USA > Kansas > Sedgwick County > History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas, past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county, Vol. II > Part 22
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cluding a national bank. The Wichita stock yards are among the best equipped institutions of the kind in the West. The pens are all paved with cement and brick and the stock is furnished with clear, pure water. The Wichita packers for a year past have been pushing out into new territory and nearly every day one sees new shippers on the yards who have never been here before. One very promising feature is that about all of these new shippers go away pleased with their experience until the Wichita market has come to be spoken of among stockmen as "the market that satis- fies."
The Wichita packers have pushed their lines far into the Southwest; they have moved north into what was formerly Kan- sas City's territory and on the west into Colorado; they have gone into the fine grazing and feeding section east of the Flint hills and are getting export steers that two or three years ago the owners of which did not know that they had a market this side of Chicago. The increase of cattle for the year 1909 over 1908 was 75,245 and 10,219 more hogs were received in 1909 over 1908. There are a few reasons why this market has a favorable location, but they are important. It is located one hundred miles north of the famous cotton belt of the South, so that a packing house here is getting near the southern section where good hogs are successfully raised, and again Wichita is in the very center of the great corn and alfalfa belt, which includes southern Kan- sas and the north half of Oklahoma. The same effort put forth here that is being used at other packing centers is bound to make the great packing center of the Southwest. G. B. Albright, gen- eral manager of the Wichita Union Stock Yards, has grasped the situation and he is spending the money of the company lavishly to put the yards in shape to take care of the stock that he knows will seek this market in the years to come. He knows that lis yards are located in the very center of a great live stock section and that shippers will take advantage of the profits to be derived from the short haul. He is even now calling attention of shippers to this advantage and his words fall upon willing ears, because the shippers have learned from experience what the long haul costs in shrinkage and freight charges. When the Wichita market will furnish 700 cattle and 5,000 hogs six days of each week the capacity of the Cudahy and Dold plants will have been supplied, but before that time arrives the big packing houses will be en- larged to meet the increased demand. These wideawake packers
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intend to keep in advance of the development of this section, which has already become a factor in supplying the world's food products. When southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma have been fully developed there will be the cattle and hogs to make Wichita the greatest packing center in the world .- From the "Daily Beacon."
DEVELOPMENT OF PACKING INDUSTRY.
Without a doubt Wichita's greatest industry lies in her two great packing houses. Together these two plants employ more men, pay them more wages, handle more business for a greater amount of money than any other industry of the city or the state of Kansas. Figures tell something of Wichita's greatest indus- try, but they cannot tell all. For instance, an army of 1,200 men earn their daily bread in the two packing plants. How many others are supported by these packing houses is hard to say. Con- servatively, however, 4,000 persons get their living from wages and salaries paid by the Wichita packers. These 4,000 persons have $25,000 weekly to spend with the Wichita merchants. An- nually they spend a million and a quarter dollars. Running at capacity the two houses can easily slaughter 5,000 hogs and 1,000 cattle every working day of the year. The average daily slaughter runs between 3,000 and 4,000 hogs and about 600 cattle. Before snow flies the daily average of cattle will be boosted to 1,000 head. Last year the two plants slaughtered 600,000 hogs, con- verting them into 80,000,000 pounds of bacon, hams, sausage, lard and other products. For these 600,000 hogs they paid to the farmers of southern Kansas and Oklahoma an average of $15 per head, or a total of nearly $10,000,000. The output of two such plants as are located in Wichita is stupendous. An average of thirty cars of finished products are shipped every day. Each car contains an average of 25,000 pounds of meat, worth not less than $2,000. This brings the total annual business of the Wichita packing houses well over twenty millions of dollars. This is for hog products alone. Beef products will bring the total up to $25,000,000.
These figures show a little bit of what the packing industry means to Wichita. The stock yards form one of the auxiliary in- dustries, which employs 500 men and handles upwards of 1,500,- 000 head of live stock every year. The stock yards bring a vast
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amount of trade to Wichita merchants other than live stock. A large portion of the money received by farmers for stock is spent with Wichita business houses. The rapid growth of the North End is due largely to the activity and prosperity of the packing industry. Hundreds of homes have been built and paid for in . this part of the city by the men who handle the knife, the meat hook and the loading truck at the packing houses.
