Photo courtesy The Cincinnati Historical Society.


As the twentieth century began, local producers continued to drive

livestock up Spring Grove Avenue to the stockyards. Annual receipts at the

yards in the 1920s were in the range of 1,405,000 hogs, 276,500 cattle,

165,200 calves; 374,000 sheep, and 6,400 horses and mules.

The nationwide trend of small country auctions and direct buying by

meat packers and processors also caused Cincinnati’s livestock receipts to

diminish. The Cincinnati Stockyards closed on December 5, 1980.27

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

The Bourbon Yards at Louisville enjoyed the distinction of being the first live-

stock market to celebrate its 150th birthday. Born from a First Monday court-

trade day in 1834, the market reached its sesquicentennial mark in 1984. The

Virginia tradition of a monthly court day at the county seat moved westward

with early pioneers to Kentucky. A fair and trade day naturally developed

when nearly everyone came to town, and, logically, livestock always were

among the major items for sale or trade. Soon livestock trade activity outgrew

this one-day-a-month forum. Between 1800 and 1834 the town of Louisville,

at the falls on the Ohio River, developed into a continuing trade center. Only

four hundred inhabitants lived in log cabins in 1800, but the small twenty-

year-old community had a good harbor where numerous flatboats, keelboats,

and barges stopped by with cargo from Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.28

During low water season dealers were forced to unload goods and haul

them around the falls. They drove cattle or hogs two or three miles to

another wharf. Naturally, enterprising businessmen constructed pens to

hold the livestock during busy times and bought and sold animals while

people waited. A canal bypassed the falls by 1830, however, and oppor-

tunistic Louisville businessmen constructed turnpikes into their town to

encourage the land trade.

A large number of German immigrants had moved to Louisville by

the 1820s and 1830s, many of them butchers. They built slaughterhouses



behind their homes and created a “Butchertown” in the center of Louisville’s

busy market area, sending agents out to surrounding county fairs to buy

hogs. A tavern or drovers’ hotel was built near Butchertown in 1834.

Owners named the tavern the Bourbon House, after Bourbon County,

reflecting the French influence that named the town. The Bourbon Stock

Yards officially began that same year when the owners of the hotel prudently

built pens behind the building where drovers could safely hold their animals

before taking them to the slaughterhouse. To get a head start on prices and

deals, traders soon began coming to the drovers’ hotel to buy and sell.29

Over the next forty years Louisville became one of the nation’s leading

meat-packing centers, specializing in pork. By the 1849–50 season, six

slaughterhouses packed 179,105 hogs annually, and by 1850–51, the total

reached 195,414.30 The first of several railroads entered Louisville in

1851—the Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington.

Slaughterhouse operator Herman F. Vissman bought out the Bourbon

House and Stockyards in 1854. Within a decade he constructed a new

three-story hotel at Main and Johnson streets. Because the railroad did not

go near the old stockyards, he moved the pens next to his new hotel to be

adjacent to the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, which arrived in 1860.

Other partners came in, and a merger with another stockyards occurred in

1869. The Civil War placed disruptive demands on loyalties and supplies,

but many packinghouses worked day and night to supply meat, mostly to

the Union Army.31

Meat packing continued in Louisville after the war, but competition

from Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Kansas City in the 1870s meant that the

slaughter trade became only a small percentage of the business activity of

Louisville. The hog trade still ranked ahead of tobacco and distilled spirits

in annual sales, however.32

Local promoters claim that a former bookkeeper named Stephen S.

Snodgrass began what possibly was the first modern commission company



on the Bourbon Yards in 1869.33 Buyouts and reorganizations continued

at the yards until the reorganized and incorporated Bourbon Stock Yard

Company emerged July 1, 1875, with John Garnett Barrett, a banker, serving

as president. His tenure in the office lasted for a quarter century.34

In 1908, the Bourbon Stock Yards Company bought out a Central

Stock Yard owned partly by Armour and Swift. In the merger, however,

Armour and Swift “obtained substantial stock interests in Bourbon

Stockyards Company.”35 Oscar Fenley, another banker, served 1900–30 as

president of the Bourbon Stock Yard Company, and, during his tenure, the

Louisville Fat Cattle Show was inaugurated in 1921. During these years

Louisville remained the South’s largest market and even for a time became

the “greatest spring lamb market in the country” as more than 250,000

thousand head arrived per year.36


Constructed in 1914, this Bourbon Stock Yard Company Administration Building replaced theold Bourbon House Inn at the corner of Johnson and Main streets in Louisville, Kentucky. Photocourtesy Photographic Archives, University of Louisville.


A stockyards man named Ernest Louis German took over operation of

the yards in 1930. A native of Louisville, German, who had joined the

company in 1917 as a traffic manager, served as president for twenty years.

During the stockyards presidencies of Louis Seelback, 1951–62, and

George K. Tomes, 1962–68, the volume of livestock at the yards began

decreasing rapidly, following the national trend. The company encouraged

educational programs, innovations, cattle auctions, and engaged in other

promotional efforts. Various livestock shows helped sales, but smaller shows

gave way to the North American International Livestock Exposition held

annually at the Kentucky State Fair.

New owners purchased the Bourbon Stock Yards in 1968 and encour-

aged expanded cattle production, tried to operate the yards more efficiently,

and changed their marketing methods to compete more effectively with

direct sales. Owners installed computer systems as well as video marketing.37

Even though Louisville was one of the oldest of the important terminal

markets, its willingness to change and innovate enabled it to meet the

challenges and survive longer than most. The Bourbon Stock Yards closed

on March 29, 1999, after operating for 165 years. When the pens were

demolished two years later, a shelter for children and families called Home

of the Innocents was built on the site.38

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

The St. Louis livestock market remained distinct among the national mar-

kets because it was located in the small city of National Stockyards, Illinois.

Numerous other stockyards started out as South-this or North-that outside

a larger city, a separate community on its own. Later the larger metropolis

annexed those cities. Only a few have remained separate, incorporated

cities, developing beyond their stockyards interests. Unlike many other

stockyards communities, the larger city of St. Louis did not originally

develop because of the livestock trade.



French fur trappers began St. Louis in 1764 as a fur trading outpost for

a western trade, not even realizing that treaty negotiations of the previous

year had ceded the land to Spain. Located on the west bank of the

Mississippi River four miles from its confluence with the Missouri, St. Louis

later became a popular starting place for fur traders headed west and north,

especially after the United States acquired the land in 1803 as a part of the

Louisiana Purchase. Farmers from the Ohio valley floated their goods

southwest to St. Louis or downriver to New Orleans. Not until the mid-

1840s and a larger influx of settlers did the community become involved in

cutting and curing hogs.39

About the only St. Louis industry that did not suffer from Civil War

dislocations was their growing meat-packing trade. Contracts to supply

Union troops convinced leading merchants to seek better direct rail links to

northeastern cities. During and after the war these businessmen kept in

mind that they could also supply meat for foreign export.40

After the war, these railroad interests conceived the idea of creating a

stock receiving and shipping center at St. Louis. One major problem: no

railroad bridge crossed the Mississippi to the city on the west bank; pro-

ducers west of the river of necessity had to put their cattle on a ferry.41 To

create a site with railroad access, the developers eventually chose land to

the east on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, across from St. Louis.42

Outside capitalists, mostly railroad men, headed by Samuel W.

Allerton, Jr., an eastern financier, invested $1 million to construct the

St. Louis National Stockyards on a four-hundred-acre site served by the

major rail lines. Among the railroad entrepreneurs involved were a son-in-

law of W. H. Vanderbilt and Jay Gould.43 Texas longhorn herds traveling

north to Chicago figured prominently in their plans.

Rivalry for trade, the obvious problem of the Mississippi River, and a

first chance at those Texas cattle, immediately prompted a smaller compa-

ny (with only $325,000 capital) to build the St. Louis Union Stockyards on



the west side of the river.44 Despite the opportunity to purchase cattle first,

the western yards remained smaller than its counterpart on the east side of

the Mississippi.

Allerton, who also led the effort to build the Chicago stockyards,

became president of the larger stockyards on the east side of the river. The

value of the National Stock Yards in Illinois by 1873 had risen to $1.5 mil-

lion after construction of an $87,500 exchange building. Also included in

the complex was the $150,000 Allerton House Hotel, later called National

Hotel; the stockyards also boasted a restaurant, warehouses, a fertilizer plant,

and five thousand pens paved with white oak planks.45

When the stockyards officially opened for business on November 19,

1873, the daily capacity was 17,000 cattle, 20,000 hogs, 15,000 sheep, and


Samuel W. Allerton, Jr.—A descendant of Mayflower

pilgrim Isaac Allerton,Samuel Waters Allerton, Jr.,

was born in 1828, theyoungest of nine children.

When his father’s healthfailed, Allerton left school atage fourteen to help supportthe family. He and a brother

began trading livestock.Allerton traveled to Illinois,bought hogs on credit, and

managed a stockyard for oneof the railroads in Chicago.

He led the movement toconsolidate railroad stock-

yards into one called ChicagoUnion Stock Yards and was

later instrumental in buildingthe St. Louis Stock Yards

and an Allerton HouseHotel. He also invested in

stockyards in Pittsburgh,Baltimore, Jersey City, St.

Joseph, and Omaha.Allerton died in 1914. Photo

courtesy Kentucky Fair &Exposition Center.


3,000 horses and mules. During the first full year of operation in 1874 the

Illinois stockyards received 234,002 cattle and calves, 498,840 hogs, 41,407

sheep, and 2,235 horses and mules.46

Quite logically, both pork and beef packing plants eventually opened.

In 1889, Morris and Company bought out one existing plant; then Swift

came in late 1892, and Armour opened by 1903.47

In 1885, the same year that the National Live Stock Exchange was

organized in Chicago, St. Louis founded its own St. Louis Live Stock

Exchange to ensure fair methods in the buying of livestock, giving patrons

an organization to resolve appeals. W. L. Cassidy served as first exchange

president.

The two stockyards continued to exist on opposite sides of the

Mississippi River, connected by transfer steamboats. By 1889, the National

in East St. Louis covered a hundred acres with the Union west of the river

only one-fourth that size. Each had a hotel, an exchange building, and

telegraph and telephone communications.48

In February 1890, a newspaper called The St. Louis Live Stock Reporter

began publication, making it easier for producers to follow prices on the

St. Louis market. By 1893, St. Louis National Stockyards (east side of the

river) was emerging as the third largest stockyards in the world, with

receipts totaling 653,377 cattle, 847,703 hogs, 298,532 sheep, and 14,920

horses. At that time, packer Nelson Morris served as president of the stock-

yards. He and the Swifts controlled the yards. Armour purchased stock six

years later. By 1896, stockyards ownership increased the capital outlay to $4

million, and the next year electric streetcars reached the yards.49

Quite obviously, the larger St. Louis National Stock Yards in East St.

Louis (National Stock Yards, Illinois) on the Illinois side became the real

St. Louis terminal market. The company bragged of being the largest horse

and mule market in the world on numerous occasions, the peak year being

the war year of 1917 with 223,000 animals.50



Horse sales continued to be high in 1922 and even 1934, during the

Depression. By that year the yards occupied three hundred acres and served

twelve packing plants surrounding it. Twenty-six railroad lines centered on

St. Louis, radiating out like numerous spokes in a wheel. In the 1930s, St.

Louis had climbed to a rank of second among the top terminal livestock

markets of the country, often challenging Kansas City, for that spot. During

these years Chicago consistently received more animals yearly.51

Market declines and shifts of sales to country auctions and feedlots

after World War II made livestock receipts shrink at St. Louis as elsewhere.

By 1972, owners reduced the yards to a hundred acres and planned a 640-

acre industrial park on their remaining property. The yards, however, still

handled two million animals per year.52


With numerous rail lines in the foreground and the Mississippi River behind, the St. LouisNational Stockyards and its many acres of pens comprised its own city, National Stockyards,Illinois, on the east bank of the river. Photo ca. 1920s or 1930s, courtesy St. Louis NationalStockyards Company.


The Oklahoma City Stockyards bought the St. Louis National

Stockyards shortly before feedlots put an end to the big barns in 1997.53

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Always the giant, the number one market that rivals sought to surpass,

Chicago benefited tremendously from its expanding rail facilities that in

1861 saw thirteen important lines converge with a combined length of

4,500 miles. In fact, Chicago became the largest railroad center in the

world, allowing it therefore to become the largest livestock center as well.

Carl Sandburg called Chicago “Hog Butcher for the World,” and a Chicago

Tribune article on January 1, 1889, referred to the Chicago Union Stock

Yards as “the eighth wonder of the world.”54

Even before Chicago became incorporated as a town, it was a livestock

market. In 1827, Archibald Clybourn built a log slaughterhouse on the

north branch of the Chicago River and supplied meat to the garrison of

Fort Dearborn. Other packers soon set up plants and slaughtered animals

that farmers drove in from the surrounding prairies. To accommodate the

producers, tavern keepers then opened houses and, to attract business, also

provided pens and pastures for the stock.55

The first privately owned stockyard in Chicago was called the Bulls

Head Market and opened to the public in 1848. Between 1852 and 1865

five railroads arrived in Chicago, opening yards of their own.56 The

Illinois Central and Michigan Central built the largest set of pens, which

were located on the lake shore east of Cottage Grove Avenue from pres-

ent Twenty-ninth to Thirty-fifth Streets. Besides the Bulls Head and the

Cottage Grove Yards, four other separate stockyards existed, and by 1865

their facilities overflowed with livestock. These four were the Sherman

Yards, the Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne Yards, the Michigan Southern

Yards, and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy & Northwestern

Yards.57



All of this activity increased Chicago’s population threefold in a decade,

from 29,963 in 1850 to 109,206 in 1860. The Civil War and the need to feed

Union troops boosted the Chicago market tremendously. Hog receipts rose

258 percent from 392,000 in 1860 to 1,410,000 in 1864–65. Cattle receipts

jumped 189 percent from 117,000 to 339,000. By the 1864–65 season fifty-

three packing firms welcomed the opportunity to purchase livestock from

the various stockyards. Eight of the plants had either built new facilities or

had made significant alterations to their existing establishments.58

Chicago had reached an enviable position with its railroad network;

it was the western terminal for the eastern railroads and the eastern terminal

for branch lines coming from the few western states with railroads. But the

railroads and their adjacent stock pens were scattered all over town. When

the small railroad stockyards became badly outgrown, the Chicago Pork

Packers Association made the first real move toward the establishment of

one large central stockyard. In June 1864, they passed a resolution that the

several stockyards should be consolidated to form a joint stock company.

Fortunately, when consulted, the railroads agreed to close their separate

yards, and Samuel Allerton, Jr., and John B. Sherman led railroad interests

to construct a large new facility. Allerton, youngest of nine children, quit

school at age fourteen to help support the family when his father became ill.

Farming and livestock trading led him to Chicago in 1860 where he pros-

pered after working for one of the railroads. Sherman was also born on a New

York farm but in 1856 began managing two Chicago livestock markets.59

Eleven railroad men and eight meat packers made the consolidation

dream a reality. The Union Stock Yard and Transit Company of Chicago,

capitalized at $1 million, received its charter on February 13, 1865. Timothy

B. Blackstone, president of the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad,

became president of the new Union Stock Yards for the first year, after

which Sherman took over and served for thirty-one years. John L.

Handcock, president of a prominent packing firm, Craigin & Company,



served as president of the Board of Trade in 1863 and 1864 and helped to

establish the new stockyards as well. Of the $1 million capital invested, the

railroads supplied $925,000 and city packers provided the remainder. The

nine railroads involved eventually sold their stock to the general public and

then held no financial interest in the stockyards.60

To prepare the new site, workers drained a 345-acre area just south of

the city limits. Opening ceremonies on December 25, 1865, proclaimed the

new Union Stock Yards open, but no animals arrived until the next day. As

agreed, all the old yards closed within a few days, and commission men who

had worked throughout the city moved into rented offices in the new

exchange building. Packing plants were built directly west of the stockyards


John B. Sherman—Born on a farm in New York Statein 1835, John B. Shermanprofited from the 1849 goldrush. He returned fromCalifornia and bought a farmnear Chicago. In 1856, hebegan managing two railroadstockyards. Often creditedwith organizing the ChicagoUnion Stock Yards, heworked closely with SamuelW. Allerton, Jr., and numer-ous bankers and railroadofficials to merge severalsmaller yards into one hugeone. Beginning in 1866, heserved as president of theChicago Union Stock Yardsfor thirty-one years. Hedied in 1902. Photo courtesyKentucky Fair & ExpositionCenter.


area with Nelson Morris and Company being one of the first. At its largest,

the Chicago Union Stock Yards and adjacent slaughtering facilities

stretched from present Thirty-ninth Street to Forty-seventh and from

Halstead to Ashland, approximately one square mile. A new nine-story

office building allowed officials to overlook a bustling scene that encom-

passed 150 miles of railroad track involving twenty-three railroad lines. In

later years, thousands of trucks also carried livestock to the yards daily. The

slaughtering plants employed twenty thousand workers who lived in nearby

“Packingtown.”61 As a result, Chicago became the largest livestock market in

the world and enjoyed that distinction for nearly a century.

Cornelius Vanderbilt, encouraged by his son William H., acquired the

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad in 1870. This gave his New

York Central System a magnificent, wholly owned route to Chicago—and

an “in” at the Chicago Union Stock Yards. That same year the Vanderbilts

made agreements that extended their operations to Omaha.62 The

Vanderbilt railroad network that included the Pennsylvania railroads held

large investments in stockyards in the eastern half of the country.63

Investors actually constructed the Union Stock Yards in a south

Chicago suburb called Lake. When it soared in population from 3,000 in

1870 to 85,000 in 1889, the city of Chicago decided to annex it.

Thousands of immigrants flocked to Chicago and other stockyard/packing

town centers because of the ready job market. New arrivals from the

English-speaking countries of western Europe, Welsh, Scots, Irish, became

the first workers along with many Germans. In the 1880s and 1890s,

Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, Ukranians, Croatians, Slovenians, Serbians,

Syrians, and Lithuanians arrived from eastern Europe as well.64 By World

War I African Americans and Mexicans were joining the packing plant

workforce in Chicago.65

Progress and change came rapidly at the Chicago yards. The Union

Stock Yard held a livestock show in a lakefront exposition building in 1878



in combination with the Illinois State Board of Agriculture. The next year

the stockyards company constructed a 46 foot by 46 foot rough-faced lime-

stone gate, at a cost of $12,000, with an iron grille at the center that could

be lowered at night. The first refrigerator plant began operating in 1880 in

a Chicago packinghouse.66 In 1884 market officials created the Chicago

Live Stock Exchange.67

By the 1890s, control shifted toward the Vanderbilt family, who

changed the name to Chicago Junction Railways and Union Stock Yards

Company. Nevertheless, the old name remained carved in stone over the

gate. Chicago was already receiving approximately thirteen million animals

a year—a total the market maintained for half a century.68

In 1919, poor living conditions exacerbated tensions between the Irish

and the African American communities. When these tensions escalated to


This impressive limestone entrance gate to the Chicago Union Stock Yards was completed in1879 at a cost of $l2,000. Between the top of the arch and the roof the architect added the carvedhead of a steer that had won the top prize at the fat stock show the previous year. An iron grillcould be lowered at night to lock the entrance. From Select Chicago Illustrated In Albertype,Copyright 1889 by A. Uittmann, N. Y. courtesy Chicago Historical Society.


the point that blacks could not walk through the Irish community to get

from their own homes to the packing plants, a race riot broke out. In early

August, the governor called in the National Guard to restore order.69

Among many years of record receipts at Chicago, a few stand out. In

1923 Chicago received 10,460,134 hogs. The next year total receipts of all

livestock combined tallied 18,653,539. In a twenty-four-hour period on

December 15, 1924, a record number of hogs—122,749—arrived. The live-

stock market remained the largest employer in the city in the third decade

of the twentieth century, and 101 slaughtering and meat-packing establish-

ments operated at the Chicago stockyards.70 Officials identified a Hereford

steer on September 6, 1954, as the billionth animal to arrive at the Chicago

Union Stock Yards.71

At one time the Armour plant in Chicago could boast of being the

biggest in the world, with the capacity to slaughter twelve hundred hogs

every hour. In a peak winter season the facility might run continuously for

sixteen hours, two shifts, six days a week.72

Unfortunately for the continued endurance of the Chicago market, sev-

eral large packers began closing down their outdated plants in the late 1950s

and early 1960s as they built new structures in the country and bought more

and more animals from local country auctions and directly from feedlots.

Both Swift and Armour, considered for many years the biggest two of the

Big Four packers, shut down their Chicago plants in 1959.73

In hopes of averting the decline in receipts, the Chicago stockyards

undertook a $6 million renovation and modernization in 1959, but to no

avail.74 Even though Chicago still received four million animals a year in

1965, the slide downward for the historic market continued rapidly. A

Christmas Day commemoration of the yard’s 105th birthday in 1970

became more a wake for the ending of an era than a celebration, for the

Chicago Union Stock Yards closed its doors July 17, 1971. That week,

members of the Chicago Livestock Exchange announced the formation of



the Chicago-Joliet Livestock Marketing Center thirty-five miles to the

southwest of Chicago. The land that the older stockyards occupied had

become so valuable that continuing the operation in that location could not

be justified financially.75

Other reasons officials cited for the closing were the changes in market-

ing in which large numbers of animals no longer passed through terminal

markets. More efficient systems of marketing and slaughtering had devel-

oped near grain producing areas and feedlots away from the congestion of a

big city. The massive rail connections that assured Chicago’s success in the

beginning now fixed the market decline as railroads gave way to eighteen-

wheelers on the nation’s wide interstates.76

Developers constructed an industrial park on the square mile of land

where those millions of livestock had arrived each year. Tourists still may


Philip Danforth Armour—Born in 1832 at Stockbridge,New York, Armour traveledto California in 1852 butarrived too late to strike itrich. He returned to the Eastand entered the wholesalegrocery business with a partner. In 1863, he formeda grain dealing and meat-packing partnership withJohn Plankinton, dealing inpork. In 1875, he moved toChicago where a brother wasoperating a meat-packingfirm. Armour and Companyexpanded, with interests instockyards and meat packingat every important livestockmarket in the Midwest. Hedied in 1901. Photo courtesyKentucky Fair & ExpositionCenter.


view the famous entrance gate that proclaims: “Union Stock-Yard

Chartered 1865.”77



C H A P T E R E I G H T

MIDWESTERNMARKETS

Chicago and the eastern markets that had preceded the Windy City’s

prominence early on faced competition from newer stockyards that meat

packers and other businessmen constructed in the cattle country of the

Great Plains. Railroads sold land to immigrants and other settlers who

proudly established farms. Because of the Homestead Act of 1862, soon

the Midwest became dotted with fields of grain and the holdings of small

livestock producers who sent thousands of animals to market by rail.

New stockyards that opened up in the 1870s and 1880s were located

mostly in the midwestern states of Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska,

Minnesota, and as far west as the Dakotas. To the south Texas markets

developed in Fort Worth and San Antonio, largely due to the gathering of

cattle in the southern part of the state and their movement northward on

the Chisholm Trail. Even in the mining climate of Colorado, a stockyards

operation developed in Denver, which needed meat to feed all those miners.

Denver became the market center for cattle moving to northern ranges in

Wyoming and Montana.

Within less than two decades, over a dozen new stockyards opened in

the Midwest, and workers began unloading animals from thousands of

railroad cars. They fed and watered them in their pens, and welcomed the

Big Four meat slaughtering giants who built modern plants nearby.

Americans moved west rapidly in the last three decades of the nine-

teenth century, and new livestock markets developed in the cities that grew

from the population boom.


MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN

“Dairy Beef Capital of the World” was a distinction the Milwaukee stock-

yards enjoyed in recent years as Wisconsin’s major terminal market stood

apart from smaller state auctions.1 The community developed prominence,

however, during the Civil War as packers expanded their buying and

slaughtering activities made possible by increased availability of livestock.

John Plankinton, a packer who later became a partner of Philip Armour,

began his activities in Milwaukee during the war years. Plankinton’s

company remained the major packer in Milwaukee until 1962 when it

closed its doors, but at that time the Swift interests owned it.2

In 1864, when Armour became a partner after returning a decade earlier

from the California gold fields, the city began emerging as a major

Midwestern packing center. Plankinton and Armour dominated the packing


Below is a portion of the Milwaukee cattle pens with acres of wooden fencing, watering facilitiesfor the “livestock hotel,” and packing plants in the background. Joseph Brown Photo, CourtesyMilwaukee County Historical Society.


industry there by 1867; they employed one hundred men and killed a daily

average of 1,200 hogs and 400 cattle. Even this number could not handle the

trade, and they added extensions to their plant in 1870 and 1873.3

The stockyards in Milwaukee developed in 1869 at Haymarket Square

on the city’s near north side near the Plankinton and Armour plant. By

1871, the Milwaukee market ranked fourth in hog receipts, which were

booming. Brothers Edward and Michael Cudahy and other packers soon

moved in, but in the 1877–78 season, Plankinton and Armour packed

255,970 hogs which represented sixty-nine percent of Milwaukee’s output.4

Hog processing, not beer, emerged early as the city’s top industry.

A second site for the yards grew out of a railroad feed and watering

facility near the Twenty-seventh Street viaduct. A yards area opened at that

location on April 29, 1929, and owners built an exchange building at South

Muskegon Avenue and West Canal Street.5

85MIDWESTERN MARKETS

Edward Cudahy—Youngerbrother of Michael Cudahy,Edward became a partner withhis brother and Philip Armourin a packing plant in southOmaha, Nebraska, in 1887. Atown on Lake Michigan, locatedseven miles south of Milwaukee,was named Cudahy in honor ofthe family because of theslaughtering facilities and pensthere. Photo courtesy KentuckyFair & Exposition Center.


By the 1950s, a dozen packing plants killed 500,000 hogs and 300,000

cattle each year. In May 1965, the Milwaukee Stockyards pioneered the first

telephone auction of hogs at a terminal market. They sold 761 head in less

than an hour on the first day, calling the new service “Tel-O-Market.”6 At

one time in the 1960s processed meats were being shipped to every state

east of Wisconsin and to Turkey, Greece, Spain, Japan, Finland, England,

and France. Hides went to Holland.7 By the mid-1980s, most of the plants

had closed, replaced by more modern facilities elsewhere, even though $150

million in livestock still passed through the yards in 1983.8

By that time, dairy cattle comprised the major product of the

Milwaukee market, with approximately 138,000 animals. This represented

twenty-three percent of the state’s livestock trade and kept Milwaukee,

owned then by United Stockyards, the largest single market in the state.9

In 1985 Milwaukee was the largest veal and calf market in the world,

receiving a total of 286,000 head of livestock that year.10

The Milwaukee Stockyards played a unique role as a marketplace for

byproducts of Wisconsin’s vast dairy industry in veal calves, spent milk

cows, and in recent years dairy-bred steers. Holsteins that didn’t produce

milk were sold for meat.11

Milwaukee, one of seven markets owned by United Stockyards in the

1990s, continued to be an active market as the new century began, thanks to

all those dairy cattle, but it was operated by commission firms on the market.

Operations shut down at the Milwaukee site on October 28, 2004, and

the livestock market was moved to Lowell, Wisconsin.12

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Trappers, hunters, farmers, and Indians met naturally in the willow flats on

the east bank of the Kaw River from its mouth to the hills beyond to

exchange grain, furs, and livestock. Those early settlers could have had no

way of knowing that Kansas City, which emerged astraddle a river and



touched two states, would be the second-largest livestock center in the

world for many years.13

The Kansas-Pacific Railroad, building westward in 1862, began its

roadbed west of the Kaw, so the traders centered their activity on the east

bank at what became Twelfth Street. Soon energetic businessmen mapped

off five acres for livestock trading and built eleven animal pens, but quickly

as activity increased, the size of the area had to be tripled. A rough wooden

building deflected the cold wind from the river and made trading more

comfortable.14

The Kansas-Pacific Railroad, a branch of the Union Pacific, brought

in 35,000 head of cattle in 1867, the first busy year of the cattle drives

from Texas. The railroad built temporary pens where cattle could be

unloaded for rest, feed and water. The number of cattle arriving doubled

by 1868 and 1869, so the next year railroad officials of the Hannibal and

St. Joseph Railroad constructed eleven pens, fifteen unloading chutes and

scales for the a hundred thousand head of cattle they expected. The

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad also assisted.15

Initially, Kansas City faced the same problems as many similar markets

with small, locally owned packing plants that were poorly organized, reor-

ganized, and abandoned, because of lack of capital and experience. However,

in 1870, Philip Armour, a partner in Plankinton and Armour in Chicago,

sent his brother to operate a plant in Kansas City. He was immediately suc-

cessful, and Kansas City’s slaughtering capabilities grew from that point.

In fact, the Armour family became quite dominant in Kansas City.16

Officials organized the first independent stockyards company in 1871,

as a joint-stock company capitalized at $100,000. Called logically the

Kansas Stockyards Company, the new facility was constructed on a tract of

twenty-six acres on the east bank of the Kaw, south of the Kansas Pacific

tracks. Owners built an exchange building at Twelfth Street and State Line.

J. M. Walker of Chicago became stockyards president.17



The opening of the new stockyards company made Kansas City the

first western market other than Chicago and gave her first chance at all

those Texas longhorns continuing to arrive up the trail. Eastern capital

bought into the action in 1876, changing the name to Kansas City Stock

Yards Company, and making Charles Francis Adams, Jr., of Boston, presi-

dent. He remained in that position until 1902.18

By 1880, Kansas City served as the nation’s most vital transportation

hub west of Chicago.19 Not leaving their growth to that development alone,

the Kansas City Stock Yards organized a fat stock show to publicize their

market, subscribing $5,000 capital. Organizers saw this first show open in

November 1883.20

Soon experienced commission merchants from Chicago migrated south-

ward to Kansas City to get a head start on the trade. They found offices in


Cowboys rode horses to corral cattle in pens in Kansas City, but buyers and commission agents insuits and ties stood on wide fence rails to oversee the process. Photo courtesy The Wyandotte CountyMuseum, Bonner Springs, Kansas.


the imposing three-story brick-and-stone exchange building, 105 feet by 126

feet, completed in November 1876. The building straddled the Missouri-

Kansas state line and featured a strip of colored tiles in the lobby to mark the

boundary between the two states.21

The market formed its first authentic livestock exchange in 1886 with

by-laws regulating business conduct, financial requirements, bonding of

firms, and other protections for the shippers and buyers. The next year

they practically doubled the size of the ten-year-old exchange building,

providing room for a hundred offices for commission agents and other

livestock interests. Swift and Company moved to Kansas City in 1886 with

a $500,000 plant, its first branch outside Chicago, and the Kansas City

Stock Yards Company made concessions to Swift, Armour, and four other

packers for locating there.22

The Charles Francis Adams, Jr., group of owners kept expanding

their facilities, and by the end of the 1890s had capitalized the yards at over

$4 million. In 1896 active traders totaling 142 men formed a Traders

Livestock Exchange at the Kansas City market. It became the first such

organization in the world. Eventually a National Traders Exchange

emerged and adopted most of the rules of the Kansas City group.

