USA > Nebraska > Douglas County > Omaha > History of the city of Omaha, Nebraska > Part 102
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* See report of Samuel P. Brigham, Joseph J. Breen and Z. Cuddington, advertising committee, in South Omaha-The Magic City.
629
DRESSED MEAT AND PACKING CONCERNS.
" In our tin shop we consume about $350,- 000 worth of tin in the manufacture of boxes into which is packed lard and cans for the packing of preserved meats.
" In our office we employ at present ninety- five men. Our market extends throughout the whole United States, Canada, England, and the Continent. [The office staff is divided into departments, twenty-five in number: Provision, south and east, west and jobbing; fresh meat; foreign; butter- ine; chemical and pharmaceutical; traffic; shipping; paymaster; store-keeping; elec- trical; telegraphic; credit; auditor's; cash- iers; book-keeping; billing; consignment; mailing. Each of these departments has a manager].
"We carry, consigned on sale, abont $1,000,000 worth of product, in the hands of about one hundred or more consignees; for convenience in exporting, from $300,- 000 to 8500,000 worth of canned meats are stored in New York."
There was published, on the last day of 1892, in a South Omaha paper, the following:
"This company, which is the second in size in the world, * *
* has been in- corporated under the laws of Illinois, and its trade now extends, not only throughout the entire United States and Canada, but into Great Britain and other European countries, Mexico, the West Indies, and Central and South America. * * *
" They ship a large number of car-loads of meats and provisions daily. Their plant, as might be expected, is, in all respects, first class."*
A still later published statement giving particulars of the Cudahy Packing Com- pany's plant in South Omaha, is that to be found in the Omaha Bee of January 1, 1893: " The Cudahy Packing Company has a capital of 83,500,000 and it increased its distribu- tive sales from $15,182,001.87 in 1891 to $19,070,540.00 in 1892. The improvements [were in accordance with the report of the citizens' committee already given; with the addition of a] beef extract and pepsin labor- atory 80x125 feet, chill room to the old hog honse, with a capacity of 1,500 hogs per day; an additional story to the can- ning department, and a game and poul- try department, with a capacity of 3,000 chickens, 1,000 turkeys and 500 ducks and * Five new arte-
geese per day. .* *
sian wells, of sixty gallons per minute, have been drilled. An efficient fire brigade and American District Telegraph system guard against fire. *
* * A $12,000 booth will be erected and stocked at the Chicago Exposition. *
* * The hogs bought in 1892 weighed 153,784,248 pounds, averaged 248 pounds, cost $6.743,441.27, or $10.87
each, or $4.38 per 100 pounds. The cattle weighed 164,988,252 pounds, averaged 1,053 pounds, and cost 84,479,431.04, or $28.65 each, or $2.71 per 100 pounds. The sheep weighed 1,664,-648 or 92 pounds each, and cost $76.906.74, or $4.25 each, equal to $4.62 per 100 pounds.
" The present daily capacity of the house is 6,000 hogs, 1,200 cattle and 1,000 sheep. * *
* The consumption during 1892 consisted of 3,300 car loads of coal, 700 of salt, 1,621 of ice, 100 of wood, 50,000 boxes of tin plate, 12,300,000 tin packages, 210,000 barrels, tierces and kegs, 1,230,000 boxes and 1,800 barrels of vinegar; 13,371 car loads of product were shipped in 1892. Under the 80 per cent clanse the company carries $2,750,000 insurance and pays annually $55,000 in premiums. The year's exporta- tions amounted to $3,250,000. The tele- graphic tolls are $65,000 yearly and the let- ters received and sent are 1,200 daily, be- sides 15,000 circulars weekly, costing $12,- 000 a year. The company is represented by twenty-eight branch house managers, with a force of 187 brokerage agencies, twenty-eight traveling salaried representa- tives and fourteen European general agen- cies. *
* * The product for 1892 con- sisted of * * * {besides what has already been given] beef extract, 236,300 pounds, and pepsin, 31.683 pounds."
Bnt the latest account is the one from the Commercial Enquirer, of March, 1893. It says:
"Wonder at the immensity of the plant required is one's first sensation upon view- ing the great packing establishments of the West; wonder at the marvelous economy and the diversity of processes and products by which it is possible, is the second. Nothing is wasted. The meat, the hide and the fat, once summed up the value of an ox. Ile has many other virtues long hidden, now active. What he and his friend the hog, are capable of one may see by following them on their progress through the works of the Cudahy Packing Company. At the end
* The Drovers Journal, December 31, 1892.