To the late Jacob Dold belongs the credit for Wichita's pack- ing industry. It was he who read the signs some thirty years ago and conceived the Wichita live stock market as it is today. Not only did Jacob Dold believe that Wichita was destined to become the greatest live stock and packing center of the Southwest but he gave up hard cash and hard work to make it so. Every person who has lived in the city of Wichita for five years knows the story of Jacob Dold, the pioneer packer. Time and again has it been told how he peddled sausage of his own making on the streets of Buffalo; how he gradually built up one of the largest packing industries in New York and then branched out with plants at Kansas City and Wichita. The Jacob Dold packing plant was the first big manufacturing industry to locate in this city. In the early eighties Jacob Dold, then a rich man from his large interests at Buffalo, came into Kansas to locate a plant in a new country with a future. From the first Wichita looked good to him. When his plant was built he believed that Wichita was destined to become another Chicago. From year to year Jacob Dold returned to Wichita to look over his growing property. What he saw increased his faith in the future of the city. Finally he came to see the ashes of the great packing house he had erected. Still he was undaunted. He reiterated his faith in the city and her people. The burned plant was rebuilt on a much larger scale and the ideals of Jacob Dold began to come true. Few realized the battle Jacob Dold made for the establishment of a creditable live stock market in this city. For years and years he was the only buyer of hogs and cattle on this market and no matter what price his buyers might offer the bulk of the live stock passeď through Wichita to larger markets, where there was competitive buying. These were years of trial for the veteran packer. One packing house, built after the Dold company was established, closed its doors at the collapse of the boom. It was ten or more years before they were opened again. During this time Jacob Dold held faith. He looked ahead and saw the time when the rich
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lands of the Arkansas valley would blossom with corn and be dotted with feed lots. In these feed lots he saw thousands of sleek fat cattle and thousands of fattening porkers. Sustained by this vision he kept the Wichita plant running. At times there were not enough hogs and cattle offered on the Wichita market to keep the house running full time one day in the week. Then came the fire in 1900, which destroyed practically the entire plant. This left the Wichita market entirely without a buyer. Two years after the disastrous fire Jacob Dold and his sons had rebuilt the Wichita house with twice the capacity of the old plant. This was one of the signal proofs of his belief in Wichita and the ultimate greatness of the live stock industry in this immediate vicinity. A year ago this month Jacob Dold, Sr., died. He was an old man who had long since removed the burden of his wealth and its man- agement to the shoulders of his stalwart sons. His death was universally regretted throughout the packing world of America, for Jacob Dold was one of the pioneers of America's packing in- dustry as well as the pioneer for that business in southern Kan- sas. Into the shoes of Jacob Dold, Sr., stepped Jacob Dold, Jr. Young Jake, as he is familiarly known, had been acting head of the great Dold packing industries for several years prior to his father's death. In the reorganization he was made president of the company, being the eldest of the five sons.
The policy of the Dold Packing Company remains the same, although the man who formed the policy is dead. Toward Wichita this policy is to grow with the live stock market, whose growth, by the way, has been keeping things rather lively in packing town these past three years. To say that the original Dold pack- ing plant has grown and spread out till it is four times larger than at the beginning would be telling only part of the truth. The actual growth to the city and to the live stock industry of the Southwest is the true index. For five years the Dold company has been constantly building to the Wichita plant. Every depart- ment of the hog slaughtering portion has doubled its capacity in that time. Two thousand hogs can be killed daily where a few years ago 1,000 head formed a big day's work. This fall beef cooler capacity is being tripled so that three times as many cattle may be slaughtered. In five years the Dold company has estab- lished nearly thirty branch houses in various parts of the United States. These extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Denver to the Gulf. A large portion of the product from the
FRIENDS UNIVERSITY. RUSSELL HALL.