Even with Texas cattle moving north, hog slaughtering remained

important in Kansas City, especially in the years prior to 1900. Meat

packing was the major industry of Kansas City for three decades,

1879–1909.23

With deals including stock bonuses, stockyards officials successfully

induced all the major packers to locate at the yards. Besides Armour and

Swift, Cudahy, Morrell, Morris, Schwarzchild and Sulzberger (later

Wilson), and Jacob Dold, had all arrived by 1900.24 A total of fourteen

plants produced an annual slaughter in the millions, requiring 35,000

workers in the meat-packing industry. Cattle generally represented seventy-

five percent of the total receipts at the turn of the century, about two million



head, but other livestock arrived as well. By that time the yard covered 185

acres.25

A huge flood on June 1, 1903, damaged the yards, causing cracks in the

walls of the exchange building. Water rose to the second story of the structure

and stood up to thirty feet deep in some places in the yards. An eleven-story

exchange building—advertised as the largest livestock exchange building in

the world—replaced the old one in 1911. It housed 475 offices related to the

industry.26

The Boston owners of the stockyards sold their sixty-seven percent of

the stock to Edward Morris, son of Nelson Morris, in 1912. The entire

company, worth $8.2 million, still retained some packer ownership, but it

was small. The Morris interests began a great rebuilding program in 1913

that lasted six years and cost $2.5 million, adding a Kansas City Connecting

Railroad Company as track within the yards. They rebuilt and modernized


The exchange building, right center, constructed in 1911, dominates this panoramic view of themassive Kansas City Stock Yards ca. 1950s. Photo courtesy The Wyandotte County Museum, BonnerSprings, Kansas.


the sheep barns, built new hog pens, and many new brick-and-concrete

pens as well as a railroad office building.27

A fire on October 16, 1917, leveled more than half the yard area, killing

11,000 cattle and 6,000 hogs. Ownership of 12,000 other animals was lost,

and owners were forced to sell them at auction to satisfy claims. After the

rebuilding and expansion, the yards covered over two hundred acres and had

become the largest stocker and feeder market in the world.

Once federal regulation of the nation’s stockyards began with the

Packers and Stockyards Act in 1921, Kansas City faced a frustrating problem.

A competing company called the Mistletoe Yards opened. Because it was

smaller, it did not face the federal rules and could draw trade from the

larger market. Located about a mile from the main yards, the Mistletoe

Yards accepted direct sales from producers, mostly in hogs, and steadily

increased its receipts in the 1930s.28 The Kansas City Stock Yards still

traded an average of eight million cattle yearly in the 1930s and 1940s.29

By 1945 the physical plant had expanded to 238 acres, with a total daily

capacity of 175,000 animals. The market continued to rank second in the

nation as a meat-packing and marketing center.30 Unfortunately, another

fire in 1950 and an especially devastating flood in 1951 damaged the market

extensively. Owners opened a new ultramodern auction pavilion on March 5,

1970, replacing a smaller facility that had been in use since 1957. The new

auction barn seated five hundred.

A popular feature of the stockyards in Kansas City was the Golden Ox

Restaurant in the Exchange Building, featuring KC strips. The same owners

opened similar restaurants in Washington, D.C., Denver, and Nashville—

a way to sell more KC beef. Because of declining livestock sales, the restau-

rants soon began making more money than the stockyards. Receipts at the

stockyards by the 1980s had declined to 400,000 head per year. Big eighteen-

wheelers began to carry livestock to newer, more modern packing facilities

in Garden City, Kansas; Iowa City, Iowa; and Marshall, Missouri.31



In 1984, local investors with a vital interest in the stockyards purchased

the Golden Ox Restaurant, the exchange building, and adjoining facilities

with plans to continue to operate as long as possible. Taxes, utilities, and

other expenses made the operation of the Kansas City Stockyards econom-

ically unfeasible. The owners auctioned their equipment and held their last

sale of 150 cattle in September 1991. A 120-year-old “grand old terminal

market” shut down.32

ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI

St. Joseph, a gateway community to the Oregon and California trails, began

in 1843 at the site of an old trading post and soon became the westernmost

city with eastern rail connections. Hog slaughtering began almost immedi-

ately. After the Civil War, Texas herds headed for St. Joseph because of the

railroad. By 1873, a $1.5 million railroad bridge spanned the Missouri

River, and other rail lines had reached the small city. St. Joseph business

leaders urged someone with capital to build a stockyards and packing plant

because of the city’s unique railroad connections and its location in rural

farm country. Unfortunately, local citizens could not raise much money

during the nationwide panic of 1873, but they nevertheless organized the

St. Joseph Union Stock Yards, capitalized at only $30,000, which opened

in the late summer. Only 24,616 animals came the next year. By 1880,

however, 20,592 cattle, 102,150 hogs, and 5,990 sheep arrived.33

Because the small stockyards became overcrowded, James McCord, a

partner in a mercantile company, urged construction of an expanded facility.

He conferred with bankers and organized the St. Joseph Stock Yards

Company on 413 acres south of town near the Missouri River. John

Donovan, a local stockman and trader, worked with him. The new yards

opened in December 1887, and six railroad companies agreed to ship there.

Anticipated meat packers did not immediately come, and, as a result,

the local men struggled. Some historians credit Donovan for persuading



Gustavus Swift to visit and for driving him all around town in a buggy.34

Sure enough, Swift and Company bought into the St. Joseph operation.

A reorganization occurred on August 1, 1896, with more capitalization,

and by the end of 1897, Swift interests owned eighty percent of the shares

of stockyard stock and increased the capital to $1.2 million. Other large

packers came—George Hammond and Nelson Morris. When the large

new plants opened in May 1898, residents celebrated for three days.

Donovan, responsible for attracting much of the new investments, became

the president.35 Later Armour and Company opened a plant as well.

Immigrants from eastern Europe moved into a company town in South

St. Joseph originally called St. George or Georgetown. The Armour and

Swift plants alone employed 2,500 workers. The Transit House Hotel served

the South St. Joseph area for ranchers who had brought their animals in on

the rail cars. They ate their meals at the Hoof and Horn restaurant.36

The St. Joseph market averaged one-half million animals per year in

the 1920s and 1930s, and Swift and Company retained its more than eighty


Each market had its own distinctive exchange building. This four-story structure served the St.Joseph Stockyards for many years. Photo courtesy St. Joseph News-Press\Gazette.


percent ownership of the St. Joseph Stock Yards for over three decades

until federal legislation forced them to sell.37 By 1935 St. Joseph ranked as

the eighth-largest cattle market in the country in total receipts, maintaining

that ranking sporadically for several years. Receipts increased considerably

during World War II, as was the case in other well-established markets, but

they began a slow decline after the war.

The Swift and Armour plants closed in the 1960s, affecting the stock-

yards receipts because packer demand thus declined considerably. By the

1970s and 1980s St. Joseph remained one of the string of stockyards owned

and operated by United Stockyards, the company that acquired the Swift

interests in stockyards.

The market was still in operation as it entered the twenty-first century

as one of three stockyards still owned by Canal Capital, which had acquired

United. After the Sioux City, Iowa, yards closed in 2002, St. Joseph

remained one of only two still owned by the former giant stockyards hold-

ing company.38

PEORIA, ILLINOIS

Meat packers or railroad company personnel organized many of the early

stockyards, but Peoria’s beginning differed uniquely. Thomas Neill, a part-

ner in the distilling firm of Wickert and Neill, had the idea to establish a

stockyards, planning to save money by feeding animals the byproduct, or

slop, from his distilleries.

The community of Peoria had originated a half-century earlier as a

trading post on the banks of the Illinois River, and it grew when the Illinois

and Michigan canal opened in 1840. The railroad had arrived in 1855.39

Neill began his Peoria Union Stock Yards in 1874.40 The first large

packing company to locate near Neill’s stockyards, Peoria Packing

Company, opened in 1892. By 1900, Peoria ranked as the second-largest

city in Illinois with a population of 50,000.41



H. F. Embry and two partners, Talton Embry and B. E. Gregory,

created a corporation on May 15, 1905. It leased the stockyards operation

and changed the name slightly to the Peoria Union Stock Yards Company.

The new incorporators eventually bought out the operations in 1923.42

Hogs continued to predominate on the farms surrounding Peoria,

making the yards there the eighth largest hog market in the United States

in 1952 with 1,161,157 receipts.43 Peoria later ranked sixth in hog receipts

when the Chicago Union Stockyards closed in 1971; some of the business

moved to Peoria.44 In 1992 stockholders of the Embry family sold out to a

group of three new owners headed by Terry Sewell, one of the commission

agents on the market.45 Sewell and Ronald Jenkins remained partners as

the new century got underway and received a total of 215,663 animals,

predominantly hogs, in the year 2001.46

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

In the early years of the nineteenth century, before a market developed at

Indianapolis, hog farmers drove their animals to market or sent them on

flatboats to New Orleans or Cincinnati.47 Indianapolis would soon find


This 1970 aerial view of the Peoria Union Stockyards on the banks of the Illinois River high-lights its covered pens and railroad connections, then becoming obsolete. Photo courtesy PeoriaHistorical Society Collection, Bradley University Library.


itself in a favorable trade location. Located on the West Fork of the White

River where Fall Creek intersects, the city is 184 miles southeast of Chicago.

The progressive “American System” of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay

extended the National Road through Indianapolis by 1830. In 1847, when

the Madison Railroad reached the community, the city gained a welcome

outlet to the Ohio River. Because of the various river systems, livestock

trade markets for pork packing developed all over the state, but busier com-

munities than Indianapolis were Madison, Terre Haute, Lafayette, and

Lawrenceburg.48 In 1850, only 8,091 people lived in Indianapolis, but a

decade later the population had more than doubled to 18,611.49

Located in the very middle of the early-nineteenth-century Middle

West, Indiana ranked ahead of the state of Illinois in hog slaughtering until

the mid-1850s, but Ohio had held preeminence first. By 1856–57, both

states lost to Illinois.50

Yet Indianapolis did not give up her meat-packing preeminence without

a strong fight. In 1863 the Kingan Brothers opened the world’s largest

pork-packing plant and later constructed a small stockyard near their

facility. Their five-story plant, 185 feet by 115 feet, briefly dominated pork

packing nationally with modern appliances that included a steam render-

ing plant. Unfortunately, the plant burned in 1865, but the Kingans began

rebuilding immediately. The Irish Kingans owned a meat outlet in New

York City for which they relied on their Indianapolis branch for livestock;

they also exported to Europe. In 1867 they expanded into the adjacent

stockyards.51

An associate of Kingan Brothers Packing named Nicholas McCarty

toured the stockyards facilities in Chicago and St. Louis and encouraged a

similar arrangement in Indianapolis, even putting up 110 acres of his farm

on the old bayou in the southern part of the city.52

As early as 1871, Kingan and Company introduced ice packing, and by

1873 they were packing and shipping more hogs in the summer than in the



winter.53 Needing rail transportation, local officials incorporated the

Indianapolis Belt Railway Company on June 28, 1873, but the nationwide

panic of that year halted construction. Incorporators retitled their company

in 1876 as the Union Railroad Transfer and Stock Yards Company with the

city lending $500,000 to complete the project. Mayor John Caves was

responsible for negotiating the loan with the city and settling a right-of-way

controversy that had proved troublesome.54 (Over the years he served five

terms as mayor of Indianapolis, interrupted by a stint in the state senate.55)

Both railroad and stockyards opened on November 12, 1877, with more

than two hundred freight cars arriving on the first day. Four years later

officials reorganized again and changed the name to the Belt Railroad and

Stock Yard Company, and in 1882 they leased the Belt Railway facilities

to the Indianapolis Union Railway Company for 999 years.56


Entrances featuring three arches became popular after Chicago built its limestone gate. Thisphoto of the entrance to Indianapolis’s Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company was made in1912. Indiana Historical Society Bass Photo Collection, Negative 27393.


A name that stands tall in Indianapolis stockyards lore is Samuel E.

Rauh, head of Moore Packing Company on the yards. He became presi-

dent of the stockyards in 1897. Born in Bavaria in 1853, Rauh came to the

United States at age thirteen and arrived in Indianapolis when he was

twenty-one to open a branch of his father’s tanning and fur business, E. Rauh

and Sons.57 Rauh served as president of the Belt Railroad and Stock Yards

Company from 1897 until 1929.

The 1882 market report showed 5,319,611 hogs, 640,363 cattle,

849,936 sheep, and 50,795 horses arriving at the stockyards that year.58 In

spring 1904 a fire destroyed nearly all the facilities except the three-story

brick exchange building located at the north of the yards. By 1905

Indianapolis livestock interests moved into a modern new plant. Another

disaster struck the market in 1913 when flood waters covered everything


This low aerial view of the Indianapolis yards was taken in 1953. Indiana Historical Society BassPhoto Collection, Negative 298805F.


but one office building. Yard employees made boats out of lumber, covered

them with canvas, and assisted workers’ families who needed food and other

supplies.59

Over the years the stockyards operations expanded to 147 acres. At its

peak in the 1930s and 1940s the market consistently handled three million

animals a year. The decline in the packing industry that swept the entire

nation also affected Indianapolis in the 1950s and 1960s. In an attempt to

forestall the dwindling sales, the market reorganized, changing the name in

1964 to Indianapolis Stockyards Company, Inc.60

The Rauh family continued to direct the stockyards operations until

1967. When Sam Rauh retired in 1929, his son Charles S. Rauh ran oper-

ations until 1956.Then David L. Chambers, a grandson of Samuel, managed

the market 1956–67.61

At that time the Rauh owners sold out to Eli Lilly and Company, which

leased the Indianapolis Stockyards to United Stockyards of Chicago. The

new owners moved the facility from the original location at 1400 Kentucky

Avenue to a sixteen-acre site eleven blocks farther out, opening the new

yards on December 16, 1973, with four acres under roof. Operators razed the

old stockyards location to make room for an industrial center, a fate similar

to that which overtook many of the large stockyards toward the end of the

twentieth century. In 1974 they added a cattle auction on Thursdays. Two

years later the market received 204,000 cattle and 420,000 hogs.62

The Indianapolis Stockyards, one of only seven owned by United

Stockyards in 1991, still operated in the 1990s. Livestock production in the

area continued strong, although receipts at the Indianapolis Stockyards

declined. In 1991, from their field office in Indianapolis, officials of the

P&SA regulated 184 auction markets and twenty commission firms at four

smaller stockyards.63 These smaller auction markets finally drew sufficient

sales away from the larger Indianapolis stockyards that the historic market

closed by the end of the twentieth century.



OMAHA, NEBRASKA

The city of Omaha, was once called “the diamond stickpin in the bosom

of the West.”64 The city was founded in 1854 as a ferry crossing on the

west bank of the Missouri River, across from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and

fifteen miles north of the river’s confluence with the Platte, a site that

attracted settlers. Located 425 miles west of Chicago, Omaha soon

became an important trade community. That the Union Pacific Railroad

started building westward from Omaha in 1863 helped the community’s

growth too.

Small stockyards naturally emerged early as a consequence of the live-

stock trade. Two were the Bridge Yards and the Upper Yards. By 1877 a

newly organized Board of Trade realized that the city needed more exten-

sive stockyards, because pork packing had become important with three

plants that slaughtered sixty thousand animals per year.65 However, two or

three attempts to organize stockyards in the 1870s failed for a lack of capi-

tal. Even railroad financier Jay Gould tried to create a market in Omaha but

failed. Into the situation stepped Alexander H. Swan, a Wyoming cattle-

man sometimes called “the best known man in the early cattle business from

coast to coast and overseas.”66

Swan, born in 1831 as a farmer’s son in the hillbilly region of south-

western Pennsylvania, grew to maturity in Iowa. There he began dealing in

livestock. In 1873 at age forty-two, Swan moved to Wyoming. Starting

with 3,000 head of cattle on Chugwater Creek near Cheyenne, by 1879

Swan owned 19,000. His wealth and influence allowed him to start various

companies, including stockyards. In 1883 he sold his herds to a Scottish-

English syndicate, creating the giant Swan Land and Cattle Company, cap-

italized at $2,553,825. On August 30 that same year Swan and six Omaha

businessmen organized the South Omaha Land Syndicate, and purchased

2,000 acres of land four miles south of Omaha. On December 1, 1883, they

organized the Union Stock Yards Company.67



Swan wanted to avoid shipping his cattle to Chicago. The new stock-

yards opened for business on August 25, 1884. (One of the Omaha busi-

nessmen who had invested with Swan, John A. Creighton, later left an

estate to his family who with it endowed Creighton University in

Omaha.68)

William A. Paxton was as important as the more famous Swan in the

development of the Omaha stockyards. Kentucky-born Paxton grew up in

Missouri but resettled in Omaha as a bridge builder. He began buying

cattle for sale and also supplied beef to the Indian agencies. He invested

in real estate and banking and helped build a stockyards across the river

from Omaha in Council Bluffs. When the Union Stock Yard of Omaha

organized in 1884, the investors bought out Paxton’s holdings in the small


Alexander H. Swan—Known more as a cattlemanand rancher than a stockyardsbuilder, Alexander H. Swannevertheless was instrumentalin putting together a financ-ing package to organize thestockyards in Omaha. Hehad created the Swan Landand Cattle Company andwanted to ship cattle toOmaha rather than Chicago.Swan and six Omaha busi-nessmen purchased landsouth of town and openedthe Union Stock YardsCompany in 1884. AlthoughSwan later suffered financialreverses, the stockyards pros-pered. Photo courtesy KentuckyFair & Exposition Center.


Council Bluffs transfer yard, and Paxton thus became a stockholder of the

new Omaha Union Stock Yard Company.69

Until meat-packing facilities were available at the Omaha market, the

yards simply became an intermediate feeding and watering station on the

way to Chicago. The stockyards ownership later built two packing plants

themselves and leased them to outside slaughterers before they finally per-

suaded the Big Four packers to come. The stockyards ownership constructed

a three-story exchange building and a seventy-room hotel in 1885.

Fortunately, the Union Pacific Railroad’s main trunk lines joined the yards.

After accepting outlays of free land and bonuses, Cudahy, Armour, and

Swift had decided to locate at the yards by 1887. By the early 1890s,

Omaha was the third-largest livestock market in the United States.70

Sir Thomas Lipton, a London tea merchant, also tried his hand for five

years at meat packing in Omaha, but after hog receipts lagged, he sold out

in 1891 to an Armour-Cudahy combination. Actually, Michael Cudahy,

an Irishman who came to America in 1849 with his family at age eight,

began his own meat-packing business in Omaha. Cudahy earlier worked

for Plankinton and Armour in Milwaukee and Chicago and wanted an

interest in that company. Because Armour wanted to keep his business for

his sons, he instead helped Cudahy get a start in Omaha. Armour also built

a plant there himself.71

Just as the Omaha market that Swan helped organize was getting off to

a good start, Swan himself stumbled. He rushed off to Scotland without

paying a $25,000 note he had co-signed for a friend. While he was gone,

the bank attached his company, and creditors demanded immediate pay-

ment. Swan was soon in bankruptcy and never recovered. He moved his

family to Ogden, Utah, and attempted to recoup his fortune in real estate,

but the boom collapsed. He died there, a poor man, in 1905.72

Meanwhile, the Omaha yards kept growing, and officials organized

the Omaha Livestock Exchange in 1889. South Omaha became known as



“the Magic City” because it grew so rapidly—to a town of 10,000 in three

years. In 1916, with a population of 25,000, South Omaha proved too

tempting for the larger city of Omaha to ignore—it annexed the smaller

city. One-fourth of South Omaha residents worked for the stockyards or

the meat-packing facilities.73

John A. McShane, a nephew of early investor John Creighton and in

1871 a Wyoming cattle dealer, was another major figure in the Omaha

Stockyards. McShane moved to Omaha in 1874 and nine years later

merged his interests with the Bay State Cattle Company. He became a

director with Swan and others of the South Omaha Land Company and

also a director of the First National Bank of Omaha. McShane initially

invited Armour to come to Omaha, but Armour did not seem interested.

McShane then went to Swift and got him to visit. A $100,000 cash bonus


Michael Cudahy—Born inCallan, County Kilkenny,Ireland in 1841, Cudahycame to America at ageeight with his parents. Atfourteen he left school inMilwaukee and found a jobin meat packing, later work-ing his way up to a managerfor Armour and Company inChicago. In 1890, he pur-chased some Armour inter-ests, changing the name toCudahy Packing Company.Michael Cudahy died in1910. Photo courtesy KentuckyFair & Exposition Center.


and $100,000 stock inducement brought Swift and Company to Omaha.74

As has been noted, Armour eventually built a plant there as well.

Because McShane was the first president of the stockyards company,

one of the packers, Hammond, in 1885, gave McShane the distinction of

killing the first hog and first steer to be slaughtered in his packing plant. “I

faithfully, if not scientifically, performed the duty of high executive on this

memorable occasion,” McShane said.75 He served until 1894. (McShane

later became a state senator in Nebraska, a United States congressman from

Nebraska, and ran unsuccessfully for governor.)

By 1907, Armour held most of the stock of the Union Stock Yards

Company, so the vice president of Armour and Company became the

president of the stockyards, even though he still resided in Chicago. Dual

ownership and overlapping directorships became a nationwide pattern

among the meat packers and their stockyards interests.76

Ten slaughterhouses with a combined capacity of 50,000 head per day

operated in South Omaha by 1910. Immigrants flocked to South Omaha

from central and eastern Europe and formed tightly knit ethnic communi-

ties. In fact, “new immigrants” inflated Omaha’s population from 140,452

in 1890 to 191,601 in 1920.77 Three of the major packers were still there—

Armour, Cudahy, and Swift. Omaha ranked as the third-largest livestock

market in the world in the first decade of the twentieth century, with forty-

five commission firms, twenty-three order buyers, and traders handling the

20,000 animals arriving each day.78 Cattlemen and their animals arrived

from more than twenty states to trade at the Omaha market.79

Omaha residents boasted that the expanded exchange building dining

room with four hundred seats was the largest in the state of Nebraska.

Proud patrons paid $0.40 for a fresh steak and $0.05 for three homemade

biscuits.

Omaha soon ranked second only to Chicago; it had sixty-two commis-

sion firms, 13,000 employees, and annual receipts of seven million animals.80



Everett Buckingham, born in 1858, served as general manager of the

Omaha Union Stockyards and successfully launched a rebuilding program.

When the previous president retired in 1924, Buckingham became president

and began construction on a new exchange building. He died unexpectedly

before the building was completed. In 1925 officials dedicated the new

building to Buckingham. When the market celebrated its fiftieth anniver-

sary in 1934, over 265 million head of livestock of all types had passed

through the Omaha Stockyards. The next year, when meat packer Thomas

Wilson leased an old Skinner-Dold Packing plant, all four of the “Big Four”

packers finally operated there. Omaha thus became the only city in the

world where all the “Big Four” meat packers—Armour, Swift, Cudahy, and

Wilson—slaughtered three types of animals: cattle, hogs, and sheep.81

Momentum to surpass Chicago as the number one market grew in the

1950s as other stockyards began to decline. In October 1955, the Omaha

stockyards sold more cattle in a single day—42,817—than any one yard and


Omaha’s old exchange building stands in the right background with hog pens in front. ca. 1917.Photo courtesy Bostwick-Frohardt Collection, Western Heritage Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.


by November had surpassed Chicago.82 That same year nineteen Omaha

meat packers slaughtered 6,436,007 animals, nearly two million more than

Chicago packed that year. Omaha’s market handled an average of $2 million

every business day of the year.83 The market retained its distinction as the

largest livestock center in the world for nearly two decades.

Half of the employment in the city of Omaha depended in some way

on the livestock industry, so the community strongly felt the nationwide

livestock market decline. As elsewhere, Omaha’s packing plants were

becoming outdated, and labor problems began to multiply. Consequently,

Cudahy closed its plant in 1967, and Armour followed a year later. Swift

shut down in 1969. After Wilson curtailed operations in 1976, the city had

lost more than 10,000 jobs in less than a decade. After reigning as the num-

ber one livestock market in the country for eighteen years, Omaha lost that

status in 1973. In addition, ninety years of local ownership ended that year


The new exchange building in Omaha dominates the stockyards scene in this photo, taken ca.1927, looking southeast from “L” Street. Photo courtesy Bostwick-Frohardt Collection, WesternHeritage Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.


when the Union Stock Yards merged with a New York City import/export

firm, the Kay Corporation. Three years later, United Stockyards, which

became the largest holder of stockyards in the nation, acquired Omaha and

renamed it the Omaha Livestock Market, Inc. As Omaha moved into the

1980s, the livestock market ranked fourth overall in all animals. However,

during the Omaha stockyards’ centennial celebrations in 1984 she regained

the distinction as the number one cattle market in the country.84 For nearly

seventy-five years from the late 1890s to the 1970s, the stockyards and the

meat-packing plants jointly drove Omaha’s economy.85

In the 1990s, Omaha’s livestock market remained active, although with

greatly reduced receipts. The ownership cleared a large portion of the former

yards and turned the site into a shopping center.86 In 1998 the city purchased

the remainder of the property, and the livestock operation moved to Red Oak,

Iowa. The end of the once mighty Omaha market came in March 1999.87

SIOUX CITY, IOWA

Because three rivers converge at Sioux City—the Big Sioux and Floyd

flowing into the Missouri—flooding is likely. (Three states—Nebraska,

South Dakota, and Iowa also meet at this location.) Through the years the

stockyards there have faced at least two devastating floods and numerous

smaller ones.

The river being low can also cause problems. The town was less than

two decades old in 1871 when wind blew a shallow draft sternwheeler

loaded with grain onto a sand bar in the Missouri River. The boat, headed

for Sioux City, sprang a leak and the cargo of wheat was ruined. A fellow

named James Booge saw an opportunity to turn an unfortunate situation

into a profit. He bought the water-soaked grain at a bargain. Then he pur-

chased a bunch of hogs to eat the grain before it ruined entirely, assuming

that grain-fattened hogs would sell well. When nobody would buy his live

hogs, Booge rented an empty building at Fifth and Water Streets, put a ring



in the floor to tie the hogs, and slaughtered them himself. He had to go

door to door to sell his processed hog meat, but he sold it. A persistent man

had brought meat packing to Sioux City. Booge bought more hogs and kept

slaughtering.88

Eventually Booge expanded his operation to 350 hogs a day. The city

grew, and in 1880 he moved out of the heart of the business and residential

district to a plant south of town worth $500,000. He soon was slaughtering

2,500 hogs, a hundred cattle, and a hundred sheep each day with a yearly

price tag of $2.5 million.89

By this time other Sioux City businessmen realized that they needed an

official stockyards to receive livestock shipments. On January 21, 1884, they

organized a Union Stock Yards Company, capitalized at $100,000. The

owners needed more funding, so they increased the capital to $1 million

before the stockyards opened in 1887. Daniel T. Hedges served as presi-

dent.90 W. C. Gimmel of Canton, South Dakota, shipped the first load of

hogs to the new stockyards when it opened October 31, 1887.91


River and rail traffic connected the Sioux City Stock Yards to the world, but the water overfloweda few times as well. Photo courtesy Sioux City Public Museum.


The stockyards company built packing plants to lease out as well. In

1892, Cudahy, the first major packer to arrive, chose Sioux City over St.

Joseph and St. Louis because he believed it to be a better market.92 The

same year Cudahy arrived, a devastating flood struck the yards on May 18,

wiping out the pens. After the flood, the Union Stock Yards merged with a

Central Stock Yards on higher ground but faced slower receipts because of

the nationwide panic of 1893. Following a bankruptcy caused by the flood

and the panic, a new company emerged and purchased the holdings of the

old Union Stock Yards Company on July 1, 1895.

A former banker from Montpelier, Vermont, F. L. Eaton, became pres-

ident of the newly organized Sioux City Stock Yards Company, managing

it for the next thirty years. The stockyards company, following a practice

common in the industry, owned 870 acres of land near the yards that it sold

as city lots, thus creating a company town. The company also organized the

Livestock National Bank, capitalized at $100,000.

To persuade Armour and Company to come to Sioux City in

1899–1900, the stockyards company gave a stock bonus of 4,000 shares and

twelve-and-a-half acres of land on which to build their plant. Sioux City had

been trying to get Armour to come for thirteen years.93 Swift eventually

came as well.

Because of its central location in the Midwest, Sioux City primarily

received hogs, with 1,855,829 arriving in 1922 out of total receipts that year

of 2,833,410 animals.94 In 1941, the Sioux City Stock Yards earned the

distinction of being the first livestock center to start a Livestock Market

Institute to publicize the market. After World War II, several other terminal

markets organized such associations to prevent smaller country auctions

from eroding their market.95

The second, more devastating flood at the Sioux City Stock Yards

occurred June 8, 1953. The company lost its historical records as well as

much of the physical plant. Rebuilding costs were put at $750,000.96



Other small meat packers continued to open plants, but on June 16,

1963, Armour closed its main facility at Sioux City. Armour had been rou-

tinely closing its operations in most of the large stockyards. The local

stockyards company bought the Armour land, demolished the outdated

slaughtering facility, and made the site available to the Floyd Valley

Packing Company.

A. D. “Andy” Anderson and C. J. Holman founded Iowa Beef Packers

(later Iowa Beef Processors) in 1960 southeast of Sioux City at Denison,

Iowa. Their new company became the largest beef processor in the nation

by the 1980s, thereby moving some business away from Sioux City.97

The Sioux City Stockyards Company, not content to decline without a

fight, completed their largest building project ever in May 1975. They

unveiled a roofed cattle division costing $4 million that covered an area the

size of seventeen football fields. Unfortunately, the large Swift plant on the

yards closed that same year, and Swift moved to a new modern pork facility

on the edge of town.98


The Armour and Company packing plant stands adjacent to acres of wooden pens and the railroadin this early Sioux City scene, illustrating the profitable partnership between the three industries—meat packing, stockyards, and railroads. Photo courtesy Sioux City Public Museum.


During its business heyday Sioux City handled about four million head

of livestock annually worth an estimated $500 million and reached the rank

of second in the country because of its location in the center of the greatest

livestock feeding area in the world. By the mid-1980s Sioux City ranked as

the largest stocker and feeder market in the corn belt.99

One of seven large stockyards owned by United in the 1990s, Sioux

City remained in operation with greatly reduced sales as the twenty-first

century began. The holding company of United, Canal Capital, resumed

control in 1999. The Sioux City Stockyards ceased operations in April

2002.100

DENVER, COLORADO

With the slogan “Pike’s Peak or Bust,” the ’59ers came to Colorado in

search of gold. Those who “busted” sought other livelihoods if they wanted

to stay. Joseph L. Bailey eventually decided that he could earn more money

by selling meat to miners than he could by searching for the elusive yel-

low nuggets. He purchased a butcher shop on credit. In the first year and a

half, Bailey cleared over $30,000, probably surpassing many a discouraged

miner.101

Enough miners found enough gold to make Denver a boomtown, so

inflated prices created a demand for beef. In 1865, Bailey opened what

became Denver’s first stockyards, the Bull’s Head Corral, to hold incoming

animals until he could butcher them for sale. Perhaps he copied the name

of the Bull’s Head Yards in Chicago. Bailey’s stockyards actually served as

only holding pens for livestock, but the site later became Denver’s Union

Railroad Station.

As the population increased and more homes and businesses were built,

residents complained about the stock pens’ distinctive “aroma.” The pens

were moved away from the heart of the growing mile-high city. Promoters

built the second stockyards near Second Avenue and Broadway at what is



now Broadway and Cherry Creek. Growth pushed past these yards as

well, and a new stockyard soon emerged at Thirty-fifth and Wazee streets,

where railroad facilities were available. Another move or two eventually

landed the stockyards north of the city, but still south of the Platte River

for many years. The site stretched between the Burlington and Union

Pacific Railroads.102

In 1881 at least seven Denver businessmen joined to incorporate the

yards under the name Denver Union Stockyards. These included: John A.