630
HISTORY OF SOUTH OMAHA.
they will have assumed a dozen, perhaps twenty, novel, ingenious, economical or obscure shapes; and the waste product could be carried in one's hat.
"That an establishment with an annual product worth $20,000,000 is a large one, is a matter of course; but the impression con- veyed by dollars alone, is vagne. What one sees tells much more.
"When one has walked exactly a quarter of a mile in a straight line, past a row of buildings continuous and unbroken, occupied by a single firm, his idea of the extent and importance of the meat business very sud- denly enlarges. When his experience has been further enlarged by a tramp of several miles contemplating beef and pork in various forms at every step, without going from beneath a roof, he conceives a profound respect for the great American hog. After he has spent two solid days, with no time wasted, in viewing the various departments of the Cudahy Packing Company, he revises all previous notions of a "big" concern, dis- misses all old standards with a touch of con- tempt, and finds himself disposed to won- dering admiration for the marvelous organ- izing talent, the remarkable executive ability that built up and directs so vast and complex a business.
" Many a 'down-east' farmer would think himself fortunate with a farm equal in area to the Cudahy Packing Company's floor-space. Twenty-three and a half acres are covered by buildings; there are over seventy-five acres of floor-room; and fifteen acres of cold-storage rooms. About 500,000 cattle are killed annually; 2,000,000 hogs are converted into pork, etc .; and many thous- ands of sheep, calves, poultry, etc., are dis- posed of. Besides this immense establish- ment, the Cudahy Packing Company have another large plant at Sioux City, lowa. recently purchased from Ed. Hankinson & Company. Six hundred men are employed, the annual product is worth $8.000,000, and the plant has facilities for killing 3,500 hogs daily. This packing house is simply an adjunct controlled and managed from South Omaha. Besides the more usual animal food-products in every variety, [over] 200,- 000 pounds of . beef extract-a comparatively new and very valuable food preparation-and 4,000,000 pounds of but- terine are annually produced. The mere catalogue of what we may call by-products
is formidable; not long ago hog-stomachs were useless except for the rendering tank and fertilizers; now they supply [more than ] 30,000 pounds of pepsin annually-a busi- ness of several hundred thousands of dollars. Then there is pancreatine, ox gall and gly- cerole compounds; knife-handle bones; comb and button stock from horns; glue; bone phos- phates; blood phosphates; other fertilizers; blood albumen; sausage casings, and several other manufactured by-products; not to men- tion a factory for making the tin cans used in the canning department, where 50,000 boxes of tin plates are consumed every year; and an ice-making plant producing over 200 tons of ice every day."
The business statistics of the company for the year ending December 31, 1892, were as follow:
Total distributive sales $19.070,5.40
Total pay-roll . 1,200.000
Number of employes 2,400
Total ground covered by buildings acres, 23 12
Total floor area in buildings acres, 75
Total cold storage area in buildings . . acres. 15 Hogs killed 620,501
Cattle killed 156,684
Sheep killed 18,094
Made pork (all kinds) barrels. 21,426
Made beef (all kinds) barrels. 31.421
Made lard (all kinds)
pounds. 28.936,679
Made drv salt meats. pounds, 51,583.668
Made sweet pickled meats. . pounds, 38,192,051
Made smoked meats .pounds, 28,587,039
Made canned meats. . pounds, 10,713.120
Made butterine. .ponnds, 2.583.467
Made fertilizers . pounds, 11.250,000
Made sausage . pounds, 3 232.295
The company have a retail meat market for the convenience of their employes and outsiders, and, in this line, they do a flour- ishing business.
It was early in the summer of 1887 that negotiations were concluded between the Union Stock Yards Company and G. F. Swift, pork packers and shippers of dressed beef, mutton and pork, of Chicago, for still another packing house in South Omaha. Mr. Swift was given a bonus of eleven acres of land and about $135.000. The house was built and the slaughtering of cattle commenced April, 1, 1888, but that of hogs not until in December following. The valne of the buildings was $300,000. The plant was then run, and still is, under the name of Swift & Company.