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Wichita plant is disposed of through these branch houses. Three years ago this fall the Wichita live stock market was given a tre- mendous impetus. It was that that sent the receipts at the Wichita Union Stock Yards soaring to a figure double that of four years ago. It was an impetus that is still working wonders in the live stock industry of the Southwest. And that impetus was the ad- vent of the Cudahy Packing Company into Wichita. It was just three years ago this fall that the Cudahy company bought the old and dilapidated John Cudahy packing plant. Immediately things began to liven up in packing town. Where John Cudahy had carried on a desultory beef and pork business in a ramshackle set of buildings the Cudahy company started in to make improve- ments. The first thing the Cudahy company did was to enlarge the hog capacity. This was done simply by the installation of modern machinery and the rearrangement of the hog killing floor. Then the Cudahy company began buying hogs and converting them into hams, bacon and lard.
Originally the plant operated by the Cudahy company was a small affair. It was built in the eighties by the Whittaker Bros. Packing Company. For a few years the plant did a monster business. Then came the hard times at the end of the boom days and the plant was closed. It remained in disuse a number of years and was finally purchased by John Cudahy, of Chicago. After a thorough renovation the plant was reopened for busi- ness. Few changes were made in the original arrangement of things and little modern machinery was added. In this fashion the plant worried along six or eight years, slaughtering a few hundred head of hogs per day and perhaps a score of cattle. In 1907 came the Cudahy company to take possession.
During the first year's occupancy of the plant the Cudahy company ran it at capacity all the time. New machinery was added in every department and improvements to the old build- ings and equipment were under way constantly. When the old plant had been thoroughly renovated plans were commenced for more buildings.
What the arrival of the Cudahy Packing Company did for the Wichita market three years ago the increased capacity of the Wichita plant is going to do over again in the near future. For the new portion of the plant, built these last two years and just now going into operation, is more than twice the size of the old portion built years ago by the Whittaker Brothers. Briefly, the
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Cudahy Packing Company has built in the past two years the fol- lowing factories : Beef house, with a capacity of 500 cattle a day ; monster lard refinery; glue house; fertilizer; box house; cooper- age shop; a huge cold storage warehouse; a large office and numerous other smaller buildings. These improvements with the machinery necessary for their equipment have cost the Cudahy Packing Company approximately one million dollars. And they are not all. More buildings are already planned for construction within the coming year. These will include a large modern ice plant and a stable for the Cudahy herd of horses. One must visit the Cudahy packing plant in order to thoroughly understand its bigness. One must see the four cleanly dressed hogs that leave the killing floor for the coolers every minute if he would appreci- ate the vast amount of labor required for the work accomplished and the dispatch with which this work is carried out. One must visit the beef house and see one beef per minute sent fully dressed into the great coolers that will hold several thousand carcasses. Results accomplished prove the worth and greatness of anything. Hence it is the finished products of the Cudahy Packing Company which truly show the greatness of the plant. From the loading docks of the company in this city an average of seventeen loaded refrigerator cars are sent into all parts of the United States every day. On occasion the loading force can get out thirty or forty cars a day. On one Saturday less than a year ago sixty-three cars were loaded and shipped. At the present time the Cudahy com- pany employs 600 men. The weekly pay roll averages $15,000. At one time when plenty of hogs were coming 785 men were em- ployed. Just now neither the hog nor beef houses are running at capacity, the former because not enough hogs are coming and the latter because the cooling capacity is too small. But the Cudahy Packing Company is the biggest individual corporation in the city. And it is growing bigger every day. In one year this firm pays to the farmers of the Southwest something like $5,000,000 for hogs and half as much for cattle. It ships out. 5,000 carloads of products annually, which are worth in the neigh- borhood of $10,000,000.
While Wichita has been a packing town for two decades, it was not a packing center till the advent of the Cudahy Packing Company proper, in the fall of 1906. Then, and not until then, was there any assurance that there was to be a great packing center and live stock market built up here for the Southwest.