Clough, a cattle dealer; Jacob Scherrer, F. P. Ernest, J. A. Cooper, J. M. Wilson,

William B. Mills, and Samuel B. Wetzel.103 Four years later the Kansas

City Stock Yard Company took over the Denver stockyards, claiming that

the latter were too small to handle all livestock arrivals. At that time a new

$250,000 incorporation changed the name slightly to Denver Union

Stockyard Company and was regarded by many as a major milestone

in the history of the Denver market. C. F. Morse became president and

E. E. Richardson, secretary-treasurer; both were from Kansas City. The

new owners built an exchange building and a two-story barn to accommo-

date five hundred head of horses.104

The stockyards grew steadily as herds of cattle soon began arriving by

rail, rather than in cattle drives. Denver soon faced a problem that hampered

most livestock markets—haggles over railroad rates. In a report to the

Denver Chamber of Commerce, Clough wrote: “The railroads are thinking

of making it unprofitable to drive cattle to market.” He knew that the issue

had to be settled favorably for the market to continue to grow. Federal assis-

tance came with the Interstate Commerce Act, which regulated railroad

rates, and the market survived.105

The first packing facility established near the new stockyards was a

Smith Brothers plant built across the Platte River. This plant imported

hogs from eastern Nebraska and the Missouri River area. Because the few

pioneers in the sparsely settled mining area of Colorado and the farmers of



western Kansas raised hogs for home consumption and not for slaughter,

the packing facility found it difficult to get enough animals to keep the

plant operating.106

Other plants eventually opened near the Smith Brothers. Walters and

Aicher operated a small slaughterhouse, as did Hoffer Brothers. Later

Swift and Company constructed a plant on the Hoffer site. Not until 1892

when the Colorado Packing and Provision Company opened did a plant

exist large enough to handle the new slaughter trade that included cattle.

Charles Boettcher and Colonel D. C. Dodge opened Western Packing

Plant in 1903.107

The Big Four meat-packing trust attempted to form the National

Packing Company in 1905 and create a large conglomerate with activities

in Denver, but anti-trust lawyers of the Justice Department disallowed

National’s purchase of Colorado Packing and Provision and the Western

Packing Plant. Armour and Company took over the two plants and created

a new company called the Denver Union Stock Yard Company. Later

Cudahy, Wilson, and Swift, other beef trust packers, arrived.108 By 1916,


The sheep market at Denver had a good run the day this photograph was taken early in thetwentieth century. Photo courtesy Colorado Historical Society.


owners had constructed a new exchange building at Forty-seventh Avenue

and Lafayette Street.109 Denver eventually became headquarters for the

American National Livestock Association, and a P&S Administration field

office began operating in the exchange building in 1921.110

As a means to prevent the market from dwindling near the mid-

twentieth century, Denver stockyards owners ruled that any commission

firms operating at their market could not do business elsewhere. Unhappy

with the new rule, the affected firms filed a joint lawsuit that was appealed

all the way to the United States Supreme Court; Denver lost the case and

had to repeal its ruling.111

As an example of Denver’s receipts, figures for 1958 included 862,000

cattle, 78,000 calves, 493,000 hogs, 1,400,000 sheep, and 549 horses and

mules.112 In 1967 the market shifted to an auction to compete with local

auctions in smaller communities. Nevertheless, the Denver stockyards closed


In the 1920s, the Denver Union Stock Yards Company operated from this building as did alsothe Denver Stock Yards Bank. Photo courtesy Colorado Historical Society.


its doors and pens in 1972.113 The P&S Administration office continued in

operation in the former Denver Livestock Exchange building, monitoring

numerous smaller markets in the Denver area.114 The office remained open

as the twenty-first century began.

SOUTH ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA

Around 1853, the first few white settlers began moving to a spot where an

Indian village called Kaposia, meaning “light,” sprawled on the west bank

of the Mississippi River, midway between its confluence with the St. Croix

and Minnesota rivers.115 The city of St. Paul developed on this site.

A few years later, Minnesotan A. B. Stickney, president and originator

of the Chicago & Great Western Railroad had an idea for a livestock market

at St. Paul. He called a meeting on May 3, 1886, at the Minnesota Club in

St. Paul and invited local businessmen, western cattlemen, and fellow rail-

road officials. Stickney told them he had watched 75,000 cattle go through

St. Paul to Chicago and come back by rail as slaughtered meat to be sold

locally. He believed that St. Paul could become a profitable livestock center.

Stickney told the group of men that he had met with western ranchers

including Teddy Roosevelt, who owned land in North Dakota, and also

with Montana cattlemen. The latter, in fact, had formed a Montana

Livestock Company to build a feeding yard and market in St. Paul to serve

their needs. The Montana plan fell through, but the ranchers’ initial interest

helped convince the group of St. Paul officials to act. They took options on

land two miles south of the St. Paul city limits and drew up their plans.116

Stickney could not have hoped for a better meeting.

James J. Hill, who later completed the Great Northern Railway west to

Seattle from St. Paul, immediately supported the idea of stockyards. He was

already feeding livestock at his North Oaks estates. Hill believed that a

cattle market would make St. Paul less dependent on wheat as a money

crop and would increase traffic on his proposed railroad.



The men wasted no time. By June 30, 1886, they had incorporated the

South St. Paul Union Stockyards, raised financing, and purchased 260 acres

of swampy land to be refilled.117 They designated eighty acres for a town

site west of the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad track, saving the

land east of the rails for industry, including forty acres for stockyards.

Seventeen loads of steers arrived at the new South St. Paul Stockyards on

September 30, 1887, the first day of business.118

The first packing plant opened in January 1888: the Minnesota

Packing and Provision Company, a subsidiary of Fowler Brothers. Receipts

for the first year of operation totaled 31,514 cattle, 2,210 calves, 272,712

hogs, 61,343 sheep, and 806 horses. Over five thousand rail cars deposited

these livestock at the yards.119

The company struggled, however, because of the national Panic of 1893

and eventually went bankrupt. After receiving the inducement of stock in the


Although on a smaller scale, the entrance gate to the South St. Paul Stockyards was similar to thethe larger gate at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, with a center traffic gate and two pedestriangates on each side. ca. 1908. Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society.


local company, Swift and Company took over the plant on October 4, 1897.

The stockyards company gave Swift a bonus of $1 million, and merchants

of Minneapolis offered Armour a similar contract. Armour came in 1915,

completing a modern plant in 1919.120 Job opportunities at the packing

plants attracted immigrants who came to the area shortly after the turn of

the century; some Rumanians came as early as 1904.121

The South St. Paul Union Stockyards owned the St. Paul Bridge and

Terminal Railway Company so that they could move livestock efficiently to

the St. Paul rail terminal, having built a bridge over the Mississippi River

for this purpose.

By the 1920s both Armour and Swift had located their largest modern

plants at South St. Paul, and the market continued to attract large receipts.

As the automotive industry grew and better roads expanded, more trucks

delivered cattle to the market. World War II brought large gains to South

St. Paul as well as other markets. The peak year of the South St. Paul

Stockyards was 1943 with 6.7 million animals received.122 In 1955 South

St. Paul ranked as the third-largest public livestock market in the world.123

During and after World War II United Stockyards bought out many of the

large stockyards; St. Paul represented the largest in their chain.124

The market began an auction in 1964, also following the lead of most

large stockyards. Although many markets declined rapidly in the 1970s,

South St. Paul did not. In fact, 1974–81 it was the largest livestock market

in the world before dropping to fluctuate between second and third in the

mid-1980s.125 The South St. Paul Stockyards was the terminal market for

livestock producers in twenty states, including the northwestern ranges, the

dairy belt, and the feedlots of the corn country.126

Perhaps because the small city of South St. Paul was a one-industry

town—stockyards and meat packing—the community was determined to

hold on to that industry. The commercial dairy market in the area of St. Paul

helped the South St. Paul market considerably, allowing it to continue to



handle five million head of livestock annually in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Joel Bennett, whose father was president of United Stockyards in the 1980s,

served as president of the South St. Paul Stockyards.127 Bennett’s market

director Curt Zimmerman credited their dairy business, the biggest cow

market in the industry, with helping South St. Paul stay busy.128

Sales fell to 2.2 million animals in the mid-1980s. Armour, Swift, and

Cudahy remained as major packer buyers. The St. Paul market celebrated

its centennial in 1986 and began its second century of operation. United

Stockyards sold the St. Paul yards to Central Livestock, and South St. Paul

continued as a terminal market as the twenty-first century began.129

FORT WORTH, TEXAS

When the two largest of the Big Four meat packers—Armour and Swift—

agreed to build modern plants in the heart of Texas cattle country in 1902,


South St. Paul had become an industrial city by 1945, but the stockyards, located in the center oftown, remained the largest industry. Photo by Kenneth Wright, Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society.


they, as well as the citizens of Fort Worth, believed that they could chal-

lenge and surpass Chicago. Both were mistaken, but the Fort Worth market

ranked between third and fourth nationally in overall receipts for nearly a

half-century.

The Fort Worth story began in the 1860s as trail drives started north

from South Texas toward Abilene, Kansas. The “Great Trail” or “Texas

Trail” (later called the Chisholm Trail) passed through Fort Worth, a little

settlement of about twenty cabins and two stores in 1868.130

Citizens began talking about packing plants as early as 1875, but they

knew they needed a railroad first. After local efforts to help grade the

roadbed for the incoming Texas & Pacific Railroad, the first train arrived on

July 19, 1876, providing immediate rail service to points east.131 Stock pens

sprang up near the railroad south of town. By the turn of the century Fort


Edward F. Swift—Son ofGustavus F. Swift, founderof Swift and Company,Edward F. Swift was vicepresident of his father’scompany and also of a foodline called Libby, McNeilland Libby that the Swiftsacquired to allow efficientuse of their refrigerator carswhen not shipping meat. Inaddition, he was vice presi-dent of the Fort WorthStock Yards Companyshortly after reorganizationin 1902 gave one-thirdownership to Swift andCompany. He died in 1932.Photo courtesy Kentucky Fair& Exposition Center.


Worthians had induced at least nine more lines to come, some of them

incorporated right in Fort Worth.

Local attempts to build either pork-slaughtering or beef-packing plants

failed in the early 1880s because of lack of capital. Local business leaders

did charter the Fort Worth Union Stock Yards on open land north of town

on July 26, 1887.132 Fort Worth businessmen, some of whom were associ-

ated with the stockyards, incorporated the Fort Worth Packing Company

on April 30, 1890, with a capital stock of $200,000.133

The packing plant did not have enough ready cash to pay for the large

herds that came through Fort Worth by rail, so many Texas producers

continued to ship to St. Louis, Kansas City, or Chicago. Needing outside

investors, the local men appealed to G. W. Simpson and Louville V. Niles of


Eight by ten white frame offices sat on the corner of wooden pens at the Fort Worth yards. Thelittle houses, like this belonging to John Clay and Company, kept the rain and snow off thecommission men but still could be cold in winter or hot in summer. Each commission companyoccupied one over their assigned pens. Photo courtesy Mr. and Mrs. Hilton Kutch, Fort Worth, Texas.


Boston who, in 1893, incorporated the Fort Worth Stock Yards Company in

West Virginia (to take advantage of easier rules for corporations) and on

April 27, 1893, bought out both the Fort Worth Union Stock Yards and the

locally owned packing plant for $133,333.134

Unfortunately for the new owners, that was the year of the nationwide

panic. The Fort Worth market struggled for nearly a decade. The efforts of

Simpson and Niles to interest Armour and Swift in Fort Worth in 1902 saved

the stockyards from failure and sparked Fort Worth’s hopes of creating a

market large enough to surpass Chicago.

Simpson and Niles reorganized their company and gave Armour and

Swift each one-third of the stock, keeping one-third for themselves. They

gave each packer twenty-one acres of land on which to build modern plants.

In exchange, both packers agreed to pay yardage charges for each animal

they slaughtered, whether the animals went through the stockyards or

not.135 Such arrangements became common among meat packers and

stockyards by the twentieth century. Armour and Swift tore down an old

wooden exchange building and hotel and, in 1903, built the large Spanish-

style stucco exchange building still in use.136 In addition, in 1902 they

incorporated a city called North Fort Worth, but the larger city annexed it

within seven years.

In 1904 J. Ogden Armour predicted that Fort Worth might someday

surpass Chicago and become number one. Armour owned no part of the

Chicago Stockyards because Vanderbilt interests controlled it; therefore he

and other packers wanted to build their own large, well-equipped stock-

yards and packing plants in the Southwest and West to divert trade and run

Chicago out of business. The plot failed.137

With wealthy packers able to purchase every animal that arrived in Fort

Worth and pay cash immediately, business began to boom. Meanwhile,

stockyards officials clashed with the railroads over rates and with the Texas

legislature that outlawed their livestock exchange in 1907 as “harmful to



legitimate industry,” “unjust and unfair in principle”—in other words, an

organization to fix prices and control trade.138 The state terminated the

livestock exchange charter and ordered the exchange to do no further

business in the state.139 This eventually left Fort Worth as the only large

terminal market in the country without an exchange to help police its own

industry. Boom times nevertheless followed for Fort Worth. No other large

packer besides Armour and Swift came because of small hog receipts on the

market, but the two packers bought nearly all the cattle that arrived. In 1915,

as World War I raged in Europe, Fort Worth became the largest market in

the world for horses and mules. Uniformed officers of foreign governments

came to purchase animals for both food and cavalry purposes.140

The year 1917 set a record that would stand for nearly thirty years:

1,646,110 cattle, 313,427 calves, 1,062,021 hogs, 405,810 sheep, and


J. Ogden Armour—Born inMilwaukee in 1863,

Jonathan Ogden Armour,son of Philip D. Armour,

entered his father’s businessin Chicago in 1883 andbecame president of the

meat packing and stockyardsinterests after his father’s

death in 1901. In 1906 theyounger Armour wrote a

book called The Packers, thePrivate Car Lines and the

People to defend his industryagainst complaints by Upton

Sinclair, whose book, TheJungle, issued the previousyear was an attack on the

meat-packing industry.Armour died in 1927. Photo

Courtesy Kentucky Fair &Exposition Center.


115,233 horses and mules—a total of over 3.5 million animals.141 Because

of the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, Armour and Swift were forced

to sell their stockyards interests. However, a company that Swift formed,

United Stockyards, eventually acquired all of Fort Worth’s stock by

1944.142 United continued to own stock in the Fort Worth stockyards until

the 1980s.

World War II brought huge receipts to Fort Worth, and old records

fell. Over 5.25 million animals of all types arrived in 1944, including over

two million sheep. Texas led the nation in sheep production, and Fort Worth

became the largest sheep market in the nation.143 Following the war local

country auctions and a decline in rail shipments drew large numbers away

from the Fort Worth market. Publicity, promotional gimmicks, and new


Covered sheep and hog pens and the brick horse and mule barns dominate this scene from theFort Worth Stockyards in the 1950s. To the left of Exchange Avenue one can see the coliseum,exchange building, and acres of cattle pens. Armour and Swift’s plants accepted livestock fromwooden connecting ramps over the railroad tracks. Photo courtesy W. D. Smith, Inc. Collection,Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Arlington, Texas.


livestock organizations kept two million animals coming per year in the

1950s, but Armour closed its plant in 1962, and Swift shut down on May

1, 1971. Smaller plants continued to operate, but most market activity in

Texas took place in small-town auctions or new modern packing facilities

near feedlots in West Texas and the Panhandle. In order to compete, Fort

Worth began an auction in 1959 but could not retain the huge market

share it had enjoyed for over half a century. Although the market celebrated

a century of operations in July 1987, for several years it remained open only

for one short auction each Monday. After the last auction was held on

December 21, 1992, Fort Worth ceased operations. Tourists now wander

the stockyards area visiting its restaurants, shops, and nightclubs. The Fort

Worth Stockyards National Historic District is a western-themed tourist

attraction celebrating Fort Worth’s “cowtown” image.

WICHITA, KANSAS

The entire town of Wichita could be termed a stockyards as early as 1872

when the two-year-old settlement and trading post on the Chisholm Trail

saw its first railroad, the Santa Fe, arrive. Citizens also worked to get the

Western & Southwestern Railroad to connect to the Santa Fe and others.

After its first year as a railhead, Wichita received 70,000 head of cattle

worth at least $2 million.144 Stockyards and cattle thus became the “busi-

ness that helped breathe the first breath of economic life into Wichita.”145

A threat to the new economic boom came when the Kansas legislature

quarantined much of the state, including Wichita, against Texas cattle

because of “Spanish fever” (no one yet realized it was caused by ticks).

When the 1873 panic followed on the heels of the quarantine, Wichita fell

on hard times. Locusts and drought ravaged the surrounding farmlands,

contributing to the crisis.

Livestock interests organized the Wichita Union Stock Yards Company

in the early part of 1887 and opened for business October 18 that same year.



Unfortunately, on the night of the opening, a fire totally destroyed the

yards, burning two carloads of cattle and one hundred tons of hay. The

next day local men pledged enough money in forty-five minutes to begin

rebuilding. By January 1, 1888, the yards had opened for business again.146

Because of the promise of economic activity, the population of Wichita

boomed from nearly 5,000 in 1880 to 23,853 a decade later.147

When inducements to persuade meat-packer Jacob Dold to build a

plant on Twenty-first Street succeeded, the stockyards interests decided to

move their facility there. They constructed a stockyards hotel and exchange

building, and by 1908 capitalization had reached $600,000.148

A second fire on June 2, 1904, destroyed both the yards and the stock-

yards hotel.149 After rebuilding, the company in 1906 gave meat-packer

Cudahy one-sixth of the stock in exchange for a guarantee that Cudahy

would continue to operate a packing plant in Wichita for at least ten years

and continue to purchase all the livestock necessary for the plant from the

Wichita yards. Cudahy kept increasing its percentage of ownership. By

1917 it owned one-third of the $1.4 million stockyards shares. Jacob Dold


Although silent now, the Wichita Live Stock Exchange saw tremendous activity during its busyyears of service to the Wichita yards. Photo courtesy Kansas State Historical Society.


remained the other large packer, but several smaller ones bought slaughter

livestock on the market as well.150

In 1913, Daniel C. Smith became president of the yards, beginning a

long reign of management by one family. Smith had been general livestock

agent for the Texas & Pacific and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (Katy) rail-

roads in Fort Worth when agents of the Wichita stockyards approached

him. His son, Daniel C. Smith, Jr. (called Conlee Smith), in 1955 became

president and general manager of the Wichita yards, succeeding his father.

Dan C. Smith III began working in 1959 as vice president and assistant

general manager.151

By 1921, the Wichita yards had a daily capacity of 18,000 cattle, 14,000

hogs, 5,000 sheep, 2,000 horses and mules. In 1928 Wichita claimed to be

the “mule capital of the country,” because mule buyers came from places like

Montgomery, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Jackson and Vicksburg,

Mississippi.152

Wichita was considered one of the eleven big livestock markets of the

West in the 1930s, with a million head of livestock passing through her

yards annually.153 Total receipts for 1942 included: 333,726 cattle, 53,694

calves, 446,390 hogs, 246,691 sheep and lambs, and 7,365 horses and mules.

The stockyards, located on the north edge of Wichita, covered a hundred

acres.154 By 1954, ninety percent of all livestock arrived by truck rather

than rail, so stockyards officials remodeled the yards to make trucking

access easier. As large commercial feedlots became a new feeding and

marketing standard in the industry in the 1960s, Wichita was the closest

market for some of these lots.155

In late November 1970, the Wichita-based Sierra Petroleum Company

acquired the controlling interest in the Wichita Union Stock Yards

Company. Dan Smith III resigned in December 1971, and R. B. “Dick”

Thompson became president and general manager of the Wichita Union

Stock Yards in January 1972. That year the stockyards hotel burned.156



The Sierra Company replaced the ninety-year-old wooden pens with

steel pens and renovated the 1910 exchange building. In 1975, H. R.

“Herb” Michaelis served as president of the stockyards and Homer Pratt

as general manager. The market still received over a million head of cattle

per year at that time. In August 1975, ninety years of private treaty sales

ended, and the market converted to an open auction, making Wichita no

longer a terminal market according to a P&S Administration definition.

To be a terminal market, stockyards needed commission companies; the

companies were not needed at auction markets. Wichita was challenging

the competition from country auctions all around the state.157

Receipts for 1977 included 60,000 cattle, 200,000 hogs, and 15,000

sheep. The total of 275,000 animals reflected quite a drop from an earlier

average of a million head per year.158 In November 1979, the Wichita

Stockyards stopped cattle trading; on August 1, 1980, hog sales stopped as

well. Sierra Petroleum shut down the stockyards because it was losing

money due to higher sewage costs, taxes, insurance, and decreasing receipts.

“It’s sort of like trying to keep an old car. Things add up after a while,”

Herb Michaelis said.159

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Cattle have been important to San Antonio since 1718 when livestock fed

the inhabitants of the Mission San Antonio de Valero, also known as the

Alamo. Spanish ranchers grazed their herds on land surrounding the mis-

sion. Today, the streets of San Antonio radiate out like spokes from the hub

of a wagon wheel because many of them originally began as 1860s cattle

trails. Livestock trading took place on Military Plaza before any official

stockyards opened.160

Railroads arriving in San Antonio in the late 1880s inspired a group of

about ten South Texas ranchers and former trail drivers to build a stock-

yards in 1889 near the tracks on the southwestern fringe of San Antonio.



Capitalized at $200,000, the thirty-eight-acre yards was called the San

Antonio Stock Yards Company. After a financial reorganization in 1894,

the name changed to Union Stock Yards, a popular name industrywide.161

Livestock men established the reorganized stockyards near where the

rail lines intersected. Originally on the edge of town, as the city grew the

stockyards found themselves close to the center of town. In 1894 Dr. Amos

Graves, chief surgeon for the Southern Pacific Railroad, became the major-

ity owner with five smaller investors. Ownership remained with descen-

dants of Dr. Graves for five generations.162

Owners replaced the original exchange building, built in 1889, with one

constructed nearby in 1938. G. Carlton Hagelstein headed the stockyards

operation beginning in 1938, serving for the next three decades until his son

Carleton Hagelstein, Jr., took over in 1966. At that time the market


Cattle feed in pens while stockyards workers at the San Antonio yards either sit or stand aroundon the elevated wooden rails that were common at all the large stockyards. Photo courtesy JanieHagelstein, Union Stock Yards, San Antonio.


received 353,000 cattle and calves, 42,000 hogs, and 48,000 sheep and

goats. In the 1950s, the Union Stock Yards handled from 200,000 to

400,000 head of goats per year from the ranches in West Texas.163

In 1958, following the pattern of other stockyards in the industry, San

Antonio introduced its first auction. After first holding auctions in a tent,

in 1960 officials constructed an air-conditioned building solely for these

sales. Railroad shipments ended in the 1970s.

San Antonio did not decline as rapidly as the larger terminal markets

mainly because it had always been small. Close to downtown, the yards in

the late 1980s was the largest livestock market in South or Southwest Texas

and later became the last Texas stockyards to maintain “terminal” market

status with commission companies, according to a P&S Administration

definition.164 In 1988, the yards posted annual gross sales of $65,123,076,

as 168,087 cattle and calves and 26,753 hogs arrived.165

Market area for the Union Stock Yards in San Antonio covered fifty

to sixty surrounding counties and those counties south to the Rio Grande.

Most cattle from the market moved north for feeding; only about ten percent

were slaughtered locally.166

Fifth-generation owners/managers working at the market at its 1989

centennial and beyond included Janie Hagelstein, the daughter of

Carleton, Jr., and son-in-law Mark Judson, who married Janie’s sister,

Mary. Judson took over as president of the yards when Carleton, Jr.,

retired in June 1993.167

In the year 2000, auctions were still held Mondays and Wednesdays,

four commission companies operated on the market, and the stockyards

handled 74,000 animals.168 Judson was president and general manager in

March 2001 when he announced that the 112-year-old stockyards would

close the following month to make way for an industrial park. The last sale

took place on April 18. The thirty-four-acre stockyard, reduced by four

acres from its original size, was located in a prime industrial area and



already had thirty warehouses as nearby neighbors. At one time fifteen

meat-packing plants operated near the stockyards, but most of the big

packers relocated near the feedlots in the Texas Panhandle.169

SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA

Located 90 miles north of Sioux City, Iowa, 200 northwest of Omaha, and

250 miles southwest of South St. Paul, Sioux Falls was in close proximity to

three larger, rival livestock markets. Sioux Falls residents might have won-

dered at the necessity for another market. At least eight states once shipped

to Sioux Falls, however, including South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, North

Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, and Idaho. Slaughter livestock left

Sioux Falls on the hoof heading to packing plants in twenty-six states by the

1940s.170 Apparently a market did not have to be a huge packing center to

see a lot of movement and activity at its stockyards.

In 1883, E. G. Smith and A. B. Clampit opened a meat-packing estab-

lishment where they slaughtered hogs. Neighbors complained of the smell,

so Smith and Clampit moved their business. Clampit bowed out, but Smith

slaughtered hogs until October 1886, when fire destroyed his operation. He

rebuilt, but the financial loss eventually rendered him bankrupt.171

In 1889, Sioux Falls businessman and first U.S. Senator from South

Dakota, R. F. Pettigrew urged construction of a stockyards, helped incorpo-

rate one for $500,000, and bought a thousand acres of land.172 Workers

constructed a seven-story granite packing house, 160 feet by 433 feet, so

sturdy it lasted for fifty years, although it stood vacant for many of its last

years. When Works Progress Administration workers tore the building

down in 1940, they found a copper box in the cornerstone in which had

been placed copies of several newspapers, photos of the Sioux Falls business

district, and a lone penny.173

Pettigrew and his associates built the Sioux Falls Stockyards Company

near the junction of Skunk Creek and the Sioux River. Before construction



was completed, financial difficulties brought a halt to their efforts. In 1895,

the vice president, A. J. Pettingill reorganized with $2 million in capital,

bought 1,800 more acres, and completed construction.174 He shut down

in 1899.

Meat packing did take place, despite the absence of profitable yards.

John Morrell and Company arrived in 1909 and built a large plant in

1911.175 Three Denver businessmen were determined to incorporate a

successful stockyards in Sioux Falls; they did so in 1915 under the laws of

Colorado with $500,000 capitalization. They hired G. W. England, con-

struction engineer of the Denver Stockyards, to supervise the building of a

new Sioux Falls Stockyards. The yards opened September 13, 1917. Morrell

and Company, accustomed to buying directly from producers, did not

immediately want to use the stockyards. Eventually they agreed to do so.


In 1891 the Sioux Falls Stockyards and adjacent packing plants were under construction. Photocourtesy Siouxland Heritage Museum, Sioux Falls.


Larger packing companies sent representatives to Sioux Falls to buy livestock

to ship to their plants.176 Livestock receipts in 1923 reached 25,631 cattle,

4,832 calves, 503,108 hogs, 5,197 sheep, and 389 horses and mules.177

Because Sioux Falls was the only stockyards in South Dakota in the

mid-1920s, the company engaged in a busy trade as trucks used the newly

constructed highways. Some shipments still arrived by rail. In 1924 a new

Sioux City Stock Yards Company purchased the Sioux Falls stockyards and

reorganized it under the laws of North Dakota, but Swift and Company

bought it later that year. The John Morrell Company still operated at the

market in the 1920s, employing 1,500 people and using twenty-two govern-

ment meat inspectors.178

When Swift and Company created United Stockyards in 1936 to hold

Swift’s stockyards shares, the corporation began buying up additional stock

from other owners. Eventually, Sioux Falls became wholly owned by

United, but in 1999 this management was transferred to the holding com-

pany of United, Canal Capital. Sioux Falls enjoyed good leadership and a

strong exchange that maintained the integrity of the market.179 The yards

continued in operation as a terminal market as the twenty-first century

opened. In fact, in 2001 receipts the Sioux Falls Yards ranked number one

of the few stockyards still open, with 547,465 animals.180



After a substantial population shift westward provided a continuing

demand in the American West and the Pacific coast, large livestock markets

became necessary in those regions. Stockyards companies developed in

Ogden (on the transcontinental railroad) and Portland in the 1890s and in

South San Francisco in the early twentieth century. Citizens of Oklahoma

City urged meat packers to come to their community to take advantage of

the growing market demand there shortly after Indian Territory became the

state of Oklahoma in 1907. Even into the Depression years new stockyards

developed in Houston, Texas; Joplin, Missouri; and Billings, Montana.

While most of these late markets remained small, some not reaching the

status of the largest two dozen stockyards, their creation indicated that

into the early twentieth century stockyards remained the way to market

livestock. Promoters at that time wanted to become part of the nationwide

livestock marketing network that included a stockyards complex in their city.

PORTLAND, OREGON

Located on the west bank of the Willamette River twelve miles from its

junction with the Columbia, the community of Portland began in 1844

when Asa L. Lovejoy and William Overton established a claim to the land.

Overton, a drifter, later moved on, and Lovejoy acquired another partner,

Francis W. Pettygrove, who won a coin toss to name the community

C H A P T E R N I N E

LATERSTOCKYARDS


Portland after his hometown in Maine. William Gilpin later took credit for

laying out the city that was chartered in 1851. The first movement toward

a central livestock market for Portland came in the 1880s, but local leaders

lacked sufficient backing. It was a familiar story.1

Success came in the 1890s when Louis Burke, of the Nebraska Burke

livestock family, leased about two acres at Seventeenth and Northwest

Vaughn and organized a Union Stock Yards Company. The new facility

could accommodate from twelve to fourteen railroad cars of livestock.

Burke set up a livestock commission business as well and began to receive

shipments from all over the Willamette Valley and as far south as the

California line. Five small slaughterhouses had previously provided meat

for the city, but no regular stockyards or central market existed until Burke’s

company opened. Eventually the Southern Pacific Railroad ran a spur to

the yards.2

Burke sold his interests on January 1, 1897, to Warren Merchant and

Allyn Yocom, two farmers from pioneer Oregon families. Two years later

W. H. H. Morgan, one of the early feeders of good cattle on a thousand-

acre site called Morgan’s Landing, bought into the stockyards. By 1902

Morgan became sole owner and president of the stockyards.

During the early years, the stockyards company acted as a commission

business, but it relinquished that in 1905 when seven commission firms

organized the Portland Livestock Exchange. Morgan sold his interests at

about that time.

Swift and Company purchased the Union Meat Company and thirty-

four hundred acres of land adjacent to the Columbia River, seven miles

north of Portland, and in 1907 constructed a new, modern plant. Swift also

invested in the Portland Union Stock Yards Company, with a new yards

near the packing-house site. Stockyards ownership dismantled the old

yards at Northwest Seventeenth and Vaughn, and the site became a base-

ball park. All livestock activity moved to the new site north of Portland at



2524 North Marine Drive, where stockyards officials constructed a new

hotel and livestock exchange building. The new stockyards opened

September 15, 1909.3 Swift built houses for its workers, and the commu-

nity of Kenton became a company town.4

To call attention to their market, promoters organized a stock show in

1911. D. O. Lively, who had livestock show experience in Fort Worth,

arrived in Portland to manage the show and to become general publicity

agent of the stockyards company. His job was to encourage more livestock

shipments to Portland and to promote the stock show, a position many

stockyards companies also funded. Two years later Lively left his job to take

on the challenge of the livestock show of the Panama Pacific International

Exposition in San Francisco. Stockyards officials nationwide promoted

their markets through livestock shows, 4-H, and Future Farmers of

America activities.5

A three-story, brick Georgian-style exchange building in 1917 replaced

the frame structure built eight years earlier. When the new exchange building

opened next door, a commission house, constructed in 1908, was converted to

a restaurant called the Red Steer Café. The red, wood-shingled restaurant

survived for eighty-eight years.6

By 1934, half the animals marketed in Portland came by truck rather

than by rail, anticipating a pattern that would affect major terminal markets

nationwide. Numerous packers and slaughterers operating in Oregon,

Washington, and California purchased all or part of their supply of livestock

on the North Portland market in 1935. During World War II a portion of

the Portland International Livestock Exhibition Center was used as an

overtime assembly center and also for temporary homes for hundreds of

interned Japanese Americans.7

By the 1950s, Portland had become essentially a market for slaughter

animals, with few stockers and feeders.8 Only one major packing plant

remained near the stockyards at that time: the Swift plant at North Portland

135LATER STOCKYARDS


that had employed fifteen hundred workers in its heyday. Other packing

plants were located in the Kenton area between the Columbia Slough and

the north city limits of Portland. Nearly thirty million animals of all types

had passed through the Portland Stock Yards by 1958. Ranked as the largest

market in a five-state area during its boom years, Portland’s bidding formed

the basis of all livestock prices throughout the Pacific Northwest.9 One

writer called the Portland stockyards “the largest and most heavily used sta-

bles in the Northwest.”10 The national decline in use of central stockyards

for meat purchases struck Portland in 1966 when Swift & Company closed

its operations.11 The stockyards remained open for a time but suffered rap-

idly declining receipts.

