USA > Nebraska > Douglas County > Omaha > History of the city of Omaha, Nebraska > Part 101
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The packing house of Hammond & Co.
* The Drovers Journa', December 31, 1892, +W. F. Brown.
t " But the facilities early in the year [1885] for purchasing cattle and hogs at the Union Yards were limited, though they soon improved, stimulating also the business of packing inside the city of Omaha-carrried on, as already shown. by James E. Boyd. Joseph F. Sheely & Co., and by Harris & Fisher. The first named, the heaviest packer, killed 143,890 hogs during the year, aggregating in value $1,531,393.71, and the last mentioned killed 15,000 hogs, 12,000 sheep, aod 9,354 cattle, aggregating in value $450,000."- The Drovers Journal, Dec. 31, 1892.
624
HISTORY OF SOUTH OMAHA.
had, even in 1885, a daily capacity of 500 cattle and 1,000 hogs. Their products were shipped in their own refrigerator cars to eastern markets. This company -the pioneer packer in South Omaha-has from the start been shippers of dressed beef and hog products. In 1889, the firm sold their entire plant (including packing houses belonging to them not in South Omaha) to a company of eastern and European capitalists. The latter own the greater part of the stock. The firm was incorporated and the name changed to " The G. 11. Hammond Company." The officers of the American board of this company are Andrew Comstock, president, Providence, R. I .; J. P. Lyman, general man- ager, Chicago; J. D. Standish, secretary and treasurer, Detroit; A. II. Noyes, superin- tendent South Omaha branch. It has its principal offices in llammond, Indiana, where it has extensive slaughter houses.
The plant in South Omaha is located near the Union Stock Yards, west of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Both loading and unloading traeks connect all the railroads directly with the buildings .*
The number of hands employed by the company in South Omaha were, in-
1885
105
1886
170
1887
210
1888
220
1889
325
. 1890.
320
1891
585
The record of slaughtering by this firm is as follows:
Cattle.
Hogs.
Sheep.
1885
24.106
13.576
1886
56 437
123 191
....
1887
62.563
138 319
....
1888
62.511
144,734
6.614
1889
66.759
155,074
10.959
1890
72,734
145,678
10.869
1891
64.387
123,738
9,379
1892
52,167
123,371
9 814
*A committee, consisting of Samuel P. Brigham, Joseph J. Breen and Z. Cuddington, in South Omaha-The Magic City, published the 7th of May, 1892, the following, concerning the company :
" The G. H. Hammond Company has torn down the frame beef bouse and has commenced the work of rebuilding. Two large brick buildings are being erected this year. The new heef house will be 144 hy 172 feet and aix stories high. The new hog house will be 178 hy 231 feet and six stories high. The floor area of the two new buildings will be ten and one-balf acres. Two arctic or ice machines of seventy-five tons per day will he used to chill these houses. The beef house will be completed and ready for occupancy July 1, and the hog house September 1, 1892. When completed the capacity of the plant will he 1.000 cattle, 2,500 hogs and 600 sheep per day. This is treble the present capacity of the house for cattle and more than quadruple that for hogs and sheep. The pay-roll will he more than trebled, as the additional capacity will necessitate the employment of from seven hundred to eight hundred hands. " The ahove is substantially as given by me to the commit- tee and is correct. A. H. NOYES, Manager'."
The company's plant during a part of the summer of 1892 was entirely shut down owing to raising the old buildings and build- ing new ones .*
The company has a capital stock, in all, of 86,500,000. During the year 1892, the South Omaha plant was (as, in May, it had been predicted) more than doubled in its capacity, two mammoth brick buildings, a beef house 144x172 feet, and a hog house 178x231 feet, were erected, with a floor area of ten and a half acres, increasing the entire floor area to about sixteen acres.
The new houses are supplied with every modern invention or improvement and are considered the perfection of packing house buildings. Two ice machines of seventy- five tons each, a lard refinery of 250 tierces per day, a tankage grinder with a cyclone grinder, costing $2.500, three dynamos of a total of 420 amperes, stationary engines increasing the horse power to 805, and six seventy-horse power tubular and two 225- horse power, Sterling boilers, costing $5,000, and two artesian wells of a capacity of 120 gallons per minute, were of the 1892 improvement. A perfect fire system, with a company, carts, hose and fire plugs and the American District Telegraph electrical fire alarm, insures practical safety. The retail market accommodates many citizens, as well as employes. The present capacity is hogs, 5,000; cattle, 1,200; sheep, 1,000; and calves 500 per day; and in its present shape 600 hogs, 200 cattle and 100 sheep can be slaughtered in an hour. In 1892 the hogs weighed 28,943,782, or 251 pounds cach, costing $1,208,398.62 or $9.80 each, or $3.86 per 100 pounds; the cattle weighed 58.717,- 550 or 1,126 pounds each, costing 81,868,- 692.27, averaging $35.82 each or $3.18 per 100 pounds.