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The trials and tribulations of the embryo packers and commission men reads like a page in the histories of many western towns that had visions of becoming a Chicago or a Cincinnati. How- ever, Wichita has been one of the very few cities to realize the dream of large abbatoirs, expansive hog and cattle pens and a beautiful exchange building. When the plant now owned by the Cudahy interests was built it was with assistance from the city. Inflated prosperity and the boom spelled doom to the first ven- ture. After a few years John Cudahy acquired the plant, but as he was a market speculator instead of a packer he did not push either trade or operations. Following a market reverse he closed the plant. During this time the Dold Packing Company was al- ways in the market and a consistent buyer, but owing to the lim- ited purchases by the other house Wichita was known as a "one man market," with the result that shippers would not stop their stuff here in spite of the fact that the Dold buyers always bought in line with the river markets. A stir was created by the "Beacon" in the fall of 1906 when it came out with the story that Cudahy officials were here from Omaha for the purpose of taking over the old plant, but the people had received so many false promises that little exaltation was felt. Then came the work of overhauling the old plant. After a few weeks killing was begun and a new era in the local packing industry had commenced. Shippers soon began to note the increased demand here for hogs and within a short while 2,000 to 3,000 head were being sold here daily and at prices close up to those being paid at Missouri river points. After a while both the Dold and Cudahy concerns began to see that receipts up to 7,000 head per day could be brought here when shipments were running heavy. They at once began to make plans for the enlargement of their plants. A few months passed and work was started on improvements that would in- crease the hog killing capacity, and now it is nearly 4,000 head at each plant. Until lately enough hogs have been received here to supply the demand, but the dearth in the hog crop all over the country is being severely felt. Then came the attempt to make Wichita a cattle market. Cudahy and Dold had been doing a good business on a limited capacity. It was found that new beef business could be secured and that unless enlargements were made they must pass it up. Cudahy interests were the first to act. An envoy was sent to Chicago to lay the already prepared plans be- fore Mike Cudahy, the rex of the large Cudahy packing concerns.
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He was told that if he spent a half million of his many millions here he would develop a great market in the Southwest. Three weeks were consumed in demonstrating the feasibility of the project. His consent was given, and as usual the "Beacon" was again the first with the story that meant that Wichita was to be the packing town of the Southwest.
On Saturday, August 28, 1909, the Cudahy company invited the people of Wichita and the shippers of the Southwest to be their guests at the opening of the big new plant which had cost over a half million in improvements and was then easily worth a million dollars. Ten thousand persons attended. They saw in Wichita a packing plant that cannot be excelled in the West. In the building of the plant the slogan was "bigger and better than Kansas City." The new buildings gave a hog killing ca- pacity of 3,500 to 4,000 against a former capacity of 2,000; a cat- tle killing capacity of 600 against a former capacity of twenty-five to fifty, and a capacity of 1,000 head of sheep and calves against a former capacity of nearly nothing. The important new build- ings, numbering eight, included two new coolers and chill rooms, a new beef abbatoir, a new glue factory, a new fertilizer and bone house, a new power plant, a new smoke house, a new office build- ing, besides a hog killing house built over the old walls and is practically new. No better equipped plant is to be found in the world. Two hundred yards to the south is located the Dold plant, that is now in every way the equal of the Cudahy plant. The suc- cess of the Cudahy beef extension and the increased receipts in butcher cattle caused Jacob Dold to make an appropriation for more cattle capacity here. He died before his plans could be car- ried out, but last spring his sons took up the improvement. To- day the new beef beds are rapidly nearing completion and in ca- pacity will be equal to the Cudahy institution. The increased cat- tle killing capacity of the packing plants was soon felt at the stock yards. Receipts since the new demand was created have been several times what they formerly were. Shippers from cen- tral Oklahoma, west to New Mexico, and from the Arkansas river in Kansas south to the middle of Texas were awaiting the big event. The continued shipping by these cattle raisers to here is ample evidence that they found "The Market That Satisfies." Now with the opening of the new Dold cattle house there will be an increased demand and likewise a better bidding spirit, yet in the past no shipper has had cause to complain. At times during-
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the past year competition was so keen that prices were above those that the same grade of stuff brought on the river markets, and in several cases cattle have been purchased there for local packers for less than desirable stuff was bringing here. Wichita is the gateway to the East and the natural trend of all live stock is in that direction. No shipper ever ships out of line to try a market, and for this reason Wichita is fortunate. Shipments can best be stopped here for feeding and water, and at the same time try the Wichita market without risk. The market here is making friends at a rapid rate, satisfied shippers returning to their ranches every day. The opening of the new beef houses, together with the increased hog killing capacity, means a great deal to Wichita. This power of absorption is making the city a packing point of the first magnitude. They will pull all of the direct line stuff out of Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle and, of course, western Kansas. Wichita cannot be hurt by the new plants that are jumping up in the Southwest. A market is not built in a day but in years. Again, shippers are slow to ship to a new plant, as a one-man market means unsatisfaction. A one-man market is often the case where two plants are located if they happen to belong to the packing combination known as the "Big Four." Wichita is blessed that its plants are not in this notori- ous collection .- "Beacon."