The Portland market faced a threat from a garbage company after

closing. Oregon Waste Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of Waste Management of

North America, Inc., the world’s largest trash company, purchased the


This aerial view taken in 1959 of the Portland Stockyards on North Portland Road shows thelargest livestock market on the Pacific Coast. Photo-Art Commercial Studio, Courtesy OregonHistorical Society.


forty-seven-acre site in February 1989 from the then-owners of the

Portland stockyards, Canal Capital Corporation of New York City. Plans

called for the construction of a large regional waste transfer station on the

stockyards site.12 The waste management company eventually sold the land.

The City of Portland Landmarks Commission in 1995 voted unani-

mously not to oppose the demolition of the seventy-eight-year-old, three-

hundred-square-foot Georgian revival exchange building. By that time,

however, S. F. Properties had purchased the last forty acres of the Portland

stockyards located near Interstate 5 and redeveloped the site into a $50

million industrial park.13 The Kenton Action Plan, a neighborhood activist

group, tried to save the exchange building, even hoping to move it to a

nearby golf course as a clubhouse, but prohibitive costs doomed the efforts.

The building was demolished in 1998. The Red Steer Restaurant, as the

café was then called, had closed the year before. “It was very sad to see [the

exchange building] come tumbling down,” commented one observer.14

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

The lure of gold and a superior harbor fueled the rapid rise of San Francisco

as an “instant city” in 1849, even though an earlier brisk Spanish cattle trade

had flourished there. New England ship captains stopped at sleepy mission

towns along the California coast to trade with Spanish ranchers for

cowhides and tallow. Jose Antonio Sanchez, who obtained his grant of land

from Mexico in 1827, grazed hundreds of cattle on his hacienda that he

called Rancho Buri Buri. That ranch later became the site of the city of

South San Francisco.15 In 1853 Charles Lux purchased a 1,500-acre ranch

from Sanchez’s son for $10,000. Lux and a partner named Henry Miller

raised cattle, constructed barns, and also built cattle pens.16

Eventually the Chicago Swift meat packing interests entered the

northern California ranching country. Some industry historians believe that

Swift wanted to establish a West Coast unit in San Francisco, but a strong

137LATER STOCKYARDS


organization of the city’s butchers kept that company out.17 Swift selected

a site south of San Francisco. In 1889 Swift sent Peter E. Iler, who earlier

had helped establish stockyards in Omaha, to direct the construction. Iler

visited the ranch belonging to Miller and Lux and made a deal. Iler paid

$750,000 for the land, but he persuaded Miller and Lux to invest in the

project as well. Iler and his associates created two joint stock companies:

South San Francisco Land and Improvement Company to sell both indus-

trial and residential sites and the Western Meat Company as a stockyards

and meat-packing plant.18

Iler brought out carriage loads of prospective buyers from San Francisco

to view the residential and industrial sites. In 1892, he donated land for a

right-of-way for a railroad, and, as a result, the Southern Pacific Company

laid track and constructed a station. Henry Miller wanted to name a nearby


Gustavus Franklin Swift—Born in 1839 in

Massachusetts, from agefourteen Swift worked for anolder brother, a butcher whohad his own business in the

Boston area. Later, Gus peddled meat from house tohouse and built up his own

clientele. He shocked hispartner, J. A. Hathaway,

when he slaughtered meat inChicago and shipped it by

rail to Boston in the winter-time. Swift moved to Chicago

in 1875 and establishedSwift and Company, eventu-ally pioneering the shippingof iced railroad cars carrying

dressed meat. He led theway in the development of

refrigerated cars. Swift diedin 1903. Photo courtesy

Kentucky Fair & ExpositionCenter.


community Baden after his birthplace in Germany. Swift, however, accus-

tomed to stockyards towns adjacent to well-established cities being called

South Chicago, South Omaha, South St. Paul, or even North Fort Worth,

instead chose the name South San Francisco.19

Swift and his interests developed a water system and opened a rock

quarry to obtain gravel for city streets. The earliest thoroughfares consisted

of dusty trails or muddy bogs leading to settlers’ homes constructed in open

fields. The new town developed fairly rapidly; by 1892 a post office, a

public school, a newspaper, a fire company, a court and jail, and a board of

trade existed. Citizens welcomed Swift’s gravel operation to improve their

streets, as well as the jobs created by his meat packing plant.

The nationwide panic of 1893 slowed land sales, but the project con-

tinued. The next year, Western Meat Company with its stockyards opened.

139LATER STOCKYARDS

Gustavus Franklin Swift,Jr.—Born in 1881 after hisfather moved to Chicago,Gustavus Franklin Swift, Jr.,took over as president andchairman of the board ofSwift and Company after hisfather’s death. Photo courtesyKentucky Fair & ExpositionCenter.


Other meat packers eventually moved into the area as well as other industries,

including a pottery works, a paint factory, and even a steel manufacturing

plant. Promoters incorporated the city in 1908.20

After a late reorganization, the South San Francisco Union Stock Yards

Company emerged as a public livestock market on March 2, 1927, and the

yards expanded two years later. Total livestock receipts for 1929 included

cattle, 72,580; calves, 6,070; hogs, 259,029; sheep, 237, 212; and horses and

mules, 3.21 Four commission firms operated on the market at that time.

By 1938, thirty-five industrial plants employed workers in South San

Francisco, but only four dealt with meat packing. Population of the still-

independent community at that time totaled only about seven thousand.22

The South San Francisco Union Stockyards closed in 1959.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma City began in April 1889, with a wild land rush that brought

almost ten thousand settlers overnight and eventually half a dozen railroads.

In 1907, Oklahoma became a state. Shortly after the turn of the twentieth

century, chamber of commerce officials in Oklahoma City recognized that


Located on the Pacific Coast and featuring both open and covered pens adjacent to the WesternMeat Company plant, the South San Francisco Stockyards Company closed in 1959. Photo cour-tesy South San Francisco Public Library, Local History Collection.


Oklahoma farmers were shipping their hogs south to Fort Worth for pro-

cessing. Officials thought cattle and hogs could be slaughtered locally

instead.23

Sidney Brock, president of the local chamber of commerce, sent a letter

to several northern and eastern meat-packing companies extolling the

advantages of Oklahoma City. He piqued the interest of Nelson Morris’

company. When Executive Vice President Thomas E. Wilson arrived in

town a few weeks later, Brock and his friends commandeered the only

automobile in Oklahoma City to drive the important meat packer around.

(Later Wilson would open his own business and become a Big Five meat

packer himself.24) The delegation was frequently forced to push the bor-

rowed car out of sand pits and deep ruts as they toured possible sites for a

packing plant. They probably thought Wilson would never return to

Oklahoma City.

Actually, Wilson (and thus Morris) was interested, but he listed his

conditions for building a plant: Morris and Company would get a $300,000

bonus as an inducement; the city would exempt the stockyards area from

taxes for five years; the city would extend sewer and streetcar lines to the

plant; a railroad belt line would be built to connect with four trunk lines

already in existence; Wilson wanted a block of land southwest of the down-

town business district adjacent to the Canadian River.25

Oklahoma City Chamber officials agreed to all terms. George Stone,

the vice president of the Chamber, used $25,000 of his own money to pur-

chase options on 575 acres of the land Wilson wanted. Other citizens

formed a committee to raise the $300,000 bonus. Amid periodic cheering,

the men pledged $427,000 in one-and-one-half hours.26

A few months after Thomas Wilson’s visit, a representative of another

major packer, Schwarzchild and Sulzberger, offered to build a plant but

wanted the same concessions the city had granted Wilson. In addition, the

representative wanted a fire station near the site and 350,000 gallons of

141LATER STOCKYARDS


free water daily for five years. Excited at the prospect of becoming a major

livestock marketing center, city officials readily agreed.

Edward Morris, who inherited his father’s packing interests, opened his

Oklahoma City plant on October 3, 1910, and also originated an adjacent

stockyards, making livestock marketing Oklahoma City’s first major indus-

try. Big crowds and great hoopla converged on Packingtown. Speeches and

cheers from city leaders dedicated the facilities located on a 120-acre site

two miles west of downtown.


Edward Morris, one of thesons of Nelson Morris, took

over his father’s businessinterests after his father

died. When federal legisla-tion prevented meat packers

from owning stockyards,most packers sold theirstockyards. The Morris

brothers chose the oppositeroute and divested them-

selves of their meat-packingoperations and kept their

interests in stockyards thatthey owned in several

markets. They sold theirpacking facilities to Armourand Company. Photo courtesy

Kentucky Fair & ExpositionCenter.


“I’m glad to see you folks and I hope our shops over here will please

you,” Morris told the fifteen thousand spectators.27 Morris, following the

practice of other meat packers, had invested in more than just stockyards

and meat packing; he was selling town lots for $150 to $300 each, opening

a stockyards and a bank, and guaranteeing to connect them to the rest of the

city by electric streetcar. The soon-booming yards provided four thousand

jobs in a city that had grown to 60,000 people and influenced the choice of

Oklahoma City as the state capital.28

Morris organized the Oklahoma National Stock Yards Company

adjacent to the packing plants. Soon seventeen commission firms began

operating and created a livestock exchange with other market interests.

The S & S Company subscribed to part of the stockyards stock.29

Later Morris sold all meat-packing interests to Armour. The former

Morris official who had traveled to Oklahoma City, Thomas Wilson, went

into business for himself, purchasing the older S & S facility.30

The stockyards was centrally located where U.S. 66 and U.S. 77 crossed

(much later becoming the intersection for highways I-40, I-35, and I-44).

Because railroad transportation began to decline and truck marketing to

increase, this crossroads location proved fortuitous for Oklahoma City. By

1935 ninety-two percent of all cattle receipts came by truck, more than at

any other major market.31

By 1950, Oklahoma City emerged as a major market for stocker and

feeder cattle. Rather than modernize a fifty-year-old building, Armour closed

its packing plant in 1960. Wilson, however, tore down its original facility in

1963 and replaced it with a modern one. Yet, in 1979, Wilson discontinued

cattle slaughter. The company ended its hog slaughter in 1981.32

Consistent with changes on the other major markets, auctions replaced

or augmented private treaty sales by 1961. At first they occurred one day a

week on Thursdays, but later officials expanded the schedule; a hog auction

began in 1973.

143LATER STOCKYARDS


Sales of facilities and market reorganizations occurred in Oklahoma

City as elsewhere. A Delaware-chartered corporation took over operations

as Oklahoma National Stockyards in 1968. The corporation made numerous

changes, installing metal panels in pens, rather than wood, and building a

new dock and a new loading chute.33

Because Oklahoma City’s stockyards stand on the dividing line

between a cow-calf area to the east and south and stocker-feeder wheat and

grain country to the west, receipts did not decline as rapidly as at other

major terminal markets. Its central location put the yards within fairly

easy driving distance for producers from the surrounding area. In addi-

tion, Oklahoma, by the 1970s, had become the nation’s third-largest calf-

producing state and was bounded by the two states that ranked first and

second—Texas and Missouri. Thus, as other markets dwindled appreciably,

Oklahoma received around one million animals yearly and ranked number

one in cattle sales in 1977. By 1980, seventy percent of Oklahoma’s cash

farm income came from livestock, mostly cattle, rather than agricultural

crops. Commercial feedlots developed as well.34

A retired P&S Administration official, discussing the reasons

Oklahoma City did not decline as rapidly as other markets, commented in

the 1980s, “Oklahoma City brought in some college boys with training.”

Sometimes other yards resented college-educated workers, he explained,

making it so rough they would not stay. “They thought a man ought to shake

hay on the yards twenty years before he could trade. Oklahoma innovated.”35

Unfortunately, a fire sparked by an electrical short destroyed the

Spanish-colonial livestock exchange building in June 1980. The market,

nevertheless, remained number one in cattle receipts in the early 1980s,

averaging a million animals per year.36

Rob Fisher served as the fifth president of the Oklahoma City

Stockyards, taking it into the twenty-first century as the nation’s largest

stocker-feeder cattle market. Nine commission firms still operated, but the



sales were ninety-nine percent auction. Receipts held at approximately

500,000 animals per year.37 Future plans called for efforts to promote

“Stockyards City” as a place for restaurants, music, and tourists as well as

cattle.38

OGDEN, UTAH

Ogden’s first white settler and first livestock trader, Miles Goodyear, chose

the general location for what would become a livestock marketing center in

Utah.39 Of more importance, however, was the arrival of the first transcon-

tinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The line passed just north of Ogden,

making the community the logical shipping point for livestock going

either east or west. Soon commission agents opened offices, and eventually

businessmen constructed large packinghouses. The first U.S. Cattlemen’s

Congress met April 29, 1892, in Ogden.40

145LATER STOCKYARDS

The Livestock Exchange Building constructed soon after the Oklahoma City Stockyards openedin 1910 burned in 1980 because of an electrical short. Photo courtesy Archives and ManuscriptsDivision of the Oklahoma Historical Society.


Other railroads besides the Central Pacific and Union Pacific converged

in Ogden. By 1916, the Southern Pacific Railroad shops provided the single

greatest industry of the city, complementing the stockyards and pens.

Eventually seven railroads converged there, and the area became a grain

center as well.41

Livestock officials—most of them officers of the Ogden Packing and

Provision Company—filed to incorporate a new stockyards on July 29,

1916, as the Ogden Union Stockyards Company, capitalized at $250,000.

Among the incorporators were W. H. Wattis, Fred J. Klesel, S. S. Jensen,

James Pingree, Lars Hansen, and Lester P. Whitlock. The new stockyards

opened for business April 1, 1917.42

The modern concrete-floored stockyards, located on seventy acres west

of the Weber River, employed 100 men, had the capacity to hold 300 rail-

car loads of livestock, including seventy-five of cattle, seventy-five hogs, and

seventy-five each sheep and horses. Ogden provided a logical center of

trade for the livestock ranges of Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and


Nestled in the valley west of the Wasatch Mountains, the Ogden stockyards benefited greatlyfrom its transcontinental railroad connections. The wooden walkways above the pens were popular,as this photograph shows. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved.


Utah.43 Stockyards owners intended Ogden to become the “packing house

and livestock center of the West,” the largest west of Omaha.44

As at most stockyards centers, owners promoted a livestock show.

Called the Ogden Livestock Show, the trade fair began in 1918 and, in the

early days, sometimes attracted three thousand entries. Later officials

changed the name to Golden Spike National Livestock Show. In 1926, they

constructed a Golden Spike Coliseum at a cost of $100, 000.45

By 1922, Ogden had become one of the larger western markets for

cattle, hogs, and sheep. The Ogden Packing and Provision Company,

Cudahy Packing Company, and several others sent buyers to the Ogden

yards. Expansion of the stockyards in 1930 brought the daily capacity to

200 carloads of cattle, 250 of sheep, 150 of hogs, and 100 truckloads of all

types of livestock. The yards at that time covered seventy-five acres, thirty

of which held pens, barns, railroad switches, etc. The remaining land held

an exchange building, parking, weigh scales, etc. Ogden ranked as one of

the top ten stockyards of the nation during these years.46

The Ogden yards showed receipts in 1949 of $87 million, and in 1954

completed a yearlong modernization and expansion of its facilities, making

the stockyards the largest west of Denver. The market ranked second in the

nation in sheep and lambs for several years in the 1950s. Overall receipts for

1953 totaled: cattle and calves, 409,501; hogs, 315,000; sheep and lambs,

1,378,013; and horses, 4,826.47

Sales began dwindling by the 1960s to $40 million to $45 million

each year because livestock marketing gradually changed. Packers began

buying directly from individual stockmen, which cut stockyards receipts

drastically. Even so, the local industry still employed seven hundred people

in the mid-1960s.48

Commission agents closed operations on December 18, 1967, and the

Weber Livestock Auction Company was formed to conduct Tuesday-only

auctions. Eventually the Denver Union Corporation bought out the Ogden

147LATER STOCKYARDS


stockyards. One of the largest packers, Swift, closed its plant November 14,

1970, and other major packers shut down in the 1970s as well. The Ogden

livestock yards officially closed January 31, 1971, but local interests leased the

facilities and continued to hold limited sales into the 1980s. Ogden served as

the livestock capital of the Intermountain West for over a century.49

HOUSTON, TEXAS

Ironically, Houston’s Port City Stockyards did not arrive on the stockyards

scene until well into the twentieth century, even though since the time of

Spanish occupation South Texas had produced millions of Texas longhorn

cattle. Trail drives began in South Texas. As late as 1900, several of the

Gulf Coast counties each produced 40,000 head per year. Railroad compa-

nies built stock pens near their switching facilities in the heart of Houston

and other area communities to accommodate South Texas producers who

gathered herds for shipment north. In those early days several large live-

stock producers shipped their animals by rail to Kansas City or Fort Worth.

In 1931, J. W. Sartwelle decided to change things to benefit his hometown

and his own interests. Sartwelle practiced law in Houston, but he also raised

cattle. Earlier, while general manager of a San Antonio ranch, he had

imported cattle from India, so he organized and became the first secretary

of the new American Brahman Breeders Association. While appraising

some Houston land, he met Ed Druett, who wanted to sell his Gulf Coast

Packing Company, southeast of Houston. The Houston Belt and Terminal

Railroad had constructed some holding pens near Druett’s plant for use as

feed, water, and rest facilities.

When Sartwelle saw the land, he envisioned a terminal railroad market

in Houston similar to the large Kansas City and Fort Worth stockyards. He

knew that local livestock raisers would be encouraged to increase their pro-

duction if a dependable local market existed and was served by the railroads

already there. Therefore, Sartwelle convinced some of the larger ranchers



to invest in a large stockyards company, and he agreed to manage the new

market the first year to spur its growth.50

Similar to what happened 1887–90 in Fort Worth, Houston area

investors organized two locally owned corporations at the same time: the

Port City Stock Yards Company and the Port City Packing Company.

Sartwelle served as president and general manager of both.51

Large cattle producers agreed to sell at Houston if the price was as good

as at the northern markets. If not, Sartwelle promised that they could forward

the cattle north with no charge for their stopover in Houston.52 When the

new stockyards opened March 16, 1931, it ranked thirty-seventh out of

thirty-seven large terminal markets. In the beginning the stockyards had no

local market news service and relied on a daily telegram from the Fort

Worth stockyards for information on prices. Finally, in 1936, Houston

owners convinced the federal Livestock Market News Service to station a

man at their yards. During the first ten years Sartwelle and his friends on

the board poured nearly all the profits back into expanding and improving

the facilities. They installed one of the first electric scales in the Southwest

in 1938 and constructed a red brick masonry exchange building the follow-

ing year.

The Port City Stock Yards did not hesitate to try new avenues of live-

stock sales. Taking advantage of the Houston ship channel as early as 1937,

they exported animals by ship. In 1948, they began exporting animals by

air to Guatemala City and other places. In fact, they flew the largest air

shipment of livestock ever attempted at that time, 291 head of cattle,

Brahman bulls, quarter horses, mules, sheep, and goats. The government of

Guatemala purchased the animals as part of a long-range livestock

improvement program. Working with Skytrain Airlines, the Port City

Stockyards handled live cargo on a regular basis. At first the airlines insisted

that every animal be crated individually before loading. The first load con-

sisted of Brahman bulls, mules, and donkeys. In later shipments the loaders

149LATER STOCKYARDS


found it easier to put a crate on the plane and walk the animal into it. Later

they simply walked animals into a stall on the airplane. By 1955, the Port

City Stock Yards handled twenty percent of all cattle exported from the

United States.53

Sample years of cattle receipts include: 1938, 201, 257; 1942, 430,144;

1948, 332,924; 1952, 235,588; and 1955, 345,847. Because sheep and hog

production was less important in the Houston area, the Port City Stock

Yards received mostly cattle and calves and, by 1940–55, ranked among

the top ten markets in the nation in calf receipts.54 Four packing plants

had built facilities adjacent to the yards by 1955, but thirty-four different

companies and sixty-four meat dealers that year bought cattle and hogs

for slaughter.55

Sartwelle did not give up his job after one year after all, but remained

active as manager until 1946 when his son, J. D. Sartwelle became executive


This aerial view of the Port City Stock Yards in Houston was taken in 1939. Photo courtesy Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Sartwelle, Jr., Sealy, Texas.


vice president and general manager of the Port City Stock Yards. The elder

Sartwelle remained as president and also headed the Houston Fat Stock

Show for sixteen years, helping shape it into one of the nation’s best.56

The Port City Stock Yards Company moved out of the city of Houston

on June 1, 1968, to operate with an auction format at Sealy, some fifty miles

west on Interstate 10. Continuing to manage the operations in the twenty-

first century is J. D. Sartwelle, Jr.57

JOPLIN, MISSOURI

Fifty-two businessmen in Joplin, Missouri, took a bold and courageous step

during the early 1930s. They pooled their money and built a stockyards to

create more economic activity for their community. Located in western

Missouri, Joplin could draw livestock from farmers and producers in a four-

state area, the businessmen suggested. Oklahoma and Kansas to the west

had a great deal of range country with cattle grazing. The rest of Missouri

to the east and Arkansas to the south represented a considerable dairy

region. Thus, from a one-hundred-square-mile area, Joplin could count on

fairly steady livestock receipts year round. As per the men’s predictions, on

the first full day of business, August 31, 1931, truckers brought in livestock

from all of these states.58

First president of the Joplin Stock Yards was L. P. Buchanan, a retired

mine operator who had led the local campaign to raise the money for the

yards. Other board members included J. C. Finke, president of Joplin

Furniture Company; Cowgill C. Blair, manager of Joplin Globe Publishing

Company; James E. Harsh, vice president and general manager of the

Empire District Electric Company; and W. H. Landreth, head of Landreth

Machinery Company.59

These board members were not primarily cattlemen. Could they

make it work? They hired Harve R. Patterson, a well-known stockman

and stockyards operator, to supervise construction of the yards and run the

151LATER STOCKYARDS


operation after it opened. The businessmen originally capitalized the

yards at $100,000, but by the time their facilities opened, their outlay

reached $250,000.60

Located on an eighty-acre tract in the northeast outskirts of Joplin at

Turkey Creek, the yards featured hog, sheep, calf, and mule divisions

under roof, pens of crown-pointed concrete, and roofed holdover pens. In

addition, the Joplin yards included a livestock exchange building, a grain

mill, and a lunchroom.61

Although the builders planned the facility mainly for smaller truckload

lots, the Missouri Pacific Railroad’s switching facilities made the stockyards

available to five other rail lines as well. The businessmen located their new

facility on the U.S. Highway 66, running east to west, and U.S. 71, running

north to south. Because they assumed that farmers might bring their fami-

lies with them when they brought a pick-up load of livestock to market,

stockyards planners laid out a park with picnic tables, benches, and grills

located in some woods near the yards.62

When the facility opened, it immediately became the third largest

livestock market in Missouri and had a capacity of 9,000 animals of all

types. Soon other businesses such as hide yards, a wool plant, lumberyard,

tractor sales, and feed companies also located in the area, as well as pack-

ing companies and a Stockyards Café. The businessmen’s decision to start

the Joplin stockyards proved a wise one, for in the first five years of oper-

ation the market handled over a million animals and paid over $15 million

to area farmers, even during the midst of the Great Depression.63 Because

of Joplin’s proximity to many dairy cattle, a weekly dairy auction became a

special feature of the market.

When company president Buchanan died in 1939, George N. Spiva

took over management. The original stockholders sold out in 1945 to three

men who formed a partnership to purchase the yards—Allan McReynolds,

a Carthage, Missouri, attorney and former state senator; his son Allan



McReynolds, Jr., a registered shorthorn cattle breeder; and Hal R.

Patterson, general livestock agent of the Frisco Railroad. These three men

became the new officers. Their gross sales for 1946 totaled $10,385,550;

they received 72,658 cattle, 43,605 calves, 63,581 hogs, 25,859 sheep, and

2,933 horses and mules.64

The Joplin market, in the heart of Midwest farm country, encouraged

and sponsored 4-H and Future Farmers of America livestock shows for

rural youth for many years.65

Joplin closed its outdated facility, built new yards fifteen miles away,

and moved operations to Carthage in July 1995. As Joplin Regional

Stockyards, the cattle auction and video market handled 498,000 animals

in 2001, making it the nation’s second largest auction market.66

153LATER STOCKYARDS

Joplin businessmen began the stockyards in their community during the 1930s Depression tohelp boost the local economy. Over seven decades later, the market was still in operation but in anew facility fifteen miles away from the original site. Photo courtesy Midwest Photo Agency for theJoplin Globe Publishing Company.


While twenty-four or so major markets dominated livestock sales for a cen-

tury, smaller yards often played a vital role too. Many cities built stock pens

and thus, under a broad definition—stockyards—near their rail lines or oper-

ated more official stockyards companies for various periods of time. Large

cities like Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Evansville, Memphis,

Atlanta, Nashville, and Tulsa needed regular and substantial livestock ship-

ments to feed their inhabitants. They often ranked as important markets, but

their names are not closely associated with livestock marketing. To the north,

Toronto became an important livestock marketing center for eastern Canada.

Livestock interests in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, developed packing and

stockyards facilities in the 1870s. Promoters in Ottumwa, Iowa, built a

stockyard in 1877 when John Morrell and Company moved there from

Chicago. Businessmen in Burlington, Iowa, built extensive yards as early as

1867 and made additions and improvements in later years.

The South St. Paul Union Stock Yards Company built a sales yard at

West Fargo, North Dakota, in 1935. The stockyards there received nearly

800,000 animals of all types in 1954 and welcomed over one million by 1964.

The West Fargo market, once owned by United Stockyards, was still open

and being operated by Central Livestock as the twenty-first century began.

Dale Wilder persuaded the South St. Paul Union Stock Yards to

sponsor a public market at Billings, Montana, the Billings Union Stock Yards,

C H A P T E R T E N

OTHERSTOCKYARDS


which opened September 20, 1940. Wilder served as manager until 1957.

When it opened, the yards had three commission companies and several

packer buyers and order buyers.1 Billings remained active as the twenty-first

century began.

After the Chicago yards closed in 1971, Joliet, Illinois, assumed much

of the state’s livestock trade. Joliet’s livestock facilities closed in 1989.2

Late in the nineteenth century the city of Los Angeles became the

center of California and southwestern meat packing because it was near a

shipping point and was accessible to the large cattle and sheep ranges of the

Southwest. Cudahy opened a packing plant there in 1892.

Stockyards of California, other than South San Francisco and Los

Angeles, started in the 1920s. By that time slaughterers had been buying

direct for seventy years and were not inclined to change just because stock-

yards owners wanted them to do so. Stockton, California, nevertheless

became an important secondary market. In the 1950s, Stockton ranked as

the fifth market in volume receipts in the West, supplying meat for the

Greater San Francisco area and drawing livestock from farms in northern

and North Central California.3 In 1982, it was one of eleven stockyards

owned by United Stockyards Corporation, but in 1987 the company sold

the facility.

The top five ranking stockyards in the West in the late 1950s in

order were Portland, Los Angeles, South San Francisco, Spokane, and

Stockton.4 As the second half of the twentieth century began, producers

were marketing their cattle directly in feedlots, so small farmers in southern

California had no reason to sell them in Los Angeles as they had previously.

The Los Angeles market closed in the early 1960s.5

In the East, Jersey City, New Jersey, directly west across the Hudson

River from New York City, supplied meat to the big city through its Jersey

City Stock Yards Company, located at the foot of Sixth Street in the early

twentieth century. Generally, animals crossed the Hudson River to Jersey



City at that time by barge, but during a February 1946 tugboat strike, trucks

carrying livestock added additional traffic to the Holland Tunnel.6

The city of Pittsburgh developed at the junction of the Allegheny and

Monongahela rivers as the two waterways united to form the Ohio River.

An island called Herr’s Island lies in the Allegheny River about two miles

north of its junction with the Monongahela. There the Pittsburgh Provision

Company and Joint Stockyards operated. Beginning in 1903 the

Pennsylvania Railroad operated the stockyards as a subsidiary, owning it in

conjunction with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad until 1933 when it

bought complete control. Livestock trains from Chicago to the eastern

markets used the stockyards on Herr’s Island as a feed and rest stop. The

last train arrived in August 1966, and the packing plants closed earlier that

same year.7

The century-long era of stockyards has come to an end. Cattle, hogs,

sheep, horses, and mules no longer are marketed exclusively through large

157OTHER STOCKYARDS

Located at the foot of Sixth Street, the McPherson Stockyards in Jersey City, later the Jersey CityStockyards Company, provided meat to New York City across the Hudson River. ca. 1892. Photocourtesy Jersey City Public Library.


facilities located strategically at junctions of railroad lines nor adjacent to

six-story (or taller) meat slaughtering plants. The great livestock marketing

boom in America, sparked by the triangular partnership between railroads,

meat packers, and stockyards, survived for over a century.

The stockyards era served its purpose by providing a central market-

place for the sale of the nation’s livestock. The development of modern

methods of slaughtering animals and freezing meat, as well as better trans-

portation and communication technology caused the abandonment of the

century-old system. As meat suppliers march into the twenty-first century

with packaged beef, prepared chicken filets, and select cuts of the “other

white meat,” they no longer need the big stockyards. With the exception of

a few scattered yards, those well-loved livestock hotels no longer house any

guests.



Appendix 1 TA B LE IBig Five Proportion of Interstate Slaughter, 1916

Percent of U.S. Big Five Share ofStockyard Interstate Slaughter Interstate SlaughterTerminal Market Hogs Sheep Cattle Hogs Sheep Cattle

Chicago 18.4 28.5 24.5 67.3 96.5 87.1

Kansas City 7.6 10.6 14.7 98.6 99.8 99.6

Omaha 5.7 15.9 10.2 100.0 100.0 100.0

St. Louis 7.1 9.8 8.7 64.2 97.8 89.0

New York City 1.4 8.4 5.2 — 59.9 97.7

St. Joseph 5.0 5.0 3.9 99.8 100.0 99.4

Fort Worth 2.1 1.4 4.6 100.0 100.0 100.0

St. Paul 3.8 1.2 2.9 93.4 99.9 100.0

Sioux City 3.0 1.7 2.6 90.0 95.0 95.0

Oklahoma City 1.7 0.6 2.2 100.0 100.0 100.0

Denver 0.9 0.9 0.7 100.0 100.0 100.0

Wichita 1.3 — 0.8 50.2 87.4 77.8

Totals 58.0 78.5 81.0 81.0 94.3 94.4

Totals will not be 100 percent because other meat packers besides the Big Five were operating onthese markets.Source: Federal Trade Commission, Meat Packing Industry, Part I, pp. 121-22, as cited in RobertAduddell and Louis P. Cain. “Location and Collusion in the Meat Packing Industry,” in Louis P.Cain and Paul J. Uselding, editors, Business Enterprise and Economic Change (Kent, OH: KentState University Press, 1973), p. 107.