The G. II. Hammond Company now (Jan- uary, 1893) has 1,000 refrigerator cars. The 585 employes drew $258,386.72, averaging $580.72 for 1892, and the distributive sales were $4,301.650.87 as compared with $4,219,- 356.06 in 1891. The product of 1892 con- sisted in pounds of 2,228,198 short rib sides, 2,355,476 short clear sides, 829,353 other dry salt meats, 733,387 sweet pickle shoul-
*" On the 6th of April, 1892, a large force of workmen hegan the work of tearing down the old wooden part of the Hammond plant. This was the original building-the first constructed in South Omaha for packing purposes -- and the object of its demolition was to give way to a modern constructed hrick structure, with the latest improved machinery." -- The South Omaha Daily Stockman.
330
1892
625
DRESSED MEAT AND PACKING CONCERNS.
ders, 3,806,478 sweet pickle hams, 1,616,618 other sweet pickle meats, 3,442,831 tallow, 1,069,853 bones, and 855,450 tierces of prime steamed lard and 3,112,460 tierces of other lard.
From the beginning the business of this company at South Omaha has had a steady but marked annual increase. This prosper- ous condition augurs well for its future.
After the erection of a building and its lease to George II. Hammond & Co. for packing purposes, by the Union Stock Yards Company, the latter did not stop their good work in that direction. Their next enter- prise was the building of another packing house, with a capacity of 4,000 hogs per day for Fowler Brothers, of Chicago, who were given a bonus of $135,000 to locate a plant here, work upon which began by grading the site in the spring of 1886.
"Since work has actually begun on the new packing house [of Fowler & Brothers]," says a writer on the twenty-first of May, 1886, "everybody is trying to see who can secure the most real estate. The same lot, in one or two instances, has been bought by different parties on the same day, one pur- chasing of one agent and the other of another, neither having any knowledge that he had a rival until headquarters were reached, when 'first come, first served,' rule settled the matter. There is nothing suc- ceeds like success, and the success of the live stock business at South Omaha has assured the future of the place. Men of means are scrambling over each other in their efforts to secure a slice in the thriving town where so much money has been. and is being invested. The completion of the Ex- change building has marked a new era in the progress and importance of the stock business; and that event being supplemented by the still greater one [of the commence- ment] of the building of the Fowler Brothers & Co.'s mammoth packing house and the prospect of others to follow, has put new life into every branch of the business repre- sented here. Our lumber men are doing a big business, and the rapid increase of pop- ulation is giving our provision stores a genuine boom and imparting an air of activ- ity not seen in most other towns."*
The successors in business of Fowler Bros. were, finally, " The Omaha Packing Com- pany," which is the present organization. They commenced in South Omaha, as the "Anglo-American Packing Company," No- vember 9, 1886; the present firm began Feb- ruary 1, 1888. The whole number of hogs slaughtered during that year was 285,188. A warehouse, 113x160 feet, was built in the meantime.
When Fowler Brothers began packing, on account of the little importance the packers at other points attached to South Omaha, the competition at this point was quite limited, and this company was able to buy stock at low rates, and consequently did a large busi- ness which was profitable. Since that time competition is sharper, prices are higher, proportionately. In early days, the firm frequently purchased all the hogs offered in the market.
"And here, it may be said, that this year to 1888, was the turning point, so to speak, in packing interests in Omaha and South Omaha; in the former those interests went down, never to be restored; in the latter they took a tremendous bound upward and on- ward. And so they continue to move to the present moment."*
It is unnecessary, in this connection, to follow, year by year, the magnitude and in- crease of the business of the Omaha Packing Company. Material, in July, 1892, was on the ground and work was being actively pushed in the enlargement of the plant.t
" The company's South Omaha works are located near the stock yards, and have an
packing house, and when that was fairly under way another packing house was built which was taken by Fowler Brothers, of Chicago, who were given a bonua of $135,000 to locate here. The opening of these two houses waa the first sign of the city now known as South Omaha. Land was given different indi- viduals and corporations as a bonus to build. Houses sprung as if by magic and people found their way to the busy little city to cast their lot."-South Omaha Daily Tribune, December 31, 1892.