A published description of Swift & Com- pany's Sonth Omaha plant for the year 1888, is this: "G. F. Swift, president; A. C. Fos-
631
DRESSED MEAT AND PACKING CONCERNS.
ter, general manager. The buildings are located west of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and south of the " Y," and has front and rear railroad switeh tracks, with facilities for loading fifty cars of dressed meats per day. The buildings are brick and cover an area of two and one-half acres, and have a floor area of about six aeres; the chill-room covers about two acres; the machinery con- sists of four boilers, of one thousand horse- power, and two Corliss engines of two hundred and twenty-five horse-power, and two dynamos, with arc and electrie circuits, with twenty arc and six hundred incandes- cent lights. The slaughter, tank, and ferti- lizer houses are each three stories high, the oil house four, and the bone house five. Four elevators are in use. New ice houses, with a capacity of 7,500 tons, were erected at South Omaha during the year, and the ice houses at Cut Off Lake were enlarged to hold 150,000 tons. The capacity of the ice boxes is 6,000 tons. The monthly pay-roll is from $12,000 to 15,000. About 6,500 tons of salt and 12,000 tons of coal are used per year. Ten to twelve cars of dressed meats a week are shipped to G. F. Swift & Son's market in Omaha. * * *
"From April 1, to December 31, 1888, the slaughterings were: Cattle, 62,370; sheep, 23,963; hogs, 8,260; calves, 1.803; total, 96,396. Ilog slaughtering was not com- menced until December 4th. The business of this well-managed packing house has in- creased from $104,990 in December, 1887, to $415,640 in December, 1888. The value of the product shipped from April 1, to December 31, 1888, was $3,790,151."
The capacity of the plant, at the close of 1888, was 800 cattle, 1,000 hogs, and 300 sheep per day.
"During 1890, a cold storage building was erected; the structure is brick, 128x214 feet, and six stories. A brick tank-house and hog-killing brick building, 80x153 feet, three stories, was erected. A frame ice house, 144x160 feet, of 14,000 tons eapacity, was erected immediataly south of the main building. Besides these local improvements the company bought 145 aeres of land, near Ashland, for ice fields, and has erected an ice house, 192x420 feet, of 60,000 tons capa- eity. Eleven new boilers, of one hundred horse-power each, was added to the four old ones, making the motor power 1,800 horse- power, and one new 125 horse-power engine
was added to the three old ones, increasing the horse-power to eight hundred. An arctic, or ice machine, of one hundred tons per day, was added, giving a product equal to two hundred tons of ice daily. A dyna- mo, with a capacity of one thousand incan- descent electric lights gave the plant sixteen hundred incandescent and thirty-five arc lights of two thousand candle power. These improvements nearly doubled the capacity of the plant."
In May, 1892, the improvements of the company were published by a South Omaha committee :*
" Work has already been commenced by Swift & Company on improvements that will increase the capacity of that establish- ment fully twenty-five per cent. One large building, 64x193 feet and six stories high, has been built along the unloading tracks running between the old and the new houses. This building extends from the new pork house north 193 feet and is divided into three departments. The first department, or southern end, will be constructed for cold storage on the first and second stories. the third story for the lard department, the fourth story for sausage, the fifth story for cooperage, and the sixth for general storage. The second department will be the smoked meat department, and then will come six smoke houses 14x14 feet.
"'I have read the above article and it is substantially correct.
""'A. C. FOSTER, Manager.'
[Superintendent. ]"
A late publication-one made on the last day of the year 1892-says:
"It was in the summer of 1887 that another packing house was established in South Omaha-thanks to the munificent action of the Union Stoek Yards Company, Swift & Company located here; and then the " Magic City" could boast of four large plants; and of that number it is still assured.
"The principal offices and headquarters of Swift & Company are located at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, and they have likewise an extensive plant at Kansas City. Their general business is packing, and the shipping of dressed beef, mutton and pork. The South Omaha Works are under the management of Mr. A. C. Foster. The
*Samuel P. Brigham. Joseph J. Breen, Z. Cuddington, in South Omaha-The Magic City.
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632
HISTORY OF SOUTH OMAHA.
company own hundreds of refrigerator cars, and they have fresh meat depots in all the principal cities of the United States. The various departments of their South Omaha works are fully equipped with all the latest improved, appliances, apparatus and ma- chinery known to the trade, operated by steam power .* * * *
A still later account given to the public is this:
" During 1892 extensive improvements were made by this company. * * *
North of the old fertilizer department, a building 80x176 feet has been erected. and is used for engine and boiler rooms and ad- ditional fertilizer department. This build- ing is connected with the old fertilizer build- ing on the south and the new hog killing building on the north. Eight new boilers of 1,000 horse power and one engine of 225 horse power are the. additional machinery equipments of this power plant. South of the old beef house a beef killing addition has been erected. This building is 144x236 feet and three stories high, and is used for cooling beef, hogs and sheep.