161APPENDIX

CHICAGO Armour

Armour

(Hammond)

Cudahy

(Headquarters only)

Morris

Swift

Wilson

KANSAS CITY Armour

Cudahy

Morris

Swift

Wilson

OMAHA Armour

Cudahy

Swift

ST. LOUIS Armour

Morris

Swift

TA B LE IIBig Five Representation in Major Stockyards, 1917

ST. JOSEPH Armour

(Hammond)

Morris

Swift

FORT WORTH Armour

Swift

ST. PAUL Armour

Morris

Swift

SIOUX CITY Armour

Cudahy

Swift

OKLAHOMA CITY Morris

Wilson

DENVER Armour

Swift

Source: Federal Trade Commission, Meat Packing Industry, Part II, pp. 52-55, as cited in RobertAduddell and Louis P. Cain, ibid.



Appendix 2 CO M PA R AT I V E LI V E S T O C K R E C E I P T S

Salable Receipts at Leading Markets in Cattle, Calves, Hogs and Sheep

1904 1921* 1934 1944 1954 1964 1974

Billings 113,239 369,877 358,826Chicago 15,270,060 3,539,558 12,996,166 10,701,059 5,009,803Cincinnati 1,493,410 453,974 1,897,303 1,404,634 1,064,133 863,047 178,069Denver 946,606 481,502 4,597,136 4,461,585Fort Worth 1,156,772 983,802 2,168,208 5,277,496 1,844,793 705,382 269,992Indianapolis 2,033,426 483,097 2,704,280 3,328,402 2,931,540 2,034,074 685,725Jersey City 843,928 2,714,849 276,315Kansas City 5,394,740 2,469,442 5,916,874 6,119,258 2,253,368 2,094,812 1,085,240 Lancaster 205,297 457,537 289,408Louisville 246,003 756,047 956,274 833,804 724,686 155,935Milwaukee 438,720 1,446,565 894,856 556,638 359,121Ogden 2,673,035 1,026,999 Oklahoma City 315,113 1,151,638 2,062,765 1,152,036 989,846 1,161,841Omaha 4,998,184 1,434,576 7,063,539 7,689,358 4,908,338 5,178,319 2,581,841 Peoria 1,148,413 1,173,948 1,214,543 1,086,474 2,077,100Pittsburgh 745,100 2,290,575Portland 119,911 578,334 528,715 379,849 279,299St. Joseph 3,039,087 558,040 3,542,767 3,620,316 2,203,629 2,359,963 1,600,292St. Louis 3,716,924 1,077,260 5,509,408 6,026,457 3,778,070 3,143,537 1,921,588San Antonio 151,050 1,126,915 763,330 849,976Sioux City 1,472,934 620,373 4,666,514 5,179,618 3,528,640 3,800,987 3,103,163Sioux Falls 744,917 1,324,198 1,871,127 2,422,165 South San Francisco 559,550 556,691South Saint Paul 984,826 5,808,852 6,829,309 4,666,037 4,083,068 3,192,094West Fargo 790,499 1,092,633 747,314Wichita 284,815 1,112,081 1,139,613 684,794 685,647 425,251 *Cattle and calves only


163APPENDIX

1944 1954 1964 1974

369,877 358,82610,701,059 5,009,8031,404,634 1,064,133 863,047 178,0694,461,5855,277,496 1,844,793 705,382 269,9923,328,402 2,931,540 2,034,074 685,725

276,3156,119,258 2,253,368 2,094,812 1,085,240

457,537 289,408956,274 833,804 724,686 155,935

894,856 556,638 359,1211,026,999 2,062,765 1,152,036 989,846 1,161,8417,689,358 4,908,338 5,178,319 2,581,841 1,173,948 1,214,543 1,086,474 2,077,100

528,715 379,849 279,2993,620,316 2,203,629 2,359,963 1,600,2926,026,457 3,778,070 3,143,537 1,921,5881,126,915 763,330 849,9765,179,618 3,528,640 3,800,987 3,103,163

1,324,198 1,871,127 2,422,165 556,691

6,829,309 4,666,037 4,083,068 3,192,094790,499 1,092,633 747,314

1,139,613 684,794 685,647 425,251

i No numbers cited should not imply that no livestock arrived. Some figures were unavailable. For 1904, Proceedings of the EighthAnnual Convention of the National Live Stock Association, Denver, Colorado ( January 10-13, 1905), pp. 370-379 in Library, Amon CarterMuseum, Fort Worth, Texas; for 1921, Rudolph Alexander Clemen, The American Livestock and Beef Industry (New York: The RonaldPress Co., 1923; reprint: New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1966), pp. 256-257; for 1934-1974, United States Department ofAgriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, Livestock, Poultry, Grain and Seed Division, Salable Receipts at Public Stockyards,1924-1980, material mailed to author from Jim Clark, program assistant, Livestock Market News Branch, 1981.



M A J O R S T O C K YA R D S D U R I N G A C E N T U RY O F P R O M I N E N C E

1860s–1960s


Lloyd Lyman deserves my first thanks. Several years ago, while he was the

director of Texas A&M University Press, he suggested that I begin a book

that would identify the major stockyards and explain their common story.

Unfortunately, I became sidetracked by other projects and never got back to

him with a manuscript before he retired. This was always the research on

the back burner, pursued for years only when the conventions of the

Western History Association carried me to many of the stockyards cities.

My thanks go to the numerous librarians in those cities who, in some

instances, before computers made searches easier, pulled old manila folders

with clippings, pamphlets, and typewritten articles about “their” stockyards.

I offer my apologies to all those librarians for not writing down their names.

In the 1980s, I corresponded with Catherine T. Eagle, then reference

librarian at the Colorado Historical Society, and Fran Zedney, librarian,

nonfiction department, Weber County Library, Ogden, Utah. More recently,

Linda Bailey, reference librarian of the Cincinnati Historical Society

Library, and Judy R. Green, research associate for the Oregon Historical

Society, graciously sent me information on Cincinnati and Portland. In

addition, Michelle Ranck, a reporter for Lancaster Farming, mailed me her

series of articles on the Lancaster market.

I also want to thank L. Van Kuhl, who served as president of the

American Stockyards Association in the mid-1980s. He graciously wrote

an introduction to my book, Livestock Legacy: The Fort Worth Stockyards,

1887–1987, and also offered to ask owners of member stockyards to send

him a history of their yards. He forwarded these histories, sometimes

consisting only of a typed page or two. Eula Penry, in 1989 president of

St. Louis National Stockyards, sent me information on the St. Louis

Stockyards.

Acknowledgments


Over twenty years ago, at a WHA convention in San Diego, Harmon

Mothershead critiqued an early paper of mine on the Fort Worth

Stockyards. He later shared with me his own research prior to publication

on the Omaha, St. Joseph, and Kansas City yards, for which I express my

appreciation. I consulted a couple of livestock insiders—Tom Spencer of the

Circle T. Cattle Company in Pueblo, Colorado, and Allan W. McGhee, a

journalist for forty years with livestock newspapers including The Drovers’

Journal, published in Chicago and later Kansas City. They both consented

to read an early copy of the manuscript. Also, thanks to all those executive

directors of the state livestock associations who answered my questionnaire

about the attitudes of their membership toward government regulation.

Their comments really helped.

Finally, Dan Van Ackeren of the Packers and Stockyards

Administration has heard from me periodically during the long years of my

off-and-on research on this project. I met him in the 1980s when he

worked for the regional P&SA offices in Fort Worth, as I was finishing up

my work on the local yards. He told me his dad had worked for the Omaha

Stockyards for five decades. Later when I needed to know which stock-

yards had closed, I found Dan again in the Washington, D.C., P&SA

offices. He continued to update me as more and more of the “grand old

markets” closed. Thanks, Dan.

I suppose that I should be grateful for all those distractions that delayed

my finishing the stockyards manuscript until the beginning of the twenty-

first century. While I am saddened that most of the yards have now

closed, this is a much better time to write the full story of their significant

rise, prosperous operation, and slow, agonizing decline. The history of the

stockyards century can now be covered more accurately.



INTRODUCTION

1. Harmon Mothershead, “The Stockyards, a Hotel for Stock or a HoldingCompany?,” Nebraska History 64 (winter 1983): 518.

2. Harmon Mothershead, letter to author, Nov. 7, 1983.3. Mary Yeager, Competition and Regulation: The Development of Oligopoly in the

Meat Packing Industry, p. xxiv; Mothershead, “The Stockyards,” pp. 512–20.4. Louise Carroll Wade, Chicago’s Pride: The Stockyards, Packingtown, and Environs in

the Nineteenth Century, p. xiii.5. Ralph Hinman, Jr., “Stockyards Functions As Hotel: Room, Meals, Even

Manicure,” clipping in “Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards” folder,Wichita Public Library, Wichita, Kans.

6. Rudolf Alexander Clemen, The American Livestock and Meat Industry, p. 205; JoeM. Reynolds, ed., Saint Louis National Stockyards, National Stock Yards, Illinois: AReview 1873–1938 of the Live Stock Industry, pp. 4, 8.

CHAP TER 1

1. Ed C. Walsh, “The Livestock Hotel,” pamphlet produced for the Fort WorthStockyards, 1938.

2. Jerry Klein, “Peoria’s $80 Million Business Run Like Waterfront Hotel,” PeoriaJournal Star, Nov. 1, 1959, p. 1B, from Peoria Historical Society Collection,Bradley University Library, Peoria, Ill.

3. Mothershead, “The Stockyards,” p. 519.4. Annual Report to Stockholders, 1982, Canal-Randolph Corporation, in author’s

possession; Mothershead, “The Stockyards,” p. 517.5. “Good Selling Service Here,” Joplin News Herald, Aug. 31, 1931, p. 1.6. Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America: A History, p. 13; David Ward, Cities and

Immigrants, p. 121; Selwyn K. Troen and Glen E. Holt, eds., St. Louis, p. 58.7. Robert A. Slayton, Back of the Yards: The Making of a Local Democracy, pp. 232–35.8. Ward, Cities and Immigrants, pp. 117, 52.9. Slayton, Back of the Yards, p. 15.10. Wade, Chicago’s Pride, pp. 229, 374. Wade referred to Upton Sinclair’s muckraking

novel of the meat-packing industry, The Jungle, that depicted filth and dangerousworking conditions in turn-of-the-century Chicago packing plants.

11. Alan M. Kraut, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society,1880–1921, p. 72.

12. Slayton, Back of the Yards, p. 90.13. Jimmy M. Skaggs, Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the United

States 1607–1983, p. 117; Troen and Holt, St. Louis, p. 158.14. Alma Herbst, The Negro in the Slaughtering and Meat-Packing Industry in Chicago,

pp. 28–29.

Notes


15. Ibid., pp. xviii, 112.16. Skaggs, Prime Cut, p. 117; Leslie F. Orear, “The Chicago Stock Yards on the Eve

of the CIO,” (1936) http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/stkyards.html17. William E. Leuchtenberg, the perils of prosperity, 1914–32, pp. 178, 201; Herbst,

The Negro in the Slaughtering and Meat-Packing Industry, p. 50.18. The restaurant is Joe T. Garcia’s, a popular eating place in the tourist area of the

Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District.19. Tom Spencer, Circle T. Cattle Company, Pueblo, Colorado, telephone interview

with author, Nov. 11, 1995.20. Gary Allen, Fort Worth Stockyards Company, interview with author, Feb. 22,

1982, Fort Worth, Tex.; Leon Ralls, Fort Worth Stockyards Company, interviewwith author, Mar. 29, 1982, Fort Worth, Tex.; see also “Port City Stockyards,” 17-page pamphlet (published in 1956) supplied to author by Port City Stockyards,pp. 6–11; Wade, Chicago’s Pride, p. 188; Jerry Klein, “Meet the Folks at LivestockHotel,” undated clipping courtesy Peoria Historical Society Collection, BradleyUniversity Library, Peoria, Ill.; Klein, “Peoria’s $80 Million Business Run Like aWaterfront Hotel”; and Eva L. Atkinson as cited in Mothershead, “TheStockyards,” p. 517.

21. “Port City Stockyards,” pp. 9, 11.22. Robert Aduddell and Louis Cain, “Location and Collusion in the Meat Packing

Industry,” in Business Enterprise and Economic Change: Essays in Honor of Harold P.Williamson, ed. by Louis P. Cain and Paul J. Uselding, pp. 85–117.

23. Joseph G. McCoy, Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest,pp. 333–34.

CHAP TER 2

1. “The Oldest Stockyards,” The Fort Worth Daily Live Stock Reporter, Jan. 19, 1911,p. 1.

2. Stewart H. Fowler, The Marketing of Livestock and Meat, p. 219; Willard F.Williams and Thomas T. Stout, Economics of the Livestock-Meat Industry, pp. 6–7;Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life inAmerica, 1625–1742, pp. 32–33.

3. Jimmy M. Skaggs, Prime Cut, p. 34; Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, p. 29.4. “County Livestock Center Since Days of the Pioneers,” Lancaster Intelligencer,

Mar. 13, 1959, n. p., clipping from Library of Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.,Lancaster, Penn.

5. Skaggs, Prime Cut, pp. 13–14.6. Gary S. Dunbar, “Colonial Carolina Cowpens,” Agricultural History 35 (1961):

125–30.7. Grady McWhiney, Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South, p. 55.8. Skaggs, Prime Cut, p. 11; Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, p. 193.9. Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, p. 353; Oscar Theodore Barck, Jr., and

Hugh Talmage Lefler, Colonial America, 2nd ed., pp. 341, 371.10. Frederick Jackson Turner, Rise of the New West, 1819–1829, p. 85; Margaret

Walsh, The Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 7; Yeager, Competitionand Regulation, pp. 3–4.



11. Yeager, Competition and Regulation, p. 6, and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The VisibleHand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, p. 24.

12. Harper Leech and John Charles Carroll, Armour and His Times, p. 61.13. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, pp. 23, 89–90, 33; Yeager,

Competition and Regulation, p. 4.14. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 15.15. Ibid., p. 42.16. Yeager, Competition and Regulation, pp. 11–12; Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern

Meat Packing Industry, p. 13.17. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, pp. 57, 67.18. Sue Flanagan, Trailing the Longhorns A Century Later, p. 55.

CHAP TER 3

1. Charles L. Wood, The Kansas Beef Industry, p. 164.2. Gene M. Gressley, Bankers and Cattlemen, pp. 296, 277.3. Chandler, Visible Hand, pp. 1, 6, 11–12.4. George R. Leighton, Five Cities: The Story of Their Youth and Old Age, p. 175.5. Yeager, Competition and Regulation, p. 77; Leighton, Five Cities, pp. 175–76.6. Yeager, Competition and Regulation, pp. 233, 242.7. Aduddell and Cain, “Location and Collusion,” p. 102.8. Ibid., p. 107.9. Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, ed., Who Were the Progressives? p. 49.10. Ibid., pp. 4, 12.11. Elizabeth Sanders, Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State

1877–1917, pp. 159–60; also Gilmore, Who Were the Progressives? pp. 20, 194.12. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, p. vii.13. Lewis Corey, Meat and Man: A Study of Monopoly, Unionism, and Food Policy, p.

74; Theodore Saloutos and John D. Hicks, Agricultural Discontent in the MiddleWest 1900–1939, p. 325; G. O. Virtue, “The Meat Packing Investigation,”Quarterly Journal of Economics 34 (Aug. 1920): 626, 648.

14. U.S. Congress, Food Investigation: A Message from the President of the United StatesTransmitting Summary of Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the MeatPacking Industry, H. Doc. 1297, 65th Cong., 2d session, 1918, p. 3.

15. Ibid., p. 16, 72–75. Also “Stockyards Divorcement Plan Accepted,” Fort WorthDaily Live Stock Reporter, Apr. 13, 1921, p. 1; Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, p. 177;Richard J. Arnould, “Changing Patterns of Concentration in American MeatPacking, 1880–1963,” Business History Review 45 (1971): 19–34.

16. Robert M. Aduddell and Louis P. Cain, “Public Policy Toward ‘The GreatestTrust in the World,’” Business History Review 55 (1981): 224, 234; Chandler,Visible Hand, p. 401.

17. “Licenses Required for Stockyards and Livestock Dealers,” Fort Worth DailyLivestock Reporter, June 24, 1918, p. 1.

18. Virtue, “The Meat Packing Investigation,” p. 680. It was the Sims Bill, H.R.13324, 65th Cong. 3d sess. (1918).

169NOTES


CHAP TER 4

1. Wade Choate, Swappin’ Cattle, p. 116.2. Charles E. Ball, The Finishing Touch: A History of the Cattle Feeders Association and

Cattle Feeding in the Southwest, pp. 47–49; Gressley, Bankers and Cattlemen, p.168.

3. Bertram B. Fowler, Men, Meat and Miracles, p. 128.4. “The Forty-Fourth Annual Convention,” Cattleman 6 (Apr. 1920): 68. Also

“Kleberg Says Placing of Packers and Their Agencies Under Control ofGovernment Will Be Ruinous to Packer, Meat Producer, Consumer,” Fort WorthDaily Live Stock Reporter, Aug. 6, 1919, p. 4.

5. Clemen, American Livestock and Meat Industry, pp. 16–17; also James A. Wilson,“Cattlemen, Packers, and Government: Retreating Individualism on the TexasRange,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 74 (Apr. 1971): 531.

6. The court ruled on June 16, 1932, that Swift and Armour must transfer theirstockyards shares to a trustee who would dispose of their financial interests in allstockyards. Legal delays added several years until all interests such as banks andloan companies, as well as stockyards were sold. Swift v. United States 276 U.S.311 (1928), and United States v. Swift & Co. et al., 286 U.S. 106 (1932).

7. James H. Shideler, Farm Crisis, 1919–1923, p. 155.8. Orville Merton Kile, The Farm BureauThrough Three Decades, p. 92.9. Packers and Stockyards Act, Statutes at Large, vol. 42, chap. 64, pp. 159–69

(1921).10. Ibid., p. 161.11. Skaggs, Prime Cut, p. 55; Sara Wright, “During our 70 years, we’ve ensured fair

trade practices in the industry,” USDA News 50 (Oct. 1991): 7.12. Packers and Stockyards Administration, History of Regional Offices, 70th

Anniversary Responding to the Challenge of Excellence, USDA Packers andStockyards Administration (Sept. 17, 1991), Headquarters, pp. 1–2. In 1927 theagency became a part of the USDA’s (then) Bureau of Animal Industry. In morethan eight decades of its history the P&S Administration has been a division fourtimes, a branch once, and a part of two USDA agencies. Since June 1981, theP&S Administration has been a separate USDA agency; Wright, p. 7.

13. Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U.S. 495 (1922).14. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, Hearings on A Bill

to Amend the Packers and Stockyards Act S. 1089, 68th Cong., 1st sess., 1924, p. 7.15. Ball, Finishing Touch, p. 49.16. Charles O’Donel to Dwight B. Heard, Sept. 24, 1925, as cited in David Remley,

Bell Ranch Cattle Ranching in the Southwest, 1824–1947, p. 243.17. Mary Whatley Clarke, A Century of Cow Business: A History of the Texas and

Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, p. 192.18. Prospectus, United Stockyards Corporation, $4,500,000. Fifteen Years Collateral

Trust 4 1/4 Bonds, Series A, Oct. 1, 1936, p. 3.19. Ball, Finishing Touch, p. 50.20. Nellie Irene Snyder Yost, Call of the Range: The Story of the Nebraska Stock Growers

Association, p. 249.21. Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, pp. 268–69.



22. Ellis W. Hawley, “Herbert Hoover and Economic Stabilization, 1921–1922,” inHerbert Hoover As Secretary of Commerce: Studies in New Era Thought and Practice,ed. by Ellis W. Hawley, pp. 43, 48; Joan Hoff Wilson, “Herbert Hoover’sAgricultural Policies, 1921–1928,” also in Herbert Hoover As Secretary of Commerce,p. 138.

23. Roy Parks to W. L. Pier, Oct. 20, 1954, Texas Beef Council File, PierCorrespondence, Fort Worth Stockyards Company Collection, University ofNorth Texas Archives, Denton.

24. Joe Fohn, “100th anniversary San Antonio Union Stock Yards: still the center ofagribusiness in South Texas,” San Antonio Express News, May 21, 1989, pp. 1K,8K.

25. Michelle Ranck, “Before the Internet There Was the Stockyard,” LancasterFarming, Jan. 20, 2001, p. 36A.

CHAP TER 5

1. Kit Miniclier, “Changing faces: Demise of stockyards reflects new cattle opera-tions in West,” Denver Post, Jan. 7, 1985, p. 4A.

2. Charles E. Ball, The Finishing Touch, p. 83.3. “Competitive Markets Finally Join Hands to Give More Bargaining Power,” The

Fort Worth (Weekly) Livestock Reporter, Sept. 8, 1966, pp. 1, 5.4. Ball, Finishing Touch, pp. 9, 17, 20, 29.5. Ed Uvacek, Jr., “Big Changes in Livestock Feeding, Marketing,” The Drovers

Journal 100th Anniversary Issue, 100 (Dec. 1972): 16.6. Carol Holderby Welsh, “Cattle Market for the World: The Oklahoma National

Stockyards,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 60 (1982): 55.7. Skaggs, Prime Cut, p. 179.8. Ed Uvacek, “The Dynamically Changing Industry,” The Cattleman 51 (Aug.

1964): 41; also U.S. Department of Agriculture, Number of Feedlots by Size Groupsand Number of Fed Cattle Marketed 1962–1964, pp. 2–3; “Texas Feedlot Directory,1969,” The Cattleman 56 (Nov. 1969): 107–14; Raymond A. Dietrich, “The TexasCattle Feeding Industry,” Texas Business Review 43 (Oct. 1969): 193; Ball,Finishing Touch, p. 101.

9. Norman Udevitz, “Stockyards Aid Area Economy,” Denver Post, Nov. 18, 1971, p. 28.10. Dean H. Becker, Financing the Commercial Cattle Feedlot Operation in Kansas By

Commercial Banks, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of theStonier Graduate School of Banking conducted by the American BankersAssociation at Rutgers, pp. 141, ii.

11. Skaggs, Prime Cut, p. 180; Mark Lambert, “Peoria stockyards adapts to changes,”Peoria Journal Star, Sept. 8, 1987, clipping courtesy Peoria Historical SocietyCollection, Bradley University Library, Peoria, Ill.

12. John T. Underwood, “Feeding Continues to Expand,” The Cattleman 56 (Feb.1970): 22.

13. A. V. Krebs, Heading Toward the Last Roundup: The Big Three’s Prime Cut, p. 7.14. Ball, Finishing Touch, p. 39.15. Robert M. Aduddell and Louis P. Cain, “The Consent Decree in the Meat

Packing Industry, 1920–1956,” Business History Review 55 (1981): 259–61,377–78.

171NOTES


16. Ball, Finishing Touch, pp. 93, 99, 149.17. Packers and Stockyards Administration, History of Regional Offices, 70th

Anniversary Responding to the Challenge of Excellence, Sacramento, p. 3. A 1987change added similar bonding to poultry as already existed for livestock. Wright,“During our 70 years, we’ve endured fair trade practices in ‘the industry,’” p. 7.

18. “Regulations and Statements of General Policy Issued Under the Packers andStockyards Act,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Packers and StockyardsAdministration, July 1989, pp. 14–15, 40.

19. Packers and Stockyards Administration, History of Regional Offices, 70th

Anniversary Responding to the Challenge of Excellence, Fort Worth, p. 2.20. Ibid., Portland, p. 2.21. Ibid., Headquarters, p. 2; Leah Akbar, public relations, Packers and Stockyards

Administration, Washington, D.C., telephone interview with author, Nov. 4,2002.

22. Skaggs, Prime Cut, pp. 190–91; Dale C. Tinstman and Robert L. Peterson, IowaBeef Processors, Inc.: An Entire Industry Revolutionized, p. 7; Wayne Swanson andGeorge Schultz, Prime Rip, p. 177.

23. Krebs, Heading Toward the Last Roundup, pp. 22–23; Tinstman and Peterson,Iowa Beef Processors, p. 10; and Swanson and Schultz, Prime Rip, p. 180.

24. Skaggs, Prime Cut, pp. 9, 194.25. Krebs, Heading Toward the Last Roundup, pp. 12, 14–15. Also Ball, Finishing

Touch, p. 125.26. Harry Schaff, P&S Administration, Denver, telephone interview with author, Jan.

23, 2001; Barry Shlachter, “Tyson put division headquarters here,” Fort WorthStar-Telegram, Nov. 1, 2002, pp. 1C, 10C.

27. Ball, Finishing Touch, p. 3. Also Packers and Stockyards Administration, History ofRegional Offices, 70th Anniversary Responding to the Challenge of Excellence, Omaha,p. 3.

28. Harry Schaff, interview with author, July 21, 1993, Fort Worth, Tex.29. Packers and Stockyards Administration, History of Regional Offices, 70th

Anniversary Responding to the Challenge of Excellence, Omaha, p. 3.30. Ranck, “Before the Internet,” p. 37A.

CHAP TER 6

1. Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in AmericanHistory,” Chapter 1, reprint of 1893 essay, The Frontier in American History, p. 2.

2. Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, p. 151.3. Ibid., p. 129.4. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, p. xiii.5. Ibid., p. 384.6. Joe Fohn, “An Industry Under Attack,” San Antonio Express-News, Feb. 18, 1990,

p. 1K, clipping courtesy the San Antonio Public Library.7. Jim Simons, Texas Livestock Marketing Association, interview with author, Jan.

19, 1995, Fort Worth, Tex.8. Ibid.



9. Harry Schaff, P&S Administration Regional Office, Denver, telephone interviewwith author, Jan. 23, 2001.

10. Paul Bellows, Texas Livestock Marketing Association, interview with author, Jan.10, 1995, Fort Worth, Tex.; Paul Branch, Superior Livestock Auction, Inc., inter-view with author, Nov. 4, 2002, Fort Worth, Tex.

11. Ball, Finishing Touch, p. 93.12. Ibid.13. Choate, Swappin’ Cattle, p. 109.14. Paul Branch, Superior Livestock Auction, Inc., telephone interview with author,

Jan. 24, 2001.15. Larry Ayers, “Indiana Livestock Exchange: A Year in Review,” Michigan Livestock

Exchange, 1994 Annual Report, p. 5. The Indiana Livestock Exchange had joinedwith the Michigan Livestock Exchange, which represents four states.

16. Barry Shlachter, “Beef: it’s what the ‘check off ’ beef is about, as U.S. producers aretorn over the program results,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (February 3, 2000), A1,17; Gina Holland, “Supreme Court Justices hear beef ad suit,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, (December 9, 2004), pp. 1C, 8C.

17. Ed Uvacek, Jr. “Big Changes in Livestock Feeding, Marketing,” p. 15.18. Allen W. McGhee, letter to author, August 24, 1995

CHAP TER 7

1. “Populations of United States Colonies and States, 1650–1990,” Atlas of AmericanHistory, p. 59.

2. “County Livestock Center Since Days of the Pioneers,” Lancaster Intelligencer,Mar. 13, 1959, n. p., clipping from Library of Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.

3. Ibid.; B. J. Andrew Frantz, “History of Cattle and Stock Yards in LancasterCounty Prior to 1800,” Papers Read Before the Lancaster County Historical SocietyFriday, Mar. 7, 1924, p. 44.

4. Ibid.5. “County Livestock Center,” n.p.6. Telephone interview with Bill McCoy, Lancaster, January 29, 2001.7. Frantz, “History of Cattle and Stock Yards in Lancaster County,” p. 41.8. “Stock Yard Co. Is Stocker and Feeder Capital of East,” Lancaster Intelligencer,

June 1954, n. p., clipping from files of Library, Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.9. Rick Sauder, “Lancaster Stockyards Becomes Prime Target For Development,”

Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, Nov. 28, 1986, p. 7.10. McCoy interview.11. Telephone interview with Bill McCoy, Aug. 20, 1993.12. Ranck, “Before the Internet,” p. 36A; McCoy interviews, Jan. 29, 2001, and Nov.

1, 2002; interview with John Dunbar, City of Lancaster zoning officer, Jan. 14,2004.

13. Michelle Ranck, “Still Selling at the Stockyards,” Lancaster Farming, Feb. 10,2001, p. 36A.

14. Louis Unfer, “Swift and Company: The Development of the Packing Industry,”Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1951, p. 7.

173NOTES


15. Willard F. Williams and Thomas T. Stout, Economics of the Livestock-MeatIndustry, p. 12.

16. Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Cincinnati: Story of the Queen City, pp. 191–92.17. Ibid.18. Unfer, “Swift and Company,” p. 8; Henry Peter Michael Homenuck, “Historical

Geography of the Cincinnati Pork Industry 1810–1883,” Master’s thesis,University of Cincinnati, 1965, pp. 31, 34.

19. Carl John Abbott, “The Divergent Development of Cincinnati, Indianapolis,Chicago and Galena, 1840–1860: Economic Thought and Economic Growth,”Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1971, p. 133; Williams and Stout,Economics of the Livestock-Meat Industry, p. 10; Yeager, Competition andRegulation, p. 7.

20. Abbott, “Divergent Development,” p. 133; Yeager, Competition and Regulation, p.9; Unfer, “Swift and Company,” p. 8.

21. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 11.22. Abbott, “Divergent Development,” pp. 139, 90, and 97; Homenuck, “Historical

Geography,” p. 50.23. Yeager, Competition and Regulation, p. 11.24. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 48; Abbott, “Divergent

Development,” p. 68.25. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, pp. 75, 81.26. Homenuck, “Historical Geography,” p. 43.27. Charles Jackson, “City stockyards were famous,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec.

20, 1988, n.p., “Meat Packing Industry” file, Collections and Research Library,Cincinnati Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio.

28. Carl E. Kramer, 1834–1984 Drovers, Dealers and Dreamers—150 Years at BourbonStock Yards, pp. 1–3.

29. Ibid., pp. 6–7.30. Ibid., pp. 8–9.31. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 58.32. Ibid., p. 66.33. Kramer, 1834–1984 Drovers, Dealers and Dreamers, p. 14.34. Ibid., pp. 15–17; Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 75.35. Kramer, 1834–1984 Drovers, Dealers and Dreamers, p. 32.36. Ibid., p. 30.37. Ibid., pp. 81, 89, 96–97.38. Dale F. Runnion, Dr. Harlan D. Ritchie, Dr. Richard Willham, Places for Dreams:

A History of the Saddle and Sirloin Club, p. 27.39. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 33.40. Ibid., pp. 66–67.41. Reynolds, ed., Saint Louis National Stock Yards, p. 1.42. Ibid., p. 4.43. “National Stock Yards Location Ideal for Trade,” St. Louis Star-Times, June 6,

1934, p. 14.44. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 74.



45. “National Stock Yards Location Ideal,” p. 14; Reynolds, Saint Louis National StockYards, p. 4.

46. Ibid.47. Louis F. Swift with Arthur Van Vlissingen, Jr., The Yankee of the Yards, p. 132.48. “The Stockyards,” St. Louis of To-day, 1889, courtesy the Missouri Historical

Society, p. 271.49. The City of St. Louis and Its Resources, p. 137; Yeager, Competition and Regulation,

pp. 121, 126–27; “Souvenir National Stock Yards,” 3-page pamphlet, Jan. 1897,photocopy in files of Saint Louis Stock Yards, sent to author from stockyards.