But Fowler & Brothers can claim to be the next after Ham- moud only because of their contract to locate here and the beginning of work on their packing house. Io the matter of opening their plant, they were the third in South Omaha by one day
*The Drovers Journal, December 31, 1892.
+ On the seventh of May, 1892, a committee of South Omaha citizens published the following:
" An additional story will be put on the present cold atorage house, making a hanging room of 160x32 feet, and a new chill room 128x30 feet, of a capacity of 1,000 hogs per day in aummer. A new brick building for cold storage purposea, 65x255 feet, and three stories high, will be erected south of the present buildings and facing the south railroad track. These improvements, when completed, will increase the capacity of the plant more than twenty per ceot., and will give a capacity of 3,500 hogs in summer and 4,500 in winter, 125 cattle, 250 sheep add 50 calvea per day.
" " The above ia the statement made by me to the committee and is correct.
"'' T. W. TALIAFERRO, Manager.'"
* J. B. Erion, in the South Omaha Globe-Journal:
"In the spring of 1884 a large tract of land was purchased south of Omaha'a city limits and called South Omaha. Work was com- menced on the yards April 8, 1884, and they were opened Aug- ust 25 [13th]. of the same year. In the year following the yards company built and leased to Hammond & Company a large 40
626
HISTORY OF SOUTHI OMAIIA.
area of several acres ; also excellent railway facilities, and sheds and pens to accommo- date 200 head of cattle and 5,000 hogs. Their houses are fully equipped with the latest improvements. On the premises are nine boilers of seventy-five horse-power each, and two of one hundred horse-power each ; there are, also, three steam engmes, each of one hundred and twenty-five horse- power. The electric plant furnishes nine hundred electric lights, and the cold storage is complete in every detail. The company owns a number of refrigerator and tank cars, and deal in fresh pork and beef, lard, oils, dry salt meats, mess pork, special meats, green hams, shoulders, smoked meats, and glue stock. Their business from the be- ginning has constantly increased. During the year 1892, their transactions reached $4,000,000; the amount paid by them, as shown by their pay-roll, was $156,000. The daily average of men employed was 325."*
The following additional particulars are given in the Omaha Bee on the 1st of Jan- uary, 1893:
"During the year [1892] a new cold storage building, 67x130, and three stories high was erected south of the main building and fac- ing on the south railroad tracks. An ad- ditional story 32x160 feet was built on the cold-storage department and a new chill room, 30x128, with a capacity of 1,000 hogs per day was erected. A retail meat market was erected on Thirty-third Street, primarily to supply the demands of employes, but with the additional view of supplying the local wants. *
* The improvements and enlargements made in 1892 increase the capacity of the house from 20 to 30 per cent. This house makes a specialty of hogs, and is the only packing honse in the city given almost exclusively to that special industry. A few cattle, sheep and calves are slaugh- tered only to supply demands of regular cus- tomers.
" Twenty-seven electric alarm boxes, con- nected with the American District Telegraph office, together with a well drilled fire depart- ment, are of the protections against fire.
" Five artesian wells of a daily capacity of 125,000 gallons each, furnish part of the water supply. About 70,000,000 gallons of water are consumed annually.
" A Bundy automatie timekeeper has just been added as one of the latest improve-
ments. Each employe is given a key, and on going to work, quitting or laying off, regis- ters the hour and minute, by inserting the key in the machine.
"The plant is now thoroughly equipped, and is complete in every particular. * *
"The slaughterings were 348,046 hogs, 4,349 cattle and 207 sheep in 1891, and 304,620 hogs, 4,450 cattle and 87 sheep in 1892. The hogs weighed 77,125,876, or 255 pounds each, costing $3,768,550.90 or $11.84 each, or $4.89 per 100 pounds. The present daily capacity is 5,000 hogs, 125 cattle, 250 sleep and 100 calves. *
* The company has two car lines, 252 refrigerator cars and 25 tank line cars ; $1,000,000 in- surance is carried. The material consumed consisted of 450 carloads of coal, 301 car- loads of salt, 30,000 tons of ice per year, 5,000 barrels and 100,000 boxes annually, and ten carloads of paper. The 1892 product consisted in pounds of 23,000,000 short rib sides. 8,500,000 shoulders, 9,000,000 hams, 14,500,000 lard, 1,812,000 fertilizer and 190,000 grease."