" The slaughterings during 1892 were, hogs, 276,766; cattle, 233,583 and sheep, 76,143, as compared with 197,009 hogs; 151,468 cattle, and 55,406 sheep."+
The latest published account gives these (among other) particulars:
" During the last year the capacity [of the plant] has been increased materially. Among other improvements two immense beef and hog slaughtering houses have been ereeted and equipped with the latest improved de- vices for turning out packing house pro- dnets.
" Swift & Company, not alone are pre- pared and do supply home trade, but ship their products to all parts of the civilized world. * * *
"It was in the month of March [May, 1887], a blustering day [a warm day ], when Swift & Co. began to lay the foundation for their future great plant in South Omaha. Manager [Superintendent,] A. C. Foster had charge of the work then and has to-day. Work was pushed as rapidly as possible, and within a year the house was ready for opera- tion. Since then it has been almost a con- tinual addition of new buildings."#
When it is considered that South Omaha eight years ago had no packing interests and that now it has four packing houses that compare favorably with the largest in the world; when it is seen that each year thou- sands of cattle, hogs and sheep are slaught- ered here, the whole number on the average of more than 6,000 head each day; when it is learned that more than two millions of dollars were paid out in this city in 1892 for labor performed in these four establishments; when it is known that more than $28,000,000 were paid out by the South Omaha packers each year to drovers and farmers for live stoek to be slaughtered here-can it be eon- sidered a gross exaggeration to say that the growth of South Omaha as a packing center is without a parallel in the West ? We think not .*
" One or two commission firms handled all the stock received [at the stock yards in South Omaha at their opening,] and one packer had no difficulty in taking care of the entire receipts [for some time after.] The record since then has been one of en- largement and improvement in every es- sential particular. Even in this age of commercial miracles, men are compelled to wonder at the rapidity and substantial nature of the growth of the live stock in- dustry at this point. The law of supply and demand has brought the producer and con- sumer of meat closer together each year- the distributing point gradually moving westward with the growth and development of the country. In this way, Chicago dis- placed New York as a live stock market and distributing center, and this position she has been enabled to hold for a quarter of a century on account of unequaled resources and facilties."+
The four packing establishments of South Omaha do a business third in magnitude of the chief packing centers in the United States; which business, if the ineraase is carried on two or three years longer. as it has been for a brief period just passed, will be second in the country; that is, it will only be excelled by Chicago. In 1886, the year in which the business of packing in South Omaha may be said to have been fairly under way, the wages paid by all the packers (as nearly as it could be esti-
* The Drovers Journal, Dec. 31, 1892.
t The Omaha Bee, Jan. 1, 1893.
#The Omaha World-Herald, January 6, 1893.
*Adapted from The Drovers Journal of December 31, 1892. tUnion Stock Yards Directory. By Bert Anderson and A. F. Stryker.
633
DRESSED MEAT AND PACKING CONCERNS.
mated,) was §216,000; the amount paid to farmers and stockmen for live stock some- thing over $5,700,000; in 1892, the em- ployes, (4,246 in number,) received $2,345,- 400; and the amount paid for hogs, cattle and sheep slaughtered, $28,450,000. The number of hogs, cattle and sheep packed during the year last mentioned, was: hogs, 1,320,386; cattle, 453,113, sheep, 103,406.
The total weight of this live stock was over 800,000,000 pounds, and in round numbers the packers paid for it about $30,000,000.
The total number of hogs, cattle and sheep packed in the eight years in which packing houses have been established in South Omaha is, for
1885
109.683
1886
312 999
1887
902 460
1888 1.039,366
1889
1,323,764
1890
1 792.772
1891
1,68,466
1892
1.876,905
The aggregated distributed sales of pack- ing house products for 1892 in South Omaha were $45,160,885.
It is safe to say that there are not now in South Omaha-in Omaha-in Nebraska-in the entire West-any croakers or timid spirits who say or believe that the Union Stock Yards of the Magic City will "soon become a waste place, or its packing houses a solitude."* Says Secretary Sharp, of the Union Stock Yards, in his report for 1892:
"In addition to the constant improve- ments being made by the stock yards com- pany, all the time, one of the most encour- aging features of the market here is the enormous outlays made by all the different slaughterers in enlarging their plants, and thus preparing for increased receipts and increased business. Over a million and a Quarter of dollars have been expended by Hammond, Cudahy, Swift, and the Omaha Packing Company, during the past twelve months in increasing their killing and stor- ing capacity for cattle, hogs and sheep. The capacity has beeen increased over thirty per cent. The management of these houses are not known as "rain-bow chasers," and the substantial nature of the improvements made, gives the market an assurance of per- manency, which could come from no other source.