50. Reynolds, Saint Louis National Stock Yards, p. 13.51. Troen and Holt, St. Louis, p. 140.52. James Floyd, “The nation’s red meat capital St. Louis National Stockyards is

booming since beef cattle operations have been snowballing in Missouri’s Ozarkcounties,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 1, 1972, n.p., clipping courtesy stock-yards; also “National Stockyards Co.” St. Louis Commerce (Apr. 1973): 28.

53. Repps Hudson, “Stockyards Survivors Look to the Future,” St. Louis Post Dispatch(December 31, 1997), n.p.; telephone interview with Rob Fisher, Oklahoma CityStockyards, January 29, 2001.

54. Unfer, “Swift and Company,” p. 9; Fowler, Marketing of Livestock and Meat, p.220; Kramer, 1834–1984 Drovers, Dealers and Dreamers, p. 10; Louise CarrollWade, “Something More Than Packers,” Chicago History 2 (1973): 224.

55. “The Union Stockyards, December 25, 1865,” Chicago History 7 (winter1965–66): 291.

56. Williams and Stout, Economics of the Livestock-Meat Industry, pp. 14–15.57. “The Union Stockyards,” p. 292; Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing

Industry, p. 73.58. Abbott, “The Divergent Development,” p. 90; Yeager, Competition and Regulation,

p. 14; Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 82.59. Dale F. Runnion, Dr. Harlan D. Ritchie, Dr. Richard Willham, Places for Dreams:

A History of the Saddle and Sirloin Club, pp. 39, 108.60. Fowler, Marketing of Livestock and Meat, p. 221; “The Union Stockyards,”

293–94; Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 60; Yeager,Competition and Regulation, p. 15.

61. Wade, “Something More Than Packers,” pp. 221, 224–25; Fowler, Marketing ofLivestock and Meat, pp. 222–23.

62. Winthrop Jordan, Leon Litwack, Richard Hofstadter, William Miller, and DavidAaron, The United States Becoming A World Power, p. 430.

63. Aduddel and Cain, “Location and Collusion in the Meat Packing Industry,” p. 95.64. Herbst, The Negro in the Slaughtering and Meat-Packing Industry, p. 16.65. Wade, Chicago’s Pride, p. xi–iii.66. Aduddell and Cain, “Location and Collusion in the Meat Packing Industry,” p. 93.67. Wade, Chicago’s Pride,, pp. 85, 88, 177.68. Leech and Carroll, Armour and His Times, p. 199; Wade, Chicago’s Pride, pp. 177,

186–87; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, p. 259.69. Herbst, The Negro in the Slaughtering and Meat-Packing Industry, p. 45.70. Ibid., pp. xxi, 3.

175NOTES


71. Fowler, Marketing of Livestock and Meat, pp. 225–26; and “The UnionStockyards,” p. 296.

72. Leslie F. Orear, “The Chicago Stock Yards on the Eve of the CIO,” (1936)http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/stkyards.html

73. Fowler, Marketing of Livestock and Meat, pp. 95, 97.74. Ernest Shiner, “Pace-Setting: Terminal Markets Have Competition for Volume,”

The Farmer Stockman 72 (Feb. 1959): 38.75. Stephen Longstreet, Chicago, 1860–1919, p. 60.76. “Chicago Stockyards Close,” The Cattleman 57 (Dec. 1970): 94.77. Wade, Chicago’s Pride, p. xi.

CHAP TER 8

1. Lee Bergquist, “Patch of Country Endures in City,” Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb. 21,1984, part 4, p. 1.

2. Gene Divine, “Stockyards Hold Specialty Title,” Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb. 24,1964, no page cited, from folder on Milwaukee Stockyards, at Milwaukee PublicLibrary, Milwaukee, Wis.

3. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, pp. 67, 83.4. Ibid., p. 84.5. Loren H. Osman, “Milwaukee Stockyards, Facing Key Decision, Looks to a New

Era,” Milwaukee Journal, Apr. 24, 1979, pp. 8, 11; Divine, “Stockyards HoldSpecialty Title.”

6. “Hogs Are Auctioned by Phone Hookup,” Milwaukee Journal, May 26, 1965, nopage cited, clipping in Milwaukee Stockyards folder, Milwaukee Public Library,Milwaukee, Wis.

7. Lillian E. Heffernan, “Good times at the yards,” Milwaukee Journal, Apr. 26,1985, p. 1.

8. Bergquist, “Patch of Country Endures in City,” p. 1.9. Ibid., p. 2.10. Heffernan, “Good times at the yards,” p. 1.11. Osman, “Milwaukee Stockyards,” p. 8; also Maurice D. Wozniak, “‘Voice of the

Stockyards’ Will Sell Instead of Tell,” Milwaukee Journal, Apr. 2, 1971, no pagecited, clipping from Milwaukee Stockyards folder, Milwaukee Public Library,Milwaukee, Wis.

12. Telephone interview with Gary Sutherland, Milwaukee, WI, September 27, 2004.13. “The History of the Kansas City Livestock Market and the Kansas City Stock

Yards Company 1871–1984,” 14-page typewritten manuscript in the files of theKansas City Stock Yards Company, p. 2.

14. Robert Macy, “KC’s stockyards reduced to a shell,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram,Sept. 26, 1981, p. 33A.

15. “The History of the Kansas City Livestock Market,” p. 2; Harmon Mothershead,“The Stockyards: A Hotel for Stock or a Holding Company?” typewritten manu-script courtesy Mothershead, p. 1.

16. G. K. Renner, “The Kansas City Meat Packing Industry Before 1900,” MissouriHistorical Review 55 (Oct. 1960): 20–21; also Mothershead, “The Stockyards,” p. 5.



17. Cuthbert Powell, Twenty Years of Kansas City’s Live Stock Trade and Traders, pp.15, 17; “History of the Kansas City Livestock Market,” p. 2; Wood, Kansas BeefIndustry, p. 45.

18. Eva L. Atkinson, “Kansas City’s Livestock Trade and Packing Industry,1870–1914: A Study in Regional Growth,” Ph.D. dissertation, University ofKansas, 1971, p. 280.

19. Lawrence H. Larsen, The Urban West at the End of the Frontier, p. 9.20. “75 Years of Kansas City Livestock Market History,” p. 7; “History of the Kansas

City Livestock Market,” p. 4.21. Macy, “KC’s stockyards reduced to a shell,” p. 33A; “History of the Kansas

City Livestock Market,” p. 3; Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat PackingIndustry, p. 77.

22. Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, p. 49; Unfer, “Swift and Company,” p. 59.23. Atkinson, “Kansas City’s Livestock Trade and Packing Industry,” pp. 252,

274–75.24. Yeager, Competition and Regulation, pp. 22, 127; also Macy, “KC’s stockyards

reduced to a shell,” p. 33A.25. Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, pp. 49, 45.26. Ibid., p. 161.27. Ibid., p. 165; and “History of the Kansas City Livestock Market” pp. 7–8.28. Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, pp. 276, 272.29. Macy, “KC’s stockyards reduced to a shell,” p. 29A.30. “75 Years of Kansas City Livestock Market History,” p. 24.31. Macy, “KC’s stockyards reduced to a shell,” p. 29A.32. “Kansas City stockyards close down,” Des Moines Sunday Register, Sept. 29, 1991,

p. 2J.33. Frank S. Popplewell, “St. Joseph, Missouri, As a Center of the Cattle Trade,”

Master’s thesis, University of Missouri, 1937, pp. 36–38; Lawrence H. Larsen,The Urban West at the End of the Frontier, p. 10.

34. Popplewell, “St. Joseph, Missouri,” p. 66.35. Susan Mires, “Meatpacking Cattle industry brought jobs to South Side residents,”

St. Joseph News-Press, Sept. 26, 1999, http://www.ponyexpress.net/~special/busi-ness/meatpacking.htm.

36. Ibid.37. Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, p. 177.38. Reginald Schauder, New York offices of Canal Capital, telephone interviews with

author, Mar. 8, 2001, and Nov. 7, 2002; Bernie Sichmeller, Sioux Falls Stockyards,telephone interview with author, Oct. 31, 2002.

39. Daniel J. Elazar, Cities of the Prairie: The Metropolitan Frontier and AmericanPolitics, p. 83.

40. “Union Stockyards Organized,” 2 typed pages in A. W. Oakford Collection,courtesy Peoria Historical Society Collection, Bradley University Library, Peoria,Ill.; Bob Bill, “Important Peoria Livestock Market Traces Back to Trading Post in1824,” The Peoria Star, Oct. 22, 1953, clipping courtesy Peoria Historical SocietyCollection.

41. Elazar, Cities of the Prairie, p. 84.

177NOTES


42. Jerry Klein, “Meet the Folks at Livestock Hotel,” undated clipping courtesyPeoria Historical Society Collection; Elden Waldron, general manager of PeoriaUnion Stockyards for forty years, telephone interview with author, Aug. 20, 1993.

43. Bob Bill, “Important Peoria Livestock Market.”44. Mark Lambert, “Peoria stockyards adapts to changes,” Peoria Journal Star, Sept. 8,

1987, clipping courtesy Peoria Historical Society Collection. Also “Interstate pro-ducers reduce stockyards role,” Peoria Journal Star, Aug. 17, 1988, clipping cour-tesy Peoria Historical Society Collection.

45. Elden Waldron interview.46. Special collections librarian, Bradley University Library, Peoria, Illinois, telephone

interview with author, Mar. 16, 2001; Terry Sewell, Peoria, Ill., telephone interviewwith author, Nov. 4, 2002. Actual receipts for 2001 were hogs, 210,653; cattle,4,510; and sheep, 500.

47. Bernard A. Hewes, “The Rise of the Pork Industry in Indiana,” Master’s thesis,Indiana University, 1939, p. 45.

48. Ibid., p. 53.49. Abbott, “The Divergent Development,” p. 90.50. Hewes, “The Rise of the Pork Industry in Indiana,” p. 58.51. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 83.52. Paul Brockman, “Indianapolis Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company Records

1874–1968,” p. 1. Apr. 1984, typed list of records courtesy L. Van Kuhl; B. R.Sulgrove, History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, p. 168.

53. Walsh, Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, p. 85.54. Brockman, “Indianapolis Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company Records,” p. 1.55. Sulgrove, History of Indianapolis, p. 210.56. Brockman, “Indianapolis Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company Records,” p. 2.57. “Stock Yards Becomes $126,000,000 Business,” The Indianapolis Star, Dec. 31,

1947, no page cited, clipping courtesy Indiana Historical Society; Brockman,“Indianapolis Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company Records,” p. 3.

58. Sulgrove, History of Indianapolis, p. 168.59. “Stock Yards Becomes $126,000,000 Business.”60. Brockman, “Indianapolis Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company Records,” p. 2.61. Ibid., p. 3.62. Brockman, “Indianapolis Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company Records,” p. 2;

“History of Indianapolis Stockyards Since mid-1860s,” Osgood Journal, Nov. 29,1977, no page cited, clipping courtesy Indiana Historical Society.

63. Packers and Stockyards Administration, History of Regional Offices, 70th

Anniversary Responding to the Challenge of Excellence, USDA Packers &Stockyards Administration (Sept. 17, 1991), Indianapolis, p. 4.

64. Jerry Flemmons, Amon: The Life of Amon G. Carter, Sr., of Texas, p. 106.65. Clemen, American Livestock and Meat Industry, pp. 455–56.66. Helena Huntington Smith, “The Rise and Fall of Alec Swan,” The American West

4 (Aug. 1967): 21.67. Alysia W. Smith, 100 Omaha Stockyards A Century of Marketing Commemorative

Book 1884–1984, pp. 2–3, 4; also Mothershead, “The Stockyards,” p. 3.68. Smith, 100, p. 2.



69. Lawrence H. Larsen and Barbara J. Cottrell, The Gate City: A History of Omaha,pp. 72–74.

70. Clemen, American Livestock and Meat Industry, p. 457; Alfred Sorenson, The Storyof Omaha from the Pioneer Days to the Present Time, p. 604; Aduddel and Cain,“Location and Collusion,” p. 106.

71. Sorenson, Story of Omaha, pp. 606–607.72. Smith, “Rise and Fall of Alec Swan,” pp. 66, 68.73. Smith, 100, p. 14.74. Sorenson, Story of Omaha, p. 606.75. Ibid., p. 605.76. Smith, 100, p. 14.77. Gilmore, Who Were the Progressives? p. 5.78. Smith, 100, p. 14.79. “Omaha’s once great stockyards opened up a nation,” The Holland Sentinel, Mar.

14, 1999, http://www.celebrate2000.brainerddispatch.com/stories/031499/his-omaha.shtml

80. Smith, 100, p. 16; Sorenson, Story of Omaha, p. 608.81. Smith, 100, p. 24.82. Ibid.83. Ibid.84. Ibid., pp. 30, 32.85. “Omaha’s once-great stockyards.”86. Packers and Stockyards Administration, History of Regional Offices, 70th

Anniversary Responding to the Challenge of Excellence, USDA Packers &Stockyards Administration (Sept. 17, 1991), Omaha, p. 3.

87. “Omaha’s once-great stockyards”; Dan Van Ackeren, Packers and StockyardsAdministration, telephone interview with author, Jan. 25, 2001; ReginaldSchauder, Canal Capital Corporation, telephone interview with author, Nov. 12,2002.

88. “Story of the Sioux City Stock Yards,” (1961) 2 typewritten pages in the files ofthe Sioux City Stock Yards Company, sent to L. V. Kuhl to give to author, p. 1;“Sioux City is Important Live Stock and Packing Center,” 8 pages from unnamedmagazine dated 1923 from Sioux City Stock Yards, p. 29.

89. “Siouxland’s Finest: The Story of the Sioux City Stock Yards and Meat PackingIndustry,” The Wahkaw 3 (winter 1983): 3.

90. Ibid., pp. 3–4; also “Stock Yards and Packing Houses,” 2-1/2 pages in Sioux CityStock Yards files sent to L. V. Kuhl, sent to author, p. 1.

91. “Twenty Years Ago Today Stock Yards Began Business,” unidentified newspaperclipping dated Oct. 31, 1907, in Sioux City Stock Yards Company files, sent to L.V. Kuhl to give to author.

92. Clemen, American Livestock and Meat Industry, p. 458.93. Yeager, Competition and Regulation, p. 27.94. “Sioux City is Important Live Stock and Packing Center,” p. 32.95. L. Van Kuhl, president of American Stockyards Association, interview with

author, Oct. 23, 1984, Fort Worth, Tex.

179NOTES


96. Ibid.; Mrs. John M. Lewis, interview with author, Nov. 21, 1983, Fort Worth, Tex.97. “Siouxland’s Finest,” p. 14.98. Ibid.99. Untitled, 5-page, typed manuscript provided to L. Van Kuhl by Sioux City Stock

Yards Company and subsequently given to author.100. Bernie Sichmeller, Sioux Falls, telephone interview with author, Oct. 31, 2002;

Reginald Schauder, Canal Capital Corporation, New York City, telephone inter-view with author, Nov. 12, 2002.

101. “Denver Stockyards Born in 1865,” Rocky Mountain News, Apr. 19, 1959, p. 20C.102. Ibid.; “New Methods That Have Done Away With the Bull Punch and Other

Instruments of Torture—Future of Cattle Shipping in the West,” The ColoradoGraphic, Oct. 30, 1886, p. 5, typed reproduction courtesy Colorado HistoricalSociety, Denver.

103. “Denver Stockyards Born in 1865,” p. 20C.104. “New Methods,” p. 5.105. “Denver Stockyards Born in 1865,” p. 20C.106. Ibid., 21C.107. Ibid.108. Ibid.109. William C. Jones and Kenton H. Forrest, Denver: A Pictorial History 2nd ed.,

page not cited, photocopied page sent to author by Denver Historical Society.110. Clemen, American Livestock and Meat Industry, p. 460.111. L. Van Kuhl, interview with author, Oct. 23, 1984, Fort Worth, Tex.112. “Denver Stockyards Born in 1865,” p. 21C.113. William G. Tomek, “Price Behavior on a Declining Terminal Market,” American

Journal of Agricultural Economics 62 (1980): 437.114. Harry Schaff, regional director, P&SA, interview with author, July 21, 1993, Fort

Worth, Tex.; Schaff, telephone interview with author, Jan. 23, 2001.115. “Facts about South St. Paul,” South St. Paul: Southeast Metro Chamber of

Commerce, 1971, p. 3; untitled pamphlet on South St. Paul, published Sept. 2,1958, in Minnesota Cities and Towns folder, St. Paul Public Library, St. Paul,Minn.

116. “The South St. Paul Livestock Market Its History and Growth Since 1886,” 4-page mimeographed pamphlet obtained at South St. Paul Stockyards, p. 1.

117. Ibid., p. 2.118. Ibid.119. Ibid.120. Ibid., p. 3; Unfer, “Swift and Company,” p. 67.121. “News and Comment,” Minnesota History 26 (1945): 182.122. Interview with Curt Zimmerman, market director, South St. Paul Stockyards,

October 11, 1984, South St. Paul.123. Oliver Towne, “Column,” St. Paul Dispatch, Jan. 19, 1955, no page cited, from

clipping file in St. Paul Public Library.124. Annual Report, United Stockyards Corporation, year ending Oct. 31, 1956, p. 3,

United Folder, Dies Correspondence, Fort Worth Stock Yards Company



Collection, University of North Texas, Denton; Annual Report, United StockyardsCorporation, year ending Oct. 31, 1951, p. 6.

125. “The South St. Paul Livestock Market: Its History and Growth Since 1886,” p.4; Curt Zimmerman, market director, South St. Paul Stockyards, interview withauthor, Oct. 11, 1984, South St. Paul.

126. “Facts About South St. Paul,” pp. 1, 4–5.127. Joel Bennett, president of South St. Paul Stockyards, interview with author, Oct.

11, 1984, South St. Paul.128. Zimmerman interview.129. Dan Van Ackeren, P&SA, telephone interview with author, Jan. 25, 2001; Bernie

Sichmeller, president, Sioux Falls Stockyards, telephone interview with author,Feb. 20, 2001.

130. W. Henry Miller, Pioneering North Texas, p. 114; Wayne Gard, The ChisholmTrail, p. 78.

131. The Fort Worth Democrat, July 22, 1876, p. 1.132. Charter No. 3402, Fort Worth Union Stock Yards Company, filed July 26, 1887,

Office of Secretary of State, Austin, Tex.133. Charter No. 4581, Fort Worth Packing Company, filed Apr. 30, 1890, Office of

Secretary of State, Austin, Tex.134. Copy of an agreement by which G. W. Simpson bought the Fort Worth Union

Stock Yards, Apr. 27, 1893, Union Stock Yards Folder, Gary Havard personal col-lection, Fort Worth, Tex.

135. Copy of a contract between Fort Worth Stock Yards Company and Swift andCompany, Jan. 25, 1902, unmarked folder, Havard collection. Similar agreementswere made at other stockyards as well.

136. “The Live Stock Exchange,” The Texas Stock Journal, Apr. 28, 1903, p. 1. A stock-yards museum and gift shop as well as headquarters for Superior LivestockAuction are among the building’s tenants.

137. Charles Edward Russell, The Greatest Trust in the World, pp. 22–23; J. OgdenArmour, The Packers, The Private Car Lines, and The People, p. 336.

138. “An Outside View,” The Texas Stockman Journal, May 2, 1906, p. 4.139. “Trust Suit is Settled,” Southwestern Farmer and Breeder, Oct. 11, 1907, p. 4.140. James C. Miles, “Fort Worth and World War I,” Master’s thesis, Southern

Methodist University, 1946, p. 31.141. Annual Report for 1917, Fort Worth Stock Yards Company, Fort Worth Stock

Yards Company Collection, University of North Texas, Denton.142. Annual Report, United Stockyards Corporation, year ended Oct. 31, 1944,

United Folder, Dies Correspondence, Fort Worth Stock Yards CompanyCollection, University of North Texas, Denton.

143. Comparative Statement of Five Competitive Markets for Twelve-Month PeriodEnding Dec. 31, 1945, and 1944, Dies Correspondence, Fort Worth Stock YardsCompany Collection, University of North Texas, Denton.

144. “Cattle from Southwest to Wichita Yards,” unidentified clipping in folder,“Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards,” Wichita Public Library, Wichita,Kans.; Bruce Behymer, “Wichita is One of Main Packing Centers of West; Armyof Workers Used,” Wichita Eagle, Apr. 25, 1937, no page cited, clipping in folder“Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards,” Wichita Public Library.

181NOTES


145. Seth Effron, “Once Wichita’s Mainstay, Stockyards to Shut Down,” Wichita EagleJune 20, 1980, no page cited, clipping in folder, “Wichita Meat Industry andTrade Stockyards,” Wichita Public Library.

146. Untitled article, Wichita Eagle, Sept. 25, 1921, no page cited, clipping in “WichitaMeat Industry and Trade Stockyards,” folder, Wichita Public Library.

147. Untitled article, Wichita Eagle, Sept. 25, 1921, no page cited, clipping in “WichitaMeat Industry and Trade Stockyards” folder; Larsen, Urban West, p. 116.

148. Harry Savage, “Terminal Has Brought City from ‘Cow Town’ to 14th BiggestMart,” Wichita Eagle, Oct. 14, 1962, no page cited, clipping in “Wichita MeatIndustry and Trade Stockyards” folder, Wichita Public Library; Wood, KansasBeef Industry, p. 46.

149. “Today in Wichita History,” unidentified clipping in “Wichita Meat Industry andTrade Stockyards,” folder, Wichita Public Library.

150. Wood, Kansas Beef Industry, p. 165.151. Savage, “Terminal Has Brought City”; Ralph Hinman, Jr., “Stockyards Function

As Hotel: Room, Meals, Even Manicure,” Wichita Beacon, Oct. 18, 1959, no pagecited, clipping in “Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards” folder, WichitaPublic Library.

152. “Wichita Remains Mule Capital of Entire Country,” unidentified clipping in“Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards” folder, Wichita Public Library.

153. Behymer, “Wichita is One of Main Packing Centers.”154. “Facilities for 21,000 cattle, 15,000 Hogs, 5,000 Sheep Are Offered in Area of

100 Acres,” Wichita Eagle, July 25, 1943, no page cited, clipping in “WichitaMeat Industry and Trade Stockyards’ folder, Wichita Public Library.

155. “Wichita Stockyards Completely ‘Remodeled’ in Five-year Project,” WichitaMorning Eagle, Aug. 15, 1954, no page cited, clipping in “Wichita Meat Industryand Trade Stockyards” folder, Wichita Public Library.

156. Bruce Sankey, “Sierra Contract of Stockyards Brings Pledge,” Wichita Eagle-Beacon, Nov. 28, 1970, n. p.; “2 Smiths Resign Top Stockyards Co. Posts,” WichitaEagle, Dec. 16, 1971, n. p.; and Dave Mackie, “Dick Thompson HeadsStockyards Operations,” Wichita Eagle, Jan. 11, 1972, no page cited, clippings in“Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards” folder, Wichita Public Library.

157. Dave Mackie, “Stockyards Brings Bounty to North End,” Wichita Independent,Jan. 24, 1975, no page cited, clipping in “Wichita Meat Industry and TradeStockyards” folder, Wichita Public Library; Steve Cornett, “Union StockyardsEnding 90-Year Sales Tradition,” Wichita Eagle, Aug. 28, 1975, no page cited,clipping in “Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards” folder, Wichita PublicLibrary.

158. Karen Freiberg, “Union Stock Yard Just a Hog’s Heaven,” Wichita Eagle, Aug. 27,1978, no page cited, clipping in “Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards”folder, Wichita Public Library.

159. Dirck Steimel, “Auction Ring Silenced At Wichita Stockyards,” Wichita Eagle,Aug. 1, 1980, no page cited, clipping in “Wichita Meat Industry and TradeStockyards” folder, Wichita Public Library.

160. Warren Jennings, “Old Firm (1894) Used Mod Methods,” The San Antonio Light,Mar. 18, 1973, p. 6F, clipping courtesy the San Antonio Public Library, SanAntonio, Tex.

161. “Union Stock Yards San Antonio,” The Businesses That Built San Antonio (1985),photocopies page sent to author by owner of San Antonio Union Stockyards, p. 1.



162. Ibid.163. Jennings, “Old Firm (1894) Used Mod Methods”; Bill Cunningham, “Stock

Yards part of family tradition,” San Antonio Express-News, Jan. 26, 1986, pp. 1K,7K; Hart Stilwell, “Texas Trails: Cattlemen Cling to the Past,” San Antonio Light,April 1, 1967, clipping courtesy San Antonio Library, San Antonio, Tex.; Paul H.Carlson, Texas Woollybacks: The Range Sheep and Goat Industry, p. 212.

164. Stilwell, “Texas Trails.”165. Janie Hagelstein, letter to author, Feb. 3, 1989.166. Joe Fohn, “100th Anniversary San Antonio Union Stock Yards Still the center of

agribusiness in South Texas,” San Antonio Express-News, May 21, 1989, pp. 1K,8K; Mark Judson, telephone interview with author, Aug. 20, 1993.

167. John Jeter, “Taking stock of family ties; Former duchess bullish on career,” SanAntonio Express-News, Feb. 3, 1985, p. 1G, clipping courtesy San Antonio PublicLibrary.

168. Mark Judson, telephone interview with author, Jan. 24, 2001.169. “112-year-old stockyards in San Antonio to close,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram,

Mar. 22, 2001, p. 2B; “News” KRLD Radio 1080 AM, Dallas/Fort Worth, Apr.18, 2001.

170. “History of Sioux Falls Stock Yards Company,” dated Apr. 17, 1947, 1-page, sin-gle-spaced, typewritten sheet provided by Sioux Falls Stock Yards Company.

171. Charles A. Smith, A Comprehensive History of Minnehaha County, South Dakota, p.226.

172. “Old Building Gives Up Box of Souvenirs,” 1940 clipping courtesy SiouxlandHeritage Museum, Sioux Falls, S.Dak.; also Dana R. Bailey, History of MinnehahaCounty, South Dakota, p. 384.

173. “Old Building Gives Up Box of Souvenirs.”174. Smith, Comprehensive History of Minnehaha County, p. 227.175. Ibid., pp. 227–28.176. “Sioux Falls Stock Yards History Bicentennial Edition,” 4-page, typewritten arti-

cle provided by Sioux Falls Stock Yards to L. V. Kuhl who gave it to author, pp.1–2; “Date of Origin and Early History of the Sioux Falls Stock YardsCompany,” 2-page, typewritten sheet provided by Sioux Falls Stock Yards to L. V.Kuhl and then to author, p. 1; “The Sioux Falls Stockyards,” The Sioux FallsJournal 52 (Mar. 8, 1924): 52.

177. “Sioux Falls Stockyards,” The Sioux Falls Journal, 62.178. “John Morrell & Co.,” The Sioux Falls Journal 52 (Mar. 8, 1924): 41.179. L. Van Kuhl, interview with author, Oct. 23, 1984, Fort Worth, Tex.180. Dan Van Ackeren, P&SA, telephone interview with author, Jan. 25, 2001;

Reginald Schauder, Canal Capital Corporation, telephone interview with author,Mar. 8, 2001; Bernie Sichmeller, president, Sioux Falls Stockyards, telephoneinterviews with author, Feb. 20, 2001, and Oct. 31, 2002.

CHAP TER 9

1. Larsen, Urban West, p. 14.2. George A. Peirson, “Livestock Marketing Portland, Oregon,” 8-page, typed

unpublished manuscript (1937) courtesy Portland Stockyards.

183NOTES


3. Ibid., p. 5; Joe Bianco, headline missing, The Oregonian, Jan. 5, 1958, n.p.Clipping courtesy Multnomah County Library, Portland, Oreg.; E. L. Potter, ThePortland Union Stock Yards: A Case Study in Livestock Marketing, p. 3; “NewPortland Stockyards,” The Fort Worth Daily Livestock Reporter, Sept. 10, 1909, p. 1.

4. Eugene Rashad, “Kenton taking stock,” The Oregonian, June 8, 1995, p. F1.5. Peirson, “Livestock Marketing Portland Oregon,” pp. 6–8.6. “The Red Steer Restaurant,” The Oregonian, Jan. 18, 1996, p. 6; Jonathan

Nicholas, “Portland: Wild West or Mild West? You make the call,” TheOregonian, Oct. 24, 1997, p. 1E.

7. Eugene Rashad, “Landmarks panel OKs demolition of Portland Stockyards,” TheOregonian, Sept. 12, 1995, p. 2B.

8. John M. Lownsdale, “Union Stock Yards Survey: 25 Years of Operation,” TheOregonian, Feb. 1, 1935, p. 1; Potter, Portland Union Stock Yards, p. 8.

9. Lownsdale, “Union Stock Yards Survey,” p. 1.10. Eugene Rashad, “Group will discuss fate of stockyards,” The Oregonian, June 8,

1995, p. 7F.11. Rashad, “Kenton taking stock.”12. Michael Rollins, “N. Portland trash transfer station eyed,” The Oregonian, Jan. 14,

1988, p. 1C; “Garbage firm buys stockyards site,” The Oregonian, Feb. 3, 1989, p.5E; Oregon Waste Systems, telephone interview with author, July 18, 1991.

13. Rashad, “Landmarks panel OKs demolition”; Randy Gragg, “Law allows stock-yards landmark to slip away,” The Oregonian, Nov. 23, 1997, p. 3F.

14. Randy Gragg, “What can hold up a building? Bucks,” The Sunday Oregonian,June 14, 1998, p. 4F; Judy R. Green, research associate, Oregon HistoricalSociety, letter to author, Apr. 3, 2001; interview with Judy Green, September 21,2004.

15. Larsen, Urban West, pp. xi–xii.16. Frank M. Stanger, “The Beginnings of South San Francisco,” La Peninsula

Journal of San Mateo County Historical Association 16 (May 1971): 11–12.17. Ibid., p. 7.18. Linda Kauffman, “It Was Not By Chance,” La Peninsula Journal of San Mateo

County Historical Association 16 (May 1971): 4–5.19. Stanger, “The Beginnings of South San Francisco,” p. 12.20. Untitled article in South San Francisco Enterprise Journal, Oct. 30, 1958, Golden

Jubilee Edition, p. 5.21. Third Annual Report, 1930, South San Francisco Union Stockyards Company,

South San Francisco, Calif.22. Stanger, “The Beginnings of South San Francisco,” pp. 13, 15.23. Bonnie Stahlman Speer, Historic Stockyards City and Oklahoma National Stockyards:

Where the Real West Still Begins, p. 1.24. Carol Holderby Welsh, “Cattle Market for the World: The Oklahoma National

Stockyards,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 60 (1982): 42.25. Ibid., p. 43.26. Ibid.27. Ibid., p. 44.28. Ibid.



29. Clemen, American Livestock and Meat Industry, p. 460.30. Welsh, “Cattle Market for the World,” p. 43.31. Jimmy M. Skaggs, ed., Ranch and Range in Oklahoma, p. 117.32. Speer, Historic Stockyards City and Oklahoma National Stockyards, p. 50.33. Jay Nixon, “World’s Largest Market—how it got that way, how it serves today,”

Western Live Stock Journal 46 (Aug. 1968): 27; Welsh, “Cattle Market for theWorld,” pp. 48–51.

34. Welsh, “Cattle Market for the World,” pp. 51, 12.35. Bill Ball, former P&SA official, telephone interview with author, Sept. 17, 1983.36. L. Van Kuhl, president, American Stockyards Association, interview with author,

Oct. 23, 1984, Fort Worth, Tex.37. Telephone interviews with Rob Fisher, president, Oklahoma City Stockyards,

Jan. 29, 2001, and Nov. 1, 2002.38. Bud Kennedy, “Oklahoma City puts out its own cattle call,” Fort Worth Star-

Telegram, Aug. 23, 2001, p. 1B; Speer, Historic Stockyards City and OklahomaNational Stockyards, p. 7.