" This company's principal offices and headquarters are in Chicago, and they have also large packing houses in Hutchinson, Kansas. The officers are P. L. Underwood, president; Anderson Fowler, vice-president; Robert Stobo, secretary; James Viles, Jr., treasurer-all of Chicago. T. W. Taliaferro is the South Omaha manager."* The present company was, upon its organization, dnly incorporated under the laws of Illinois, with a paid-up capital of $500,000, and its trade from all its plants extends not only through- ont the entire United States and Canada, but also to Mexico, the West Indies, Central and South America and Enrope.
"It must not be supposed that the locating in South Omaha of the packing firms of George H. Hammond & Co., and Fowler Brothers, discouraged others from coming in. In the fall of 1886 [commencing busi- ness in packing November 8], the third packing establishment was started here by Thomas J. Lipton," with a daily capacity of one thousand hogs. And here we may in- trodnce an extract from the only South Omaha paper then published:
"It is, indeed, gratifying to those who have braved the inconveniences of a new town, and are yet wading the mud and enduring many unpleasant things to secure
* The Drovers Journal, December 31, 1892.
* The Drovers Journal, December 31, 1892.
627
DRESSED MEAT AND PACKING CONCERNS.
something for the future, as South Omaha people have done, and are doing, to contem- plate the sure foundation upon which they have builded. Surely the stock yards pioneers have a brilliant future before them, to compensate for the hardships they have endured and the risks they have run. Mr. B. F. Smith, a heavy stockholder in the South Omaha Stock Yards Company, who lives in the East, was at the Paxton last night [December 12, 1886]. Says the Her- ald: . Mr. Smith is very hopeful of the growth and prosperity of Omaha, and especi- ally of the meat industry. He said that Hammond was killing 1,000 hogs a day, Fowler Bros. 3,500, Lipton 1,000-a total of 5,500, and the houses are not running to near their full capacity. Fowler and Lipton have been running only four weeks. Said Mr. Smith: ' We have plenty of water and the best facilities for drainage at the South Omaha Yards. All offal is utilized, and there is not likely to be any such stench as at the Chicago yards with their dead river there. Our improved methods will do away with that. The Stock Yards Company has 276 acres left and the syndicate 1,400 acres. The new Exchange building is crowded with offices, and more new buildings must be put up right away to accommodate the increased business. Omaha is bound to be a great market. IIere is the place where the cattle are-the feed is. There is a grand country here and it is only in its infancy yet. Take Omaha as a pivot and strike a circle of three hundred miles out and you've got the rich- est spot on the face of the earth. The peo- ple of Omaha are in the center of this wealth and are getting rich fast. The biggest boom Omaha ever saw will be during the coming year.'"
"' The Missouri Pacific [Railroad] helps us greatly, because it is possible to get the cattle here from Kansas City. Mr. Ham- mond's buyer goes on the Kansas City mar- ket each day and sends the cattle on here for dressing. Rates on the railroads are so low that Omaha is at a great advantage over Kansas City. Omaha beef is called the finest in Boston, because it goes there whithout being bruised, as beef is when shipped as far as Chicago before being slaughtered. The Missouri Pacific is of great advantage to the stock yards.
" There will be many other beef packing houses here soon. Negotiations are pending
to have some of the most prominent dressed beef firms of Chicago come to Omaha. The names I'll not give, as the negotiations are not yet completed; but Omaha will be the equal of Chicago if these firms come here.
". Armour, Swift and Fowler are among them, I suppose [queried the Herald].'
"' You may have your own surmises about that. The firms you name are not asleep in matters of this kind. Omaha is to be larger than Cincinnati, and perhaps as big as Chicago itself, in time, and in a few years, too [as a packing center]. South Omaha then will be part of the city. The best resi- dence parts will be west and north. Ham- mond now kills two hundred to three hun- dred cattle a day. The development of the meat business at South Omaha is certain.' "#
Early in July, 1887, the Lipton property was transferred to the Armour-Cudahy Packing Company, to whom the Union Stock Yards Company gave a bonus of $150,000, for locating a plant in South Omaha. They immediately began the erection of a large packing house. The slaughtering of hogs commenced by them on the 10th of Novem- ber, 1887; cattle killing, in the month fol- lowing. The number of hogs slaughtered in November was 41,933; in December, 46,198. Their building was completed in 1888, when the value of the plant was esti- mated at $800,000.