CHAPTER LIV.
BIOGRAPHY.
A. J. Adams, attorney at law, of Wichita, Kan., with offices at No. 410 Barnes building, is a native of Illinois, where he was born at Mason City, Mason county, on December 6, 1870. His parents were Ambrose and Margaret J. (IIilbourne) Adams, natives of Massachusetts and Ohio, respectively, who moved to Illinois shortly after their marriage, and who came to Kansas in 1880 and settled on a farm in Cowley county. The elder Adams died in 1881 at the age of forty-nine. His widow is still living. A. J. Adams was educated in the public schools and in the Southwestern (Kansas) College, from which he was graduated in the class of 1896. He afterward took a course at the Wichita Commercial College, read law, and was admitted to practice in the Sedgwick county bar in 1901. Since then he has continued the practice of law in the city of Wichita. He is a strong worker politically in the Republican ranks. Fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (Betton Lodge, No. 583) and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is also a member of the Wichita Chamber of Commerce.
Robert T. Adams, of Wichita, Kan., is a native of St. Joseph, Mo., where he was born on May 20, 1867. His parents were William and Sarah (Bailey) Adams, natives of Kentucky and West Virginia, respectively, who moved in the '60s to Buchanan county, Missouri, where the father was engaged in farming until 1872, when the family removed to Burden, Cowley county, Kansas, and remaining until 1881, when he removed to Sedgwick county, where Mr. Adams, Sr., has been a gardener. Robert T. Adams was educated in the public schools of Kansas and early took to farming, first locating in Wichita township, where he engaged in farming until 1893, when he became interested in the manu- facture of hominy, which he has conducted successfully with a plant costing $1,000. He has an output during the season of 200 gallons per day, which is all marketed in Wichita and vicinity.
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This plant has the distinction of being the only one in the state of Kansas. Fraternally Mr. Adams is a member of the Modern Brotherhood of America. He was married on August 10, 1893, to Miss Ola Childs, daughter of Worthington and Johana (John- son) Childs. One child has been born of this union, William Worthington.
Phil P. Aherne, Jr., druggist, of Wichita, Kan., was born at Leavenworth, Kan., on July 13, 1878. His parents were Phil P. and Helen (Carpenter) Aherne, natives of Ireland and Brooklyn, N. Y., respectively. They moved to Kansas in 1870, afterward to Kansas City, Mo., and to Wichita in June, 1890. The father of the family was a druggist. Phil P. Aherne received his educa- tion in the public schools, the Wichita High School and Lewis Academy, and completed a course in the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy, from which he was graduated in the class of 1900. His first employment was in George R. Parham's drug store, which was purchased by the elder Aherne, with whom the son continued for a time. He left this to go as drug clerk in the store of Archie McVicker, with whom he remained for two years, when he accepted a position as city salesman with the Southwestern Drug Company. Two years later he entered the employ of the Cookson & Vincent Pharmacy as salesman, and after one year with this concern went to Colorado Springs, Colo., where he continued in the same line of business for a short time, returning to Wichita and again entering the employ of Archie McVicker, with whom he continued until June, 1909. On July 29, 1909, Mr. Aherne purchased his present store at No. 1147 South Lawrence avenue. This store was opened originally by W. S. Henion, run as the Brown Drug Company, later as the Wil-® son Drug Company, and later as the Fox Drug Company, the latter conducting the business until purchased by Mr. Aherne. Fraternally Mr. Aherne is a member of the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, Lodge No. 99, A. F. and A. M. On Jan- uary 7, 1908, Mr. Aherne was married to Miss Mildred Moffat, daughter of the late J. W. Moffat, of Wichita. They have one child, Phil P. III.
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