39. Richard C. Roberts, Ogden: Junction City, p.140.40. Ibid.41. Richard C. Roberts, “The Ogden Union Station as an Architectural Reflection of

Ogden City History and Cultural Values,” unpublished research paper courtesyWeber County Library, Ogden, Utah, p. 38; E. J. Cameron, “Ogden’s Livestockand Packing Facilities Largest In Intermountain West,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, Aug. 31, 1930, p. 12D.

42. “Work on New Stockyards Is To Commence At Once; Awaiting Plans For Plantfrom Chicago Architect,” Ogden Examiner July 30, 1916, p. 18; Cameron,“Ogden’s Livestock and Packing Facilities,” p. 12D; “Big Packing Plant andStockyards,” Ogden Standard, Mar. 6, 1916, p. 1.

43. “Work on New Stockyards,” p. 18.44. “Big Packing Plant and Stockyards,” p. 1.45. Roberts, “Ogden: Junction City,” pp. 140, 143.46. Cameron, “Ogden’s Livestock and Packing Facilities,” p. 12D; Bert Fox, “Once-

thriving Stockyard Stands Deserted,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, July 15, 1974, p.11A.

47. “Ogden Stockyards Completes Big Expansion Program, Making Local FacilityLargest West of Denver By Far,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, Oct. 10, 1954, p.14B.

48. Fox, “Once-thriving Stockyard,” p. 11A; Roberts, Ogden: Junction City, p. 141;“Livestock” Photo Section Ogden Standard-Examiner, Apr. 5, 1966, p. 7.

49. Roberts, Ogden: Junction City, pp. 140, 143.50. Houston Edward Smith, “Operational Analysis of the Port City Stockyards,”

Master’s thesis, Texas A&M University, 1957, pp. 11–15.51. Ibid., p. 15.52. Ibid., p. 16.53. “Port City Stockyards,” 17-page pamphlet supplied to author by stockyards, pub-

lished 1956, pp. 10–11.54. Smith, “Operational Analysis,” pp. 17–18.

185NOTES


55. Ibid., p. 20.56. Ibid., p. 108.57. J. D. Sartwelle, Jr., telephone interviews with author, Nov. 13, 2002, August 2,

2004.58. Bill Caldwell, archivist, Joplin Globe, interview with author, Aug. 3, 1993, Joplin,

Mo.; “Joplin Stock Yards . . . No. 14 of a series,” The Livestock Marketeer, clippingcourtesy Joplin Globe library, no date, p. 4; “Scenes At New Stockyards Yesterday,The First Day Opened For Business,” Joplin Globe, Sept. 1, 1931, clipping fromJoplin Public Library, Joplin, Mo.

59. “Joplin Stock Yards,” p. 4; “Patterson to Manage Yards,” Joplin News Herald, Aug.31, 1931, p. 1.

60. “Builders of Stockyards,” Joplin News Herald, Aug. 31, 1931, p. 2; “Good SellingService Here,” Joplin News Herald, Aug. 31, 1931, p. 1.

61. “Joplin Stock Yards,” p. 4; “Good Selling,” p. 1.62. “Capacity Is 9,000 Daily,” Joplin Globe, Aug. 31, 1931, p. 1; “Joplin Stock Yards,”

p. 4; “Stockyards Park,” Joplin News Herald, Aug. 31, 1931, p. 2.63. “Capacity Is 9,000 Daily,” p. 1; “Joplin Stock Yards,” p. 4; G. K. Renner, Joplin:

From Mining Town to Urban Center, p. 66.64. Ibid.65. Ibid.66. Bernie Sichmeller, telephone interview with author, Feb. 20, 2001; Chris Byerly,

Joplin Regional Stockyards, telephone interview with author, Nov. 1, 2002.

CHAP TER 10

1. F. H. Sinclair, “Down the Trail with a Range Rider,” Montana: The Magazine ofWestern History 16 (summer 1966): 62.

2. L. Van Kuhl, president of the American Stockyards Association, interview withauthor, Oct. 23, 1984, Fort Worth, Tex.

3. Annual Report to Stockholders, 1982, Canal-Randolph Corporation, New YorkCity.

4. Clemen, American Livestock and Meat Industry, p. 460; Yeager, Competition andRegulation, p. 116; Joe Bianco, headline missing, The Oregonian, Jan. 5, 1958, n.p.Clipping courtesy Multnomah County Library, Portland, Oreg.

5. Kuhl interview.6. Jersey City Directory, 1907–1908; Joan D. Lovero, New Jersey Room librarian, let-

ter to author, July 10, 1991.7. Fred R. Herr, “Herr’s Island,” The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 53

( July 1970): 214–15.

GLOSSARY

1. General Market Terms and Definitions, “Miscellaneous Folder, PierCorrespondence,” Fort Worth Stockyards Company Collection, University ofNorth Texas, Denton. Also “Stock Yards Slang,” The Cattleman 16 (Dec. 1929):41, and (Apr. 1930): 42. See also Russell T. Prescott, “Language of the LivestockMart,” American Speech 10 (Dec. 1935): 269–72.



Participating in a typical day at a functioning, major stockyards required a certain vocab-ulary. Activity consisted of thousands of assorted livestock milling about in pens; cattleassociation inspectors in their Stetsons, checking for stolen animals; Packers andStockyards Administration officials enforcing regulations; producers releasing theirlivestock to their favorite commission firms who then dealt with packer representativesby private treaty, order buyers, and dealers. Some words in common usage at the timeseemed to be more slang than accepted dictionary terminology. Terms cited belowdeserve historic presentation because they represent expressions common at stockyardsduring the high point of the 1940s. Many of the terms relate to animals destined forslaughter.1

account of sale—a form completed by the commission company that indicated all thetransactions in connection with the sale of a consignment of livestock. It showed alldeductions, charges, and other information used in figuring net proceeds to the ship-per or consignor.

active—a market in which there is a demand with perhaps some increase in price.

baby beef—steers fifteen months old or younger that had been under forced feedingfrom birth, weighing 950 pounds or less.

baby dolls—attractively finished yearling steers or heifers.

bacons—hogs of the Yorkshire or Hampshire breeds that are known for their bacon.

beef bulls—mature bulls of one of the beef breeds that usually weighed more than1,200 pounds and carried a fair amount of flesh. Good and choice kinds were mostlythe heavier bulls scaling more than 1,300 pounds.

beeves—plural term for beef, generally used to mean cattle.

belts—Hampshire hogs.

blackie—a black or brown sheep, usually selling at a reduced price.

bloom—spoken of as “having bloom” or “lost their bloom”; said of lambs showing milkfat or just losing it.

bob veal—flesh of an unborn calf from a slaughtered cow: prematurely born or veryyoung calf; unmarketable.

boggy ham—a soft, flabby ham.

bow-wow—a small, stunted, aged steer with no quality, unsuited either for beef orfeeder purposes; utilized sometimes as canners or cutters; same as tripe or canner year-lings.

broken mouthed—aged ewes or sheep that had lost some of their teeth.

broker —a clearing firm for traders and speculators that handled business connectedwith clearance for the trader. It put up loans and furnished the necessary bookkeepingservices for a stockyards speculator not connected with a particular firm. Generally abroker charged a flat rate per head for services.

Glossary



bums—almost worthless animals.

burry—sheep whose fleeces carried the burrs of various weeds; usually sold lowerbecause of damage to wool.

bust—a hog that was ruptured.

butcher barrows and gilts—barrows or gilts of any weight that were sold for slaughter.

butcher bulls—well-bred young bulls, usually of one of the beef breeds weighing gen-erally from 900–1,100 pounds; usually showed some effects of grain feeding and car-ried good smooth finish; sold in a wide range of prices, depending upon weight, con-dition, and current demand.

butcher cattle—steers and heifers intended for immediate slaughter or more suitablefor slaughter than for any other purpose. Older butcher cattle grades were prime,choice, good, commercial, and utility.

cake fed—stock that were pastured and given a supplementary feeding of compressedprotein cubes made from high-protein meals such as cottonseed, peanut, or soybeanmeal.

canner and cutter cows—old, thin cows from which the meat was “boned out” forsausage and canned food products; also called strippers by packers.

cash v.— to sell; to exchange for money.

central market—also called terminal market, one that was open on an equal basis toeveryone who desired to buy or sell livestock. It was federally regulated and supervisedunder the provisions of the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. The stockyards com-pany provided facilities and services but did not buy or sell livestock for its ownaccount or as the agent of others. At the central market the livestock-selling function,for the most part, was performed by independent market agencies known as commis-sion companies.

choice lots—high-quality livestock.

chopper—aged ewes in medium flesh, not good enough to grade as fat.

classes of cattle—market class for any kind of livestock, determined by its age and sex.The classes for cattle were steer, heifer, cow, bull, and stag.

clear the yards—to sell all the livestock offered for sale on a particular day.

clipped—shorn; descriptive of sheep or lambs after the wool had been removed.

comebacks—lambs returned to market from which they had previously been shippedfor feeding and fattening.

commission company or firm—a market agency that represented the shipper or con-signor in the sale of livestock. The commission firm did not take title to the livestock,and its only revenue was the commission it received for the sale. The commissionagent always knew the latest market quotations and tried to get the best price for theproducer.

common—a grade below fair but above canners and cutters.

condemned—an animal that government inspectors pronounced unfit for food; to beslaughtered and sent to the fertilizer tanks.

condition—to put cattle in condition for shipping by feeding them a lighter ration toreduce shrinkage in transit.


conformation—shape of animal.

counterfeit—cattle of good color giving impression of good breeding that they did notpossess, e.g., cattle bearing Hereford markings but lacking Hereford conformation andquality.

cull—lowest grade of animal.

custom feedlot—any facility used entirely or in part for the purpose of feeding live-stock for the accounts of others.

cut— to sort out certain individual animals.

cutbacks—lambs that had been cut out of a bunch when buyer got a percentage cut;the ones that did not come up to contract.

cutter cows—aged beef or dairy-bred cows in thin flesh. The loins, ribs, and other bet-ter cuts could be sold as fresh meat; the other parts of the carcass were boned out forsausage or canned meat. Usually referred to as canner or cutter.

deacon—a young calf, too young to be used as food.

dealer or trader—any person not a market agency engaged in the business of buyingand/or selling in commerce livestock at a stockyards either on his own account or asthe employee of another. Dealers took title to bought livestock; their only revenuecame from an increase in price and/or weight of purchased livestock.

direct buying—meant that packers or dealers purchased directly from livestock pro-ducers either in the country or at special receiving areas near or at their slaughteringoperation, rather than through any type of market.

directs—animals unloaded at the stockyards and delivered to some consignee locatedat or near the stockyards or slaughtering plant.

dockage—shrinkage, a specified weight reduced from stags and pregnant sows. Onsows the dock was forty pounds; on stags, seventy pounds.

dogs—very poor, inferior animals.

dopey—hog that was droopy, dumpy or possibly sick.

downer—an animal that for any reason could not stay on its feet; crippled.

fed cattle—cattle fed high-energy, formulated rations containing feed grains or substi-tutes and feed supplements to slaughter weight, as opposed to cattle permitted tograze on grass, wheat land, or other pasture areas.

feedlot operation—a practice that had existed previously but expanded rapidly in the1960s whereby producers concentrated cattle in large pens holding thousands of cattleand fed them grain until ready to sell them for slaughter.

fill—a stomach full of water or water and some feed to increase weight.

finish—quality and distribution of fat on the animal.

fleshing—fatness or finish.

forward contracting—agreement by which a packer or other buyer signed a contract tobuy cattle for future delivery, made a small down payment, and normally hedged bycontracting to a future sale at a profit or a break-even price.

full-feed—to feed as much as an animal will eat.

189GLOSSARY



freemartin—heifer born twin with a bull, imperfectly sexed and barren as a rule.

gilt—a young female hog, not having born pigs.

governments—animals thrown out by government inspectors.

grades of cattle—the final subdivision in a classification for marketing any kind oflivestock; indicated the relative degree of excellence of an animal or group of animals.The number of grades varied with the different kinds, classes, ages, and weights oflivestock and with the purposes for which they were to be used. By 1940 the USDAgrades of cattle were fancy, choice, good, medium, common, inferior, canner, cutter.

grades of hogs—hogs were not graded as closely as cattle, but the following gradeterms did apply: fat-type choice, meat-type choice, good, and fair or medium, and cull.

grassy—cattle grazed on range or pasture alone.

gummers—old sheep that had lost their teeth; a class better than broken-mouths,always carried more flesh.

half-fats—half-fattened livestock.

handy weight—barrows or gilts that fell into the weight range being demanded bybuyers, usually around 190–240 pounds, or beef cattle averaging around 1,100–1,300pounds.

hard feeder—an animal that could not be fattened easily.

hat racks—Nellies, old thin cows.

heavies—very heavy beef cattle, older than two years.

heffs—beefers.

heretics—calves that were too big for veal and not big enough for beef; inbred cattlebetween the veal and yearling age, weighing generally 150–300 pounds.

holdovers—stock not sold on the day of arrival, leftovers, the opposite of freshreceipts.

horsey—an animal plain in quality, coarse and larger than the types of animalsdemanding top price, usually underfinished.

hot house lambs—very early spring lambs marketed in advance of the general run ofspring lambs.

in-between kinds—stock that did not easily fit into any one class. For example, cattlethat were too fleshy for feeders and hardly good enough for beef. If corn fed theymight be described as “warmed-up” or “near-beef.”

infusion—that which is introduced, added, or mixed, e.g., an infusion of Shorthornblood in ranch steers.

integration—the packer practice in recent decades of getting into the feedlot businessto assure a continuing supply of animals at the grade and weight needed to pleasesupermarket customers.

jackpot—mixed cattle, usually of common quality.

kickbacks—animals in a lot that are refused by the buyer for any cause.

killer—a packer; anyone who slaughtered meat animals, or, applied to animals fit forslaughter.


191

killing cattle—cattle in the condition to be slaughtered.

kosher—clean, lawful, as kosher meat, animals slaughtered according to Hebrew orTalmud law. Kosher buyers were those who bought for the kosher trade or kosher cat-tle, those bought for the kosher trade.

lead goats—goats trained to lead sheep; also called “Judas goat” when he led them toslaughter.

lights—lightweight stock, lighter than medium and heavies.

livestock exchange—a voluntary association of livestock producers, shippers, packers,bankers, and commission men organized to promote integrity, orderliness, and unifor-mity in the customs and business at a market; to facilitate the speedy and equitableadjustment of disputes, and, generally, to promote the welfare of the market. A boardof directors controlled the exchange.

livestock hotel—a term used to describe physical facilities and functions of the stock-yard company because the producer was charged a fee for pens, water, feed, sometimesovernight until the cattle sold.

livestock marketing agency—principal function was to represent the producer or consignor in selling livestock. He used aggressive field service, which included solicitations, appraisal of livestock, and help for producers marketing and productionprogram.

locals—animals from nearby territory.

long-fed cattle—cattle that had been on corn or other concentrated feed a sufficienttime to make finished beef, six to nine months or longer.

long yearling—an animal older than one year but younger than two years.

lunger—an old, wheezy sheep that has lost one lung, a common occurrence.

marbling—flecks of fat in the muscle, not seam fat.

market agency—any person engaged in the business of buying and/or selling livestockat a stockyard on a commission basis.

meat packing—originally to preserve fresh cuts of meat slaughtered animals wereplaced in large vats of pickle brine for several hours before they were packed in barrelsfor shipment. Before refrigeration, meat packing as a business generally lasted fromNovember 1 until the spring thaw. After refrigeration techniques developed in the lasthalf of the nineteenth century, the process shifted from “packing” the meat in barrelsto an industry involving the packaging of slaughtered and processed meat, but theterm “meatpacking” or “packers” still was used; later applied to all the functions per-formed by meat processing firms.

mediums—mediumweight stock between lights and heavies.

mongrels—scrubs.

natives—common-bred cattle without the characteristics of a particular breed, or cattleor sheep coming from nearby farming sections.

near beef—cattle that have been partly fattened or warmed up.

near packer—a hog that is good but rough, selling at twenty-five cents to fifty cents ahundred pounds below packer.

Nellies—canners, because they were so thin they were only good for canned meat.

GLOSSARY


nurse cows—milch cows that furnished additional supplies of milk for feeding calvesnot their own to give better flesh and finish.

odd head—unclassified stock, sold individually.

old-crop lambs—last years’ lambs that were ready to shed baby teeth. They werebetween new-crop lambs and yearlings. The classification was for butchering and feederpurposes.

old line firms—the prefix “old line” when attached to the name of a commission firmsignified that the firm was engaged in the business as an individual unit and not alongcooperative lines.

order buyer—a market agency whose function was to buy livestock on an agency basisfor a principal. The order buying firm did not take title to the livestock and its onlysource of revenue was the order buying tariff. Commission companies also providedorder buying service for their customers if they also were registered as order buyers.

outs—usually short on weight as well as quality and might be crippled by disease orinjury.

outsiders—buyers who ship special kinds of livestock to other markets.

packer buyer—a buyer who represented a slaughtering firm such as Armour or Swift.He bought with an eye for the dressed carcass and the quality of meat the animalwould produce. He could estimate the percentage yield of the carcass and give theweight of the animal to within ten pounds after dress.

packing sows—sows that because of age, weight, or quality were not suitable for use asfresh meat and therefore were made into pickled, canned, or processed meats.

Packers and Stockyards Administration—the agency created in 1921 by the Packersand Stockyards Act. Its representatives enforced fair practices at stockyards, and theagency approved any increase in service charges or tariffs. In 1958 country auctionscame under the jurisdiction of the Packers and Stockyards Administration for the firsttime.

paunchy—too big a stomach from fill, etc.

peewees—small stunted pigs or lambs.

pelter—ewe or sheep so old as to be of no value other than for its pelt.

pen holder—an animal left in a pen to hold it and keep other animals from beingturned into it.

pigs—usually applied to swine weighing under 140 pounds.

plant—livestock placed by a yard trader for resale.

possum belly—a large cattle truck so called because the middle of the truck was closerto the ground. It held animals on two or three levels and carried up to 50,000 pounds.

price basing point—If a market had sufficient volume, it was a price basing point. If itdid not, then whatever happened on that market was only of local significance. Mostof the larger stockyards markets served this purpose for over a century.

primes—high-grade, fattened animals, above the choice grade.

private treaty—referred to the method of buying and selling on central or terminalmarkets through use of commission companies or order buyers rather than by auction.



Individual buyers examined animals and bid on them to the commission agent. Thecommission company handled the sale by taking the offer of the highest bidder. Theexpression was actually an old legal term in English law that simply meant one-on-onebargaining, negotiating, or private selling.

public auction—a sale of livestock to the highest bidder after livestock was shown inthe auction ring. The animals could also be shown in pens before coming into the auc-tion ring. At some auctions buyers had to be registered and bonded before they couldbid. The country auction phenomenon to sell livestock multiplied in the country in thelate 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, although auctions were as old as the nation itself.

quarantine division—section of the yards set apart for stock that for some reason hadto be segregated, often for tick dipping or disease reasons.

rail splitters—hogs that were built on a long frame with long noses and impossible tofatten.

rangers—unfattened lambs or other stock from the range territory.

rangy—lanky, thin, spare in frame, usually applied to cattle.

reactors—cattle that reacted to a tuberculin test.

reputation cattle—animals raised by a breeder who had a reputation for producinguniform quality cattle. See also, standardized cattle.

runs—going to market, especially in rather large quantities.

salable receipts—(of stockyards) those animals that were offered for sale on the stock-yards as opposed to those that were only fed and watered and then shipped elsewhere.

sappy—lambs carrying milk fat, generally marketed at four months; also, calves andfeeder cattle showing bloom.

scalawags—shells, stock that was thin and emaciated.

scale ticket—filled out by the weighmaster, it showed the weight of the animal or ani-mals, the price, the name of the seller and the buyer and the name of the commissioncompany handling the sale. It was from the scale ticket that the remittance to theshipper was figured. Title changed from the seller to the buyer the moment that theweight was stamped on the scale ticket.

scalper—one who buys feeder cattle and sells to farmers and feeders at a profit, aspeculator.

schedule—meant a tariff of rates and charges filed by stockyards owners and marketagencies with the Packers and Stockyards Administration.

scratch top—one particular load that happened to sell higher than anything else.

scrubs—same as mongrels.

seedy belly sow—old and rough sows that had been used as brood sows.

selects—grades of especially high quality, above the ordinary.

shambles—the slaughterhouse or packing plant.

shee stuff or she-stock—cows and heifers.

shells—poor and thin stock.

short yearlings—cattle too old to be calves but less than a year old.

193GLOSSARY


shrinkage—weight an animal might lose because of lack of water or insufficient feed-ings, etc. between the time it left the pasture and finally was sold; simply, loss inweight between any two points or time periods.

skip—a light, trashy, common pig or lamb.

slapstick—a piece of canvas tubing fastened to a short handle, used instead of a whipin driving cattle.

slaughter cattle—in later terminology, animals about to leave the feedlots. Earlier, theywere animals destined for the large packing plant adjacent to the stockyards.

slunk—a prematurely born animal, unmarketable; bob veal.

soft and oily—meaning the flesh was soft and fat; oily layers of fat on hogs fedpeanuts, cotton hulls, mash, etc.

sold “subject”—meant that an animal might be sold at a certain price, subject to apostmortem inspection or sold subject to the inspection with the value to be deter-mined after slaughter. If the animal was found to be unfit for human consumption, theshipper received only salvage or tankage price for it.

solid mouths—young ewes having all their teeth.

spec—a speculator or scalper.

spots—dairy cattle such as Holsteins on the beef cattle market.

springer—a cow due to calve.

stag—a male castrated after developing advanced male or male-like characteristics,generally heavy and rough, showing the appearance of masculinity in the head andshoulders.

stale—stock that had been held over on the yards for several days or a week; oftenapplied to stocker and feeder cattle; any cattle that had traveled the market circuit.

stockers—animals suitable for farm or ranch breeding herds.

stockyards company—any company engaged in the business of operating a stockyards,furnishing facilities for marketing, feeding, watering, holding, delivery, shipment,weighing, and handling livestock. The stockyards company did not participate ineither the buying or selling of livestock and its only sources of revenue were the smallyardage charges that were collected on each animal coming through the market as wellas a percentage markup on feed given to the animal. Rental fees for offices in theexchange building also provided revenue; a public market where livestock were kept forsale or shipment.

string sale—inferior stock to sell attached to a high-quality group. “I’ll sell you these,but you have to take these others.” This type of agreement concerned Packers andStockyards Administration officials because it lowered the price and might not repre-sent the best interests of the consignee.

strippers—stock from which meat had to be stripped off the bone; more generallyapplied to milk cows not completely dried up before sale; also known as canners.

strong—a good market with prices ten to fifteen cents higher per hundredweight thanon the previous day.

suspects—animals that were suspected by government ante-mortem inspector ashaving some disease (cholera, pneumonia, etc.), and not expected to pass inspection.



This caused the buyer to take these animals subject to government inspection, i.e.,“sold subject.”

tariff—schedule naming charges for marketing of livestock and for buying and sellinglivestock, services to be rendered and definitions of pertinent terms. At one time thisschedule had to be approved by and on file with the secretary of agriculture.

T-B’s—cattle that had been found to be reactors by the tuberculin test.

terminal market—central market; called “terminal” because it generally represented thelast stage in the marketing of livestock, especially if slaughtering plants were the finaldestination; also often railroad terminals existed at the market; several selling agenciesoperated and anyone could buy and sell who wished to do so. Also called public mar-ket, central market, central public market, and public stockyards. Packers andStockyards officials did not consider a market a “terminal market” unless two or morecommission firms existed on it.

through stock—stock received and counted in the day’s total receipts but not offeredfor sale, being consigned to other points; also called throughs or transit. They stoppedat the stockyards merely for feed, water, and rest.

total receipts—included all livestock receipts at a market, directs, through, or salablestock.

tripe—same as canners.

truck waybill—document furnished by the stockyards company and filled out by theshipper or his representative which showed ownership of the animals, brands, or marksof identification, commission company to which animals were consigned, date andtime of arrival at market, trucker’s name and other pertinent information concerningthe livestock. The waybill served primarily as a receipt for the shipper and as a positivemeans of identifying the livestock. It was made in triplicate with one copy going to theshipper, one copy going with the animals to the commission firm, and the other copystaying with the stockyards company for a permanent record. There were variations onthese details.

two-way cattle—cattle that might go either to the slaughter because they had enoughfinish on them or back to the farm for further finishing. The decision depended alsoon market conditions and market out look in the future. They usually were wheat pas-ture or grass fat cattle.

ups and downs—any kind of stock in a bunch that some were large and some weresmall.

vealers—calves suitable for veal.

vertical integration—under single ownership or control there existed at least two seg-ments of the operation involved in producing and/or marketing livestock. For example,vertical integration would exist if a feeder owned a slaughtering operation, or a meatpacker owned a stockyards company or railroad cars in which livestock or refrigeratedmeat was shipped.

warmed up—cattle that had been on corn feed just long enough to show feed effects,but not long enough to be desirable beef.

washy—descriptive of feed such as new grass or other freshly grown vegetation thathad a clearing effect upon the digestive tract but did not make good hard flesh;applied to animals fed on such feed; soft; green.

195GLOSSARY


weigh-back—an animal sold and weighed with other stock but cut out and weighedback to the seller.

wet cows—cows being suckled; cows still giving milk.

wooled—unshorn sheep.

yardage—the fee that paid for stockyards facilities; in a “livestock hotel” it could bereferred to as “room rent” charges paid for food, watering, and weighing when the saletook place.

yearlings—cattle or sheep beyond the calf or lamb stage and under the two-year-oldclass, generally a year old.

Yorker—a hog weighing 160–190 pounds, smooth, choice, popular with butchers inNew York City.



197

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Freiberg, Karen. “Union Stock Yard Just a Hog’s Heaven.” Wichita Eagle. August 27,1978. Clipping folder, “Wichita Meat Industry and Trade Stockyards.” WichitaPublic Library. Wichita, Kans.

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209

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211

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Abilene, Kansas, 13, 119Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., 88-89Adams, John Quincy, 96Addams, Jane, 26African Americans, 78-79Allerton House Hotel, 72Allerton, Isaac, 72Allerton, Samuel W. Jr., 71-72, 76-77;

photo of, 72Amalgamated Meat Cutters, 8American Brahman Breeders

Association, 148American Farm Bureau Federation,

32-33American Federation of Labor, 26American National Livestock

Association, 31, 114American Revolution, 15, 17American Stock Yards Association, 37-38American Stockyards Association

(spelling change), 43, 165Amish farmers, 62Andalusian cattle, 21Anderson, A. D., “Andy,” 48, 110Armour, 23, 118; and Consent Decree, 46;

as large packer, 4; at Fort Worth, 122;at St. Louis, 73; bought Morris packing,36; came to Omaha, 104; Chicagoplant, 80; closed Fort Worth plant, 124;closed St. Joseph, 94; closed plant inOmaha, 106; created GeneralStockyards, 35; FTC report, 27; infootnote, 170; in Fort Worth, 118, 121,123; in Louisville, 69; in Omaha, 105;in South St. Paul, 117; invitation toOmaha, 103; Kansas City made con-cessions to, 89; located at Omaha, 102;major packer buyer at South St. Paul,118; Morris sold to, 143; ownedGeneral Stockyards, 46; receivedbonuses, 23; see Table II, 161; verticalintegration of, 25

IndexArmour and Company, as one of Big

Four, 24; at Sioux City, 109-10;expanded in Chicago, 81; Omahastockyards, 104; in Denver, 113; Morrisbrothers sold to, 142; St. Joseph, 93; inKansas City, 87;

Armour, J. Ogden, 121, photo of, 122Armour, Philip Danforth, 81, 84-85, 87,

122Asia, 49Atlanta, 48, 155auctions, added by 1960s, 14; Fort

Worth began, 124; in colonial America,17; in twenty-first century, 53; last oneat Lancaster, 63; most market activityat, 124; Oklahoma began, 143; P&SAregulated, 99; San Antonio introduced,129; South St. Paul began, 117;Wichita converted to, 127

auction barns, 41auction market, 35Avenue House, 66Ayers, Larry, 55

Bailey, Joseph L., 11Baltimore yards, 155; Allerton invested

in, 72; colonial market, 16-17; duringCivil War, 19; Lancaster sold to, 61;surpassed by Cincinnati, 65

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 157Barrett, John Garnett, 69Bay State Cattle Company, 103Belt Railroad and Stock Yards Company,

97-98, photo of, 97Bennett, Joel, 118Big Five, 24-25; by 1970s, 46; challenged

P & S Act, 34; in FTC report, 27-28;raised wages, 7; resistance to collectivebargaining, 27; see Table II, 161; sellingstockyards, 25; Wilson became, 141

Big Four, 24-25; in Chicago, 80; inDenver, 113; in 1920s, 1930s, 36; in


1970s, 46; Omaha persuaded to come,102; operated in Omaha, 105; Swiftone of, 49; two largest of, 118

Big Three, 49, 52Billings, Montana, 133, 155, 162 Billings Union Stock Yards, 37, 155-56Black, A. L., 42blacks (see African Americans), 8, 80Blackstone, Timothy B., 76Blair, Cowgill C., 151Board of Trade, 77, 100Boettcher, Charles, 113Bohemian immigrants, 6, 78Booge, James, 107-08Boston, colonial market, 17; during Civil

War, 19; earliest market town, 15;Lancaster sold animals to, 61; menfrom invested in Fort Worth, 121

Bourbon County, 68Bourbon House, 68Bourbon House Inn (in caption), 69Bourbon Stockyards, 59, 67-70Bourbon Stock Yard Company, photo of

administration building, 69“boxed beef,” 48-49Branch, Paul, 54Brahman bulls, 149Bridge yards, 100Brighton, Massachusetts, 15, 28“Broadway Shambles,” 16Brock, Sidney, 141Bromley, John, 42Buchanan, James, 61Buchanan, L. P., 151Buckingham, Everett, 105Buffalo, New York, 22, 155Bulgarians, 6Bull’s Head Corral, 111“Bulls Head Market,” 75Bull’s Head Yards, 111Bureau of Markets, 28Burke, Louis, 134


Burlington, Iowa, 155Burlington Railroad, 112Butcher Workers of North America, 8“Butchertown,” 68

California, 23, 135California stockyards, 156Canada, 54, 155Canal Capital, 47, 94, 111, 132, 137Canton, South Dakota, 108Cargill Corporation, 49Carolinas, 16Carthage, Missouri, 153Cassidy, W. L., 73Catholic-Mediterranean backgrounds, 6cattle auction, 153cattle futures, 53-54Cattlemen’s Beef Board, 55Caves, Mayor John, 97Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 155Central Livestock, 118, 155Certified Livestock Markets Association,

43Central Pacific Railroad, 146Central Stock Yard (Louisville), 69Central Stock Yards (Sioux City), 109Chambers, David L., 99Chandler, Alfred D., Jr., 23-24Charleston, South Carolina, 16-17Chester, Pennsylvania, 16Cheyenne, Wyoming, 100Chicago, 21, 65-66, 101, 104-106, 119-

121; a “union” stockyards, 22; cattle fromSt. Paul, 115; center of large railroadnetwork, 59; during Civil War, 19; FortWorth rivalry, 119, 121; Hull House in,26; Indianapolis southeast of, 96;J. Ogden Armour there, 122; livestocktrains from, 157; Morrell moved from,155; Omaha 425 miles west of, 100;Omaha on way to, 101-102; Omaharivalry, 104-06; Cincinnati rivalry, 65-66;Texas cattle, 21, 120; Swift, 138-39;United Stockyards in, 99


Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, 76Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad,

87Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and

Northwestern Yards, 75Chicago & Great Western Railroad, 115Chicago-Joliet Livestock Marketing

Center, 81Chicago Junction Railways and Union

Stock Yards Company, 79Chicago Federation of Labor, 7Chicago Live Stock Exchange, 79, 81Chicago market, annual wages at, 7;

faced competition, 83; first westernmarket, 88; immigrants at, 6; seeAppendix I, 160; see Appendix II, 162

Chicago Mercantile Exchange, 54Chicago Pork Packers Association, 76Chicago stockyards, 75-82; Allerton led

effort to build, 72; closed in 1971, 156;Indianapolis gate similar to, 97; seeTable II, 161; Swift and Company firstplant, 89; tour of facilities, 96

Chicago Union Stock Yards, 77-79;Allerton led movement for, 72; closedJuly 17, 1971, 81; opened, xi; photo ofentrance gate, 79; some business movedto Peoria from, 95

Chisholm Trail, 83, 119, 124Cincinnati, 63-67; artist’s drawing of, 64;

competed with Louisville, 68; duringCivil War, 19; hogs arrived on flatboats,95; profited from flatboats, 59; seeAppendix 2; sent cargo to Louisville,67

Cincinnati, Ohio, 18Cincinnati Union Stockyards, 66City of Portland Landmarks

Commission, 137Civil War, 19, 21-22, 68, 71, 76, 84, 92Clampit, A. B., 130Clay, Henry, 96Cleveland, 28, 155Clough, John A., 112Clybourn, Archibald, 75Colorado, 44, 83

215INDEX

Colorado Packing and ProvisionCompany, 113

Columbia, 60Commission agents, 10, 13-14; accepted

consignments, xiv, 4-5; at Lancastermarket, 61; at stockyards, xi; ceasedoperations in Ogden, 147; character-ized sales, 9; collected fees, 12; Denverruling concerning, 114; first modernone, Louisville, 68; in Kansas City, 88;in 1934, 36; in Oklahoma City, 143; inPortland, 134; must have federallicense, 28; needed for terminal market,129; offices for, 89; P&SA regulated,99; yardmen of, 11

company unions, 8computer marketing, 54computer sales, 53computer systems, 70Con-Agra, Inc., 49Congress, 32-33, 36, 45, 47Consent Decree (see Packers’ Consent

Decree), 46Cooper, J. A., 112cooperative commission companies, 36Coronado, Francisco, 21Cottage Grove yards, 75Council Bluffs, Iowa, 100-02country auctions, 37, 55, 123; after

World War II, 41; during World WarII, 38; near Cincinnati, 67; terminalmarkets competition, 109; Wichitachallenged, 127.