" But in addition to the buyers for the local killers, eastern and western slaughterers and exporters have buyers here at all times, for cattle, hogs and sheep, so that complete local control of the market is absolutely out of the question, and the shipper is always sure of a ready sale at full market value. This is especially true as to hogs, for hardly a day passes on which eastern houses do not take from 200 to 2,000 or 4,000 hogs. There never has been a time, however, when local houses have been compelled to turn away stock of any kind for lack of accommo- dations."
Government meat inspection at South Omaha was inaugurated by the secretary of agriculture, July 1, 1891, Swift & Company being the first packers to receive the in- spection-the other packers soon following. The inspection consists in an examination while in the yards, of all cattle, sheep and hogs, by the inspectors in charge of the various abattoirs, all animals presenting evidence of disease, being rejected. After the animals reach the killing floors they are again subjected to a critical post-mortem ex- amination, and all carcasses found diseased are removed to the fertilizing tanks in the presence of the vetinary inspector in charge. The carcasses of those animals found per- fectly healthy, receive the government certificate.
September 12th, 1891, the microscopie in- spection of pork intended for export, was granted to the Cudahy Packing Company. and the Omaha Packing Company. The other packers afterwards applied for inspec- tion, owing to the great demand for in- spected pork, and have received it. The microscopic force examine samples taken from the slaughtered hogs, for trichinæ spiralis (an animal parasite), which so often infests the flesh of hogs. The microscopic work consists in taking three small pieces of meat from different parts of the hog, tagging the animal, and sending the samples with corresponding tag numbers to the micro- scopical rooms. Those animals found diseased are removed from the abattoir in the pres- ence of the veterinary inspector in charge of the cooling rooms, and the healthy car- casses receive the government stamp, and are then ready for export.
"The work [meat inspection ]," says a re- cent writer, " requires the utmost care and painstaking, and upon the thoroughness with
*The Drovers Journal, December 31, 1892,
634
HISTORY OF SOUTH OMAHA.
which it is accomplished depends the repu- tation of South Omaha meat in the markets of the world. Before each operator is a pile of small, round wooden boxes. Each of these contains two pieces of meat, one cut from the neck and one from the diaphragm of a hog. The box is opened and with a tiny pair of scissors the operator clips small ob- long slips from each of the specimens and arranges them upon the glass of the micro- scope. The lens is properly adjusted and the hunt for trichænial germs is begun. The examination is continued until it is certain that no lurking bacilli remain undiscovered; and then, if the result is favorable, it is so reported, and the animal from which the specimens were clipped is eligible for ship- ment to the European markets. Each speci- men is accompanied by a slip of paper bear- ing a printed number that corresponds to a number attached to the hog from which the specimens were taken, and if any bacilli are discovered, the animal is condemned and cannot be exported.
"Considering the fact that the meat in- spection bill was only passed a little over a year ago, and that its expense was only pro- vided for by a limited appropriation of $200,000, the meat inspection department has attained a marvelons degree of profici- ency. This is especially the case in South Omaha."
The microscopic inspection of pork is per- formed largely by ladies. A description in detail of the work might be interesting, but suffice it to say that, generally, they are seated at tables, in groups of four or six, each with a mounted and highly polished microscope before her, through which she squints with one eye at two tiny strips of pork from as many different portions of the deceased hog's anatomy, tightly compressed between two pieces of heavy plate glass, held in place by a metal frame. He who looks at an infected specimen, will see, instead of a reptile as large as a boa constrictor, as he expected, a vicious little animal (against which France and Germany turned their diplomatic bat- teries), which looks like the hair spring of a watch, coiled up in a transparent paper sack. The trichina are always coiled and encysted, and appear dormant, unless released by the compression between the plates of glass, when they continually lengthen and contract the coils, similar to a watch spring in motion. The proper adjustment and use of the micro- scope is the first lesson the microscopist has to learn, and the duties of the chief micro- scopists, when giving their first lesson, are very much those of the old-fashioned coun- try schoolmaster .*
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