On the 15th of December, 1890, the Arm- onr-Cudahy Packing Company was dissolved, Philip D. Armour retiring from the South Omaha house, and Michael Cudahy and Ed- ward A Cudahy obtaining ownership of the plant - doing business as " The Cudahy Packing Company,"t which is incorporated; Michael Cudahy is president, and Edward A. Cudahy vice president and general man- ager. The buildings are located directly west of the Union Stock Yards.
A committee of citizens of South Omaha made on the 7th of May, 1892, the following report concerning the company :
" The Cudahy Packing Company has be- gun work on the enlargement of its im- mense plant. The enterprise of this company, the confidence of its managers in the South Omaha markets and the marvelous increase
* From the South Omaha Daily Stockman, December 13, 1886.
+" T. J. Lipton opened a packing house in 1887 with a capac- ity of one thousand hogs, which was sold in the same year to the Armour-Cudahy Packing Company, now the Cudahy Pack- ing Company. The stock yards people gave Armour-Cudahy a bonus of $150,000." -- South Omaha Daily Tribune, December 31, 1892.
628
HISTORY OF SOUTH OMAHA.
of the business of that house, have been the pride of South Omaha, the wonder of pack- ing interests, and the admiration of Ne- braska.
" The improvements commenced will cost not less than $200,000, and are the most im- portant ever made in South Omaha since laying foundations for the packing plants, and will consist of six large buildings, covering three and one-half acres of ground.
" A beef house, 90x225 feet and five stories high, is being erected immediately west of the present beef house, extending to Thirty-third Street. A warehouse, 278x165 feet and two stories high, is being erected west of Thirty-third Street and just north of the pepsin works. This will be used as a hide cellar and for the storage of canned goods and cooperage.
" A tin shop, 125x150 feet, and two stories high, is being built west of Thirty-third Street and north of the new tin shop, which will just double the capacity, and allow 75,000 [50,000] packages to be turned out daily.
" A new butterine factory, 60x100 feet and three stories high, west of the present butter- ine factory, to be supplied with the most improved machinery, will give a capacity of [over] 150,000 pounds a week.
" Repair shops, 75x150 feet, for repairing the company's railroad cars, will be located immediately east of the old hog house and fertilizer department. To allow this, the loading chutes of the Stock Yards Company have been removed, and the switches and tracks running up to the east end of the building, are being removed north of the new buildings and the old repair shops.
" The fertilizer department will be in- creased by a building 50x100 feet. The canning department will be increased by the use of the present tin shop quarters, and will then have a capacity of 150,000 to 200,000 pounds a day.
" The old butterine factory will be added to the oleo department.
"Eight new 100-horse power boilers will be added to the power-producing equip- ments. an additional 150 ton arctic or ice machine will be put in the new engine rooms, and a complete and well-equipped machine shop will make this one of the largest and most perfect packing plants in the West. * * *
" With every legitimate branch of packing
house business in operation, from cattle and hog slaughtering, and curing, to sausage making, canning, making butterine, beef extract and pepsin, the Cudahy Packing Company has the most complete packing house in the West, and doing a business of $15,000,000 a year, is one of the largest.
". I have read the above article, and it is substantially correct.
"'E. A. CUDAHY.'"*
The value of their manufactured products for the year ending July 1, 1892, was about $12,000,000. In their report given the writer in the month last mentioned, they say: " We own and operate 300 refrigerator cars, for the shipment of dressed beef, 10 tank cars for shipment of liquids. There has been added to the plant during the cur- rent year the following buildings [being those already mentioned by the citizens' committee of South Omaha; also a] machin- ery shop, car repair shop and blacksmith shop, besides numerous additions to old buildings; total cost of such improvements being about $250,000.
" Branch houses have been established in the following places:
" Jacksonville, Florida; Los Angeles, Cali- fornia; Brooklyn, New York; Nashna, New Hampshire; Lincoln, Nebraska; Seattle, Washington; New Orleans, Louisiana; three in the City of New York; Minneapolis, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; three in Chicago; [and now, 1893, one in Sioux City.]
" Our packing house is fitted out competely with electric fire-alarms, connecting directly with the Omaha Fire Department, the South Omaha Fire Department, and the private de- partment of the company, the latter of which consists of ten men and a professional chief. who have spacious quarters on the floor above the office, where a restaurant is run, with a capacity for serving 150 at a single time.
" Within the last twelve months we have added a mannfactory for the production of pepsin, in all its various forms, beef extract. pancreatin and oleomargarine, the latter of which we produce about 20,000 pounds per day. [The capacity of the beef extract department is about 125,000 pounds per annum; that of the pepsin department, 15,000 pounds].
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