“cow pens,” ix, 16Craigin & Company, 76Creighton, John A., 101, 103Creighton University, 101Croatian immigrants, 78Cronon, William, 51-52Cross, Milburn, 3Cudahy, and Consent Decree, 46; arrived

in Kansas City, 89; chose Sioux City,109; FTC report, 27; given stock inWichita, 125; in Denver, 113; inOmaha, 102, 104-05; major packerbuyer, 118; opened plant in LosAngeles, 156; see Table II, 161


Cudahy, Edward, photo of, 85Cudahy, Michael, 85, 102-03, photo of,

103Cudahy Packing Company, 103, 147Cudahy, Wisconsin, 85

“Dairy Beef Capital,” 84Dakotas, 22, 63, 83Davis, Samuel, Jr., 65Denison, Iowa, 48, 110Denver Chamber of Commerce, 112Denver, 21; businessmen from, 131; con-

struction engineer of, 131; Golden OxRestaurant, 91; in FTC report, 28;Ogden competition, 147; P&S fieldoffice at, 48

Denver stockyards, 111-15; photo of113; see Appendix 2, 162; see Tables I,II, 160-61

Denver Livestock Exchange, 115Denver Livestock Market, Inc., 44Denver Union Corporation, 147Denver Union Stockyard Company, 112-

13; photo of, 1920s, 114Depression (see Great Depression), 74Des Moines, 48Detroit, 155direct buying, 34-35, 55, 67direct sales, 91Dodge, Colonel D. C., 113Dold, Jacob, 89, 125Dollars and Sense in Livestock Marketing, 38Donovan, John, 92-93dressed-beef industry, 24“drove stands,” 18Drovers Journal, The, 56Druett, Ed, 148

E. Rouch and Sons, 98East, 156Eaton, F. L. 109Eighth Circuit Court, 55Eli Lilly and Company, 99


Embry, H. F., 95Embry, Talton, 95England, 86England, G. W., 131English trading practices, 15, 17Equrrola, Jess, 44Erie Canal, 17Ernest, F. P., 112Excel Corporation, 49Europe, 49, 96Evans and Swift, 65Evans, Eulass and Pierce, 65Evans, Jason, 64Evansville, 155

Farmers’ Union, 25-26Farmland National, 49fat stock show, 88federal legislation, 91, 94, 142Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 27-

28, 31-32, 35, 45, 160feedlots, 42, 55; after World War II, 74;

Big Three owned, 49-50; by 1950s, 41;cause of stockyards closings, 81; directsales from, ix, 14; in 1970s, 46; inOklahoma, 144; in West Texas, 124;modern plants near, 45; multiplied, 39;new feeding standard, 126; South St.Paul market for, 117; swept plains by1960s, 43

Fenley, Oscar, 69Finke, J. C., 151Finland, 86First Monday court-trade day, 67First National Bank of Omaha, 103Fisher, Rob, 144Fitzpatrick, John, 7Floyd Valley Packing Company, 110Flanagan, Sue, 1Follette, Robert M., 27Ford, Henry, 8Fort Dearborn, 75Fort Worth, 48, 148


Fort Worth Packing Company, 120Fort Worth yards, 21, 118-24, enterpris-

ing Hispanic at, 9; Houston got marketnews from, 149; in FTC report, 28;located to north, xiii; Oklahoma farm-ers shipped to, 141; opened 1880s, 83;scales, 11; P & S action against, 47;photos of, 120, 123; see Appendix 2,162; see Tables I, II, 160-61; tacticsused, 23

Fort Worth Stockyards National HistoricDistrict, 124, 168

Fort Worth Union Stock Yards, 120-21Foster, William Z., 7-84-H, 38, 135, 153Fowler Brothers, 116France, 86Frisco Railroad, 153Frontier, 51Future Farmers of America, 38, 135, 153

Garcia, Joe T., in footnote, 168Garden City, Kansas, 91General Stockyards, 35, 46,Georgetown, Missouri, 93German, Ernest Louis, 70German immigrants, 6, 59, 67, 78Gilpin, William, 134Gimmel, W. C., 108Golden Ox Restaurant, 91-92Golden Spike Coliseum, 147Golden Spike National Livestock Show,

147Goodyear, Miles, 145Gould, Jay, 71, 100government regulation (see federal legis-

lation), 31, 35, 37, 45Grangers, 26Granite City, 6Graves, Dr. Amos, 128Great Depression, 9, 36, 152.Great Northern Railway, 115Great Plains, 53, 83“Great Trail,” 119

217INDEX

Greece, 86Gregory, B. E., 95Greenback Party, 26Gronna, Asle, 31Guatemala City, 149Gulf Coast, 148Gulf Coast Packing Company, 148

Hagelstein, Carleton, Jr., 128Hagelstein, G. Carlton, 128Hagelstein, Janie, 129Hamilton, Alexander, 17Hammond, George H., 24, 93, 104, 161Hampshire County, Massachusetts, 15Handcock, John L., 76Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, 87Hansen, Lars, 146Harris, Everett B., 54Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 60Harsh, James E., 151Hartshorn and Childs, 65Hathaway, J. A., 138Haugen, Gilbert, 31Haymarket Square, 85Hedges, Daniel T., 108Herr’s Island, 157Hill, James J., 115Hoffer Brothers, 113Hoffman, Judge Julius, 46“Hog Butcher for the World,” 75Hogopolis, 63Holland, 86Holman, C. J., 110Holman, Currier, 48Hoof and Horn Restaurant, 93Hoover, President Herbert, 37Home of the Innocents, 70Homestead Act, 83House of Representatives, 28Houston Belt and Terminal Railroad, 148Houston Fat Stock Show, 151


Houston ship channel, 149Houston stockyards, 133,148-51; photo,

150Hull House, 26

IBP (See Iowa Beef Processors), 49IBP/Foodbrands, 49ice packing, 96Idaho, 130, 146Iler, Peter E., 138Illinois, 44, 65Illinois and Michigan canal, 94Illinois Central and Michigan Central

Railroad, 75Illinois State Board of Agriculture, 79Immigrants, after 1890, 22; as strike

breakers, 8; earnings of, 6; establishedfarms, 83; exploitation of, 7; inChicago, 78; in South Omaha, 104;from Eastern Europe, 93; from MiddleEastern culture, 62; in South St. Paul,117; sought stockyards jobs, 6; FortWorth, 9; unskilled workers, 5

Indian Territory, 133Indiana Livestock Exchange, 55, foot-

note 173Indianapolis Belt Railway Company, 97Indianapolis, 21, 48, 50, 96Indianapolis stockyards, 95-99; photo of,

98; see Appendix 2, 162Indianapolis Stockyards Company, Inc., 99Indianapolis Union Railway Company, 97Intermountain West, 148Interstate Commerce Act, 24, 35, 112Iowa, 31, 44, 100, 130Iowa City, Iowa, 91Iowa Beef Packers (See Iowa Beef

Processors), 48, 110Iowa Beef Processors, (IBP), 48-49, 110Irish immigrants, 78-80

Jackson, Mississippi, 126Japan, 86Japanese Americans, 135


Jenkins, Ronald, 95Jensen, S. S., 146Jersey City, 72, 162Jersey City Stock Yards Company, 156Jewish immigrants, 6, 62John Clay and Company, 120John Morrell and Company, 131-32, 155Johnstone, John, 7Joliet, Illinois, 156Joplin, 4, 50, 133Joplin Regional Stockyards, 153Joplin stockyards, 37, 151-53Judson, Mark, 129Judson, Mary, 129Jungle, The, 7, 26, 122, footnote, 167Justice Department, 113

Kansas, 21, 44, 83Kansas City, 21-22, competed with

Louisville, 68; cooperative commissioncompanies at, 36; 1870 activities, 13; inFTC report, 28; Philip Armour’sbrother at, 87; P & S field office at, 48;St. Louis challenged, 74; Texas pro-ducers shipped to, 120, 148;

Kansas City Connecting RailroadCompany, 90

Kansas City stockyards, 86-92, photos of,88, 90, see Appendix 2, 162; see TablesI, II, 160-61

Kansas City Stock Yards Company, 88,112

Kansas cowtowns, xiKansas legislature, 124Kansas-Pacific Railroad, 87Kaposia, (early Minnesota) 115Kay Corporation, 107KC Strips, 91Kendrick, John B., 31Kenton, Oregon, 136Kenton Action Plan, 137Kentucky, 17-18, 67Kentucky State Fair, 70


Kenyon, William S., 31King Ranch, 32Kingan Brothers Packing, 96Kleberg, Robert J., 32Klesel, Fred J., 146

Lafayette, Indiana, 96Lake, Illinois, 6, 78Lake Shore and Michigan Southern

Railroad, 78Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 16, 50, 59 Lancaster stockyards, 60-63; photo of,

62; see Appendix 2, 162Landreth, W. H., 151Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 96Lee, R. W., 65Libby, McNeill and Libby, 119Lipton, Sir Thomas, 102Lithuanian immigrants, 6, 78Lively, D. O., 135livestock auctions, 42-43livestock exchange, xiv, 89“livestock hotels,” x, 3, 18, 29, 39, 49, 52,

84livestock industry, 27, 51Livestock Market Institute, 109Livestock Market News Service, 36, 149livestock marketing, as oligopolistic, 25;

eastern capital in, 23; in mid-nine-teenth century, 18; revolutionized, 53;large stockyards, ix; network, xiv; prob-lems in mid-1950s, 42; strategies, xi

Livestock marketing associations, 36Livestock National Bank, 109livestock show, 78London, England 15, 102Los Angeles, 156Los Angeles stockyards, 156Lot Pugh and Company, 65Louisville, 18-19, 28, 50, 59Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington, 68Louisville Fat Cattle Show, 69Louisville and Nashville Railroad, 68

219INDEX

Louisville stockyards, 67-70; seeAppendix 2, 162

Lovejoy, Asa L., 133Lux, Charles, 137-38

Macedonian immigrants, 6Madison, Indiana, 96Madison Railroad, 96“Magic City,” 103“managerial capitalism,” 24“managerial cooperativism,” 37Manhattan Island, 16Marcy, Jay, 36Marshall, Missouri, 91Maysville, Ohio, 18MBPXL Corporation (See Excel

Corporation), 49McCarty, Nicholas, 96McCord, James, 92McCoy, Bill, 50, 61McCoy, Joseph G., 13-14, 57McCoy, Patrick, 62McGhee, Allan, 56McReynolds, Allan, 152McReynolds, Allan, Jr., 153McShane, John A., 103-04Meat Inspection Act, 26Mellon Bank, 54Mennonite farmers, 62Memphis, Tennessee, 126, 155Merchant, Warren, 134Mexican workforce, 6, 78Mexicans, 54Michaelis, H. R. “Herb,” 127Michigan Livestock Exchange, in foot-

note, 173Michigan Southern Yards, 75Middle colonies, 16Middle West, 51, 96Midwest, 19, 24, 43, 51-52, 59, 81, 83,

109, 153Midwestern farm bloc, 32, 34


Midwestern farmers, 64Military Plaza, 127Miller and Johnson, 65Miller, Henry, 137-38Mills, Elisha, 63Mills, William B., 112Milwaukee, 21, 50, 122; in FTC report,

28; Plankinton and Armour there, 102Milwaukee stockyards, 84-86, photo of

84; see Appendix 2, 162Minnesota, 83, 130Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad,

116Minnesota Club, 115Minnesota Packing and Provision

Company, 116Mission San Antonio de Valero, 127Missouri, 34, 44, 83Missouri Kansas & Texas Railroad

(Katy), 126Missouri Pacific Railroad, 152Mistletoe Yards, 91Montana, 22, 63, 83, 130, 146Montana cattlemen, 115Montana court decision, 55Montana Livestock Company, 115Montgomery, Alabama, 126Moore Packing Company, 98Morgan, W.H.H., 134Morgan’s Landing, 134Morrell, Chester, 34Morrell and Company, 89Morris and Company, 27, 73, 89, 141,

143; see Table II, 161Morris and Sons, 24Morris, Edward, 90; photo of, 142Morris, Nelson, 22, 35, 73, 90, 93, 141-

42; photo of, 22Morse, C. F., 112Myrick Stockyards, 22

Nashville, 91, 155National Beef Packing, 49


National Cattlemen’s Beef Association,55

National Hotel, 72National Live Stock Exchange, 73National Packing Company, 113National Stock Yards, 72-73National Stockyards, Illinois, 70-74National Traders’ Exchange, 89Nebraska, 44, 63, 83, 112, 134Nebraska cowtowns, xiNeill, Thomas, 94Nelson Morris Company, 23, 78Nevada, 146New Amsterdam, 16New Castle, Pennsylvania, 16New England, 15New Mexico, 35, 44New Orleans, 63, 71, 95New York, 17, 19, 24, 61New York Central System, 78New York City, 16, 96, 107, 156New York market, p. 160Newark, 28Niles, Louville, V., 120-21North Fort Worth, 121North American International Livestock

Exposition, 70North Atlantic states, 51North Carolina, 16North Dakota, 31, 115, 130, 132

Occidental Petroleum, 49Ogallala Aquifer, 53Ogden, 23, 133Ogden Livestock Show, 147Ogden Packing and Provision Company,

146-47Ogden stockyards, 145-48; see Appendix

2, 162Ogden Union Stockyards Company, 146Ogden, Utah, 102Ohio, 18


Ohio-Mississippi network, 17Oklahoma, 44, 63Oklahoma City, 23, 50,Oklahoma City stockyards, 53, 75, 133,

140-45; photo of, 145; see Appendix 1,160-61; see Appendix 2, 162

Oklahoma National Stock YardsCompany, 143

Omaha, 21, 24, 28, 47-48, 50, 72, 130,147

Omaha, city of, 106Omaha Livestock Exchange, 102Omaha Livestock Market, Inc., 107Omaha meat packers, 106Omaha stockyards, xiii, 36, 78, 85, 100-

07, 138, photos of 105-06; seeAppendix 1, 160-61; see Appendix 2,162

Omaha Union Stockyards, 105Omaha Union Stock Yard Company, 102Oregon, 130Oregon Waste Systems, Inc., 136Ottumwa, Iowa, 155Overton, William, 133

P&S (See Packers and StockyardsAdministration)

Pacific Northwest, 136Packers and Stockyards Act, 33, 45, 123Packers and Stockyards Administration,

46, 47, 50, 114-15, 166, defines termi-nal market, 127, 129; federal appointeesto, 35; field offices, 5; first head of, 34;in 1991, 99; latter twentieth century,45; number of offices, 48; officials atstockyards, xii; Oklahoma yards, 144;refereed after 1921, 4

Packers’ Consent Decree, 32, 45“Packingtown,” 78, 142Packers, the Private Car Lines and the

People, The, 122Palmer, Attorney General A. Mitchell, 32Panama Pacific International Exposition,

135Panic of 1873, 97, 124

221INDEX

Panic of 1893, 116, 121, 139Patterson, Hal R., 153Patterson, Harve R., 151Paxton, William A., 101Pennsylvania, 100Pennsylvania Railroad, 61, 78, 157Peoria market, 21, 42, 50, 94-95; photo

of, 95; see Appendix 2, 162Peoria Packing Company, 94Peoria Union Stock Yards, 94Peoria Union Stock Yards Company, 3-4Pettigrew, R. F., 130Pettingill, A. J., 130Pettygrove, Francis W., 133Philadelphia, 16-17, 19, 28, 62Pingree, James, 146Pittsburgh, 67, 157Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne Yards, 75Pittsburgh market, 72; see Appendix 2,

162Pittsburgh Provision Company and Joint

Stockyards, 157Plankinton and Armour, 84-85, 87, 102Plankinton, John, 81, 84Polish immigrants, 6, 78Populists, 26Porkopolis, 63, 65Port City Packing Company, 149Port City Stockyards, 37, 54, 148-49;

photo of, 150Portland, 23, 28, 42, 47-48, 133-137, 156;

photo of, 136; see Appendix 2, 162Portland International Livestock

Exhibition Center, 135Portland Livestock Exchange, 134Portland Union Stock Yards Company,

134Pratt, Homer, 127Progressive Era, 26Promontory Point, Utah Territory, xiPure Food and Drug Administration, 26

“Queen City,” 63, 65


race problems, 8, 80Rancho Buri Buri, 137Rauh, Charles, 99Rauh family, 98Rauh, Samuel E., 98-99Red Oak, Iowa, 107Red Steer Café, 135, 137Richardson, E. E., 112Roosevelt, President Theodore, 25, 115Rumanians, 117Rushville, Nebraska, 36

S.F. Properties, 137S & S Company (see Schwarzchild and

Sulzberger), 143San Antonio, 21, 50, 83, see Appendix 2,

162San Antonio stockyards, 127-130, photo

of, 128San Antonio Stock Yards Company, 128Sanchez, Jose Antonio, 137Santa Fe Railroad, 124Sartwelle, J. D., 54, 150Sartwelle, J. D., Jr., 151Sartwelle, J.W., 148, 150Scherrer, Jacob, 112Schwarzchild and Sulzberger, 24, 27, 89,

141Scottish-Irish immigrants, 16, 78Sealy, Texas, 151Seattle, 115Seelback, Louis, 70Serbian immigrants, 78Sewell, Terry, 95Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 24Sherman, John B., 22, 76-77; photo of, 77Sherman Yards, 75Sierra Petroleum Company, 126-27Silver, Gray, 33Simons, David, 52Simpson, G. W., 120-21Sims Bill, H.R. 13324, 28


Sinclair, Upton, 7-8, 26, 122, in footnote,167

Sioux City, 21, closed, 94; in FTCreport, 28; owned by UnitedStockyards, 47; 50

Sioux City, Iowa, 130Sioux City stockyards, 21, 107-11;

closed, 94 devastating flood at, 109;FTC report, 18; United Stockyards,47,50; photos, 108,110; see Appendix1, 160-61; see Appendix 2, 162

Sioux City Stock Yards Company, 109-10, 132

Sioux Falls, 21, 47, 50Sioux Falls stockyards, 130-32; photo of,

131; see Appendix 2, 162Sioux Falls Stockyards Company, 130Skytrain Airlines, 149Sixty-fifth Congress, 32Sixty-sixth Congress, 32Skinner-Dold Packing plant, 105Slovenian immigrants, 6, 78Smith, Adam, 23Smith Brothers, 112-13Smith, Daniel C., 126Smith, Daniel C., Jr., (Conlee), 126Smith, Dan C., III, 126Smith, E. G., 130Smithfield, England, 15Snodgrass, Stephen S., 68South Dakota, 44, 130, 132South Omaha, 103-04South Omaha Land Company, 103South Omaha Land Syndicate, 100South San Francisco, 23, 133, 156, see

Appendix 2, 162South San Francisco, city of, 137South San Francisco Land and

Improvement Company, 138South San Francisco stockyards, xiii,

137-40, 156, photo of, 140South San Francisco Union Stock Yards

Company, 140South St. Joseph, 93


South St. Paul, 21, 48, 50, 130South St. Paul stockyards, xiii, 115-18,

photos of, 116, 118; see Appendix 2,162

South St. Paul Union Stockyards, 116-17, 155

Southern Pacific Railroad, 128, 134, 138,146

“Spanish fever,” 124Spain, 86Spanish cattle trade, 137Spiva, George N., 152Spokane stockyards, 156Spokane, Washington, 31Stewart, James, 61St. George, Missouri, 93Stickney, A. B., 115St. Joseph, 21, 22, 109St. Joseph stockyards, 50, 92-94; Allerton

invested in, 72; cooperative commissioncompanies at, 36; in FTC report, 28;location, xiii; owned by UnitedStockyards, 47; photo of, 93; profits of,4; see Appendix 1, 160-61; seeAppendix 2, 162

St. Joseph Stock Yards Company, 92St. Joseph Union Stock Yards, 92St. Louis, 50, 59, 71, 109St. Louis Live Stock Exchange, 73St. Louis Live Stock Reporter, The, 73St. Louis National Stockyards, 71, 73St. Louis stockyards, 70-75; Allerton

instrumental in, 72; auction building,photo of, 42; competed with Louisville,68; during Civil War, 19; immigrantsat, 6; in FTC report, 28; photo of, 74;received Texas cattle, 21; see Appendix1, 160-61; see Appendix 2, 162; tour offacilities, 96; Texas producers shippedto, 120; wages at, 7

St. Louis Union Stockyards, 71Stockton, California, 156Stockton stockyards, 156“stockyards,” broad, narrow definitions,

xii; companies, 23; procedures, 3; prof-its, 4; sources of revenue, xiii; wages

223INDEX

and working conditions, 6-7Stockyards Café, 152“Stockyards City,” 145Stockyards Labor Council, 7Stone, George, 141St. Paul market, 28, 62, 160-61St. Paul Bridge and Terminal Railway

Company, 117Superior Livestock Auction, Inc., 54Swan, Alexander H., 100-02, photo of

101Swan Land and Cattle Company, 100-02Swift, and Consent Decree, 46; as large

packer, 4; at St. Louis, 73; came toSioux City, 109; closed in Omaha, 106;controlled St. Louis, 73; created fringebenefits, 8; created United Stockyards,35, 46; FTC report, 27; in footnote,170; in Fort Worth, 118, 121-23; inLouisville, 69; in Ogden, 148; inOmaha, 102, 105; in Portland, 135; inSan Francisco, 137; major packer buyer,118; bonuses, 23; see Table II, 161; shutdown Chicago plant, 80; shut downFort Worth plant, 124; survival, 49;vertical integration of, 25

Swift, Edward F., photo of, 119Swift and Company, established in

Chicago, 138; as one of Big Four, 24;bought into St. Joseph, 93; boughtSioux Falls yards, 132; came to Omaha,104; Gustavus F. Swift founder, 119; inDenver, 113; in Portland, 134, 136; inSouth St Paul, 117; moved to KansasCity, 89; 139

Swift, Gustavus F., 93, 119; photo of, 138Swift, Gustavus Franklin, Jr., photo of,

139Swift Independent Packing Company

(SIPCO), 49Swift interests, 84Swift plant, 94, 110Swift v. United States, in footnote, 170Syrian immigrants, 78

Taft, Chief Justice William Howard, 34telephone auction, 86


“Tel-O-Market,” 86Terre Haute, Indiana, 96Texas, 22, 43, 63, 83, 118, 120, 123Texas A & M University, 55Texas cattle, 71, 89Texas Cattle Feeders Association, 44Texas Livestock Marketing Association,

52Texas longhorns, ix, 21, 59, 71, 88, 148Texas & Pacific Railroad, 119, 126Texas Panhandle, 44, 53, 124, 130“Texas Trail,” 119This Little Pig Went to Market, 38Thompson, R. B. “Dick,” 126Tomes, George K., 70Toronto, 155“traders exchange,” xivTraders Livestock Exchange, 89Transit House Hotel, 93triangular partnership, 158Tulsa, 155Turkey, 86Turner, Frederick Jackson, 51-52Tyson Foods, 49

Ukrainian immigrants, 78Uncle Sam, 29, 31, 45Union, 73Union Meat Company, 134Union Pacific Railroad, 42, 87, 100, 102,

112, 146Union Railroad Stock Yard Company, 66Union Railroad Station, 111Union Railroad Transfer and Stock Yards

Company, 97Union Stock Yards (Chicago), 116Union Stock Yards (San Antonio), 128-29Union Stock Yard Company (Lancaster),

61Union Stock Yards Company (Omaha),

100-01, 104Union Stock Yards Company (Portland),

134


Union Stock Yards Company (SiouxCity), 108-09

Union Stock Yard and Transit Companyof Chicago, The, 76

United States Supreme Court, 55, 114United States v. Swift & Co. et al, in foot-

note, 170United Stockyards, 117; acquired Fort

Worth’s stock, 123; acquired Omaha,107; bought out General Stockyards,46; leased Indianapolis Stockyards, 99;owned Milwaukee yards, 86; owned St.Joseph, 94; owned seven yards in 1990s,47; owned Sioux City, 111; once ownedWest Fargo yards, 155; owned Stocktonyards, 156; president of, 118; Swift andCompany created, 35, 132

Upper Yards, 100Uvacek, Ed, Jr., 55U.S. Cattlemen’s Congress, 145U.S. Department of Agriculture, xiiU.S. Department of Agriculture Market

News Service, 53U.S. Small Business Administration, 48

Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 78Vanderbilt family, 79, 121Vanderbilt, William H., 71, 78Vest committee, 24Vest, George Graham, 24Vicksburg, Mississippi, 126video marketing, ix, 53, 55, 70, 153Virginia, 67Vissman, Herman F., 68

Wade, Louise Carroll, xii, 7Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture Henry

C., 34Walker, J. M., 87Walters and Aicher, 113War of 1812, 17Washington, 135Washington, D. C., 19, 61, 91Washington, George, 15, 17


Waste Management of North America,Inc., 136

Wattis, W. H., 146Waynesville, Ohio, 64Weber Livestock Auction Company, 147Welsh immigrants, 78West Fargo, North Dakota, 37, 155West Fargo market, 162West Virginia, 33, 121Western Meat Company, 138-39Western Packing Plant, 113Western and Southwestern Railroad, 124Wetzel, Samuel B., 112Western Video Market, 54West Indies, 16Whitlock, Lester P., 146Wichita Live Stock Exchange, 125Wichita stockyards, 124-27, cooperative

commission companies at, 36; locatedto north, xiii; photos of, 10, 125;received Texas cattle, 21; see Appendix1, 160; see Appendix 2, 162; weighscales of, 10

225INDEX

Wichita Union Stock Yards, xiii, 124,126

Wickert and Neill, 94Wilder, Dale, 155-56Wilson, J. M., 112Wilson, Thomas E., 8, 23, 27, 89, 105-

06, 113, 141, 143, 161Wilson, President Woodrow, 26-28Winship, John, 15Wisconsin, 83-84Witmer, Abraham, 60women workers, 8Works Progress Administration, 130World War I, 26-27, 78, 122World War II, 38, 41, 43, 74, 94, 109,

117, 123, 135Wyoming, 31, 83, 100, 103, 130

Yeager, Mary, 25Yocom, Allyn, 134

Zimmerman, Curt, 118


This is the first comprehensive look at America’s stockyards

between 1865 and the 1980s. It is the colorful story of an

important era in American history.—

DAVID DARYauthor of Cowboy Culture, The Buffalo Book,The Santa Fe Trail, and other titles about theOld West

An excellent account of terminal markets and the role

they played in livestock marketing.—

DAN VAN ACKERENGrain Inspection, Packers and StockyardsAdministration, Washington, D.C., retired.

9!BMECL@:UTROSSoYjZ]ZiZdZ`

ISBN 0-87565-304-9

Livestock markets for the sale and distri-

bution of meat developed as early as the

days of colonial America. In the mid-nine-

teenth century, as westward expansion

increased and railroads developed, stock-

yards companies formed in order to meet

the demand of a growing nation. Contrary

to markets, these companies were centrally

organized and managed by a select few prin-

cipal partners. America’s Historic Stockyards:

Livestock Hotels is an examination of such

stockyards, from their early beginnings to

their eventual decline.

Stockyards helped to establish some of

America’s greatest cities. Early on the scene

were stockyards in cities such as Cincinnati,

otherwise known as “Porkopolis,” and stock-

yards and packing powerhouse Chicago,

considered the number one livestock mar-

ket in the nation. Markets eventually

expanded further westward to California

and Oregon.

Other smaller markets made large con-

tributions to the industry. The cow towns of

Fort Worth and Wichita never reached the

status of Chicago but had large livestock

receipts. Fort Worth, for instance, became

the largest horse and mule market in 1915, as

World War I produced an increased demand for

these animals.

Meatpacking moguls known as the Big

Four—Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, Nelson

Morris, and Edward Cudahy—usually financed

these growing markets, controlled the meatpacking

business and, in turn, the stockyards companies.

Although the members changed, this oligopoly

remained intact for much of the duration of the

stockyards industry. However, as railways gave way

to highways, the markets declined and so too did

these moguls. By the end of the twentieth century,

almost every major market closed, bringing an end

to the stockyards era.

J’Nell Pate’s examination of this era, the people,

and the markets themselves recounts a significant

part of the history of America’s meat industry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J’Nell L. Pate holds a Ph.D.

in history from the University

of North Texas. Her disserta-

tion became Livestock Legacy:

The Fort Worth Stockyards

1887-1987, which won the

Coral H. Tullis prize from

the Texas State Historical Association as the best

book on Texas history in 1988. A Fellow in the

Texas State Historical Association and now retired

from Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, she is

also the author of North of the River: A Brief History

of North Fort Worth, Hazel Vaughn Leigh and the Fort

Worth Boys’ Club, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie: Brave

Cavalry Colonel, a juvenile, and Document Sets for

Texas and the Southwest in U.S. History, a primary

source reader which she edited. She makes her

home in Fort Worth. — continued on rear flap—

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