USA > Nebraska > Douglas County > Omaha > Omaha: the Gate city, and Douglas County, Nebraska, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 31
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OTHER ELEVATORS
In June, 1888, the Fowler Elevator Company began business on a small scale. The following year a stock company was formed with a capital stock of $50,000 and the storage capacity was increased to 200,000 bushels. Of this company B. A. Fowler was president ; C. T. Brown, secretary ; and C. H. Fowler, treasurer. The elevator was located at the intersection of Tenth and Charles streets, but the general offices of the company were in the First National Bank Building. Subse- quently the company built and operated nine elevators on the Kearney & Black Hills division of the Union Pacific Railroad.
On September 1, 1890, the elevator of the Woodman & Ritchie Company was opened with a capacity of 600,000 bushels and the most improved methods for handling and storing grain. The officers of the company were: Clark Wood- man, president ; Frank E. Ritchie, vice president ; Charles L. Harris, secretary and treasurer. The capital stock of the company was $500,000 and the cost of the elevator was $250,000.
The firm of Merriam & Haines, successors to Himebaugh & Merriam, pur- chased in 1898 the old Woodman flax house at the corner of Seventeenth and Nicholas streets and remodeled it for a grain elevator. In 1902 J. W. Holmquist
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OMAHA AND DOUGLAS COUNTY
purchased the interest of Mr. Haines and the Merriam & Holmquist Company was then organized, with Mr. Merriam as president and Mr. Holmquist, secretary and treasurer. This company is still doing business.
During the quarter of a century following the building of the first elevator in Omaha, the amount of grain handled increased from a few thousand bushels to 11,000,000 bushels annually. This was considered by some as a cause for congratulation, but early in the present century came the dawn of a new era in the grain trade, due largely to the inspiration of A. B. Stickney, president of the Chicago Great Western Railroad Company. In the fall of 1903 that company completed its line to Omaha. A short time before the road was finished, Mr. Stickney made a speech before the Omaha Commercial Club, in which he pointed out the greater possibilities of Omaha as a grain market. Not long afterward, at Mr Stickney's suggestion, a banquet was held at the Iler Grand Hotel, at which the bankers, leading business men, grain dealers, etc., were present. Mr. Stickney again urged upon the guests the importance of taking steps to make Omaha a greater grain center and promised that he would use the force and influence of his railroad to establish rates west of the Missouri that would aid in building up a market for the city. The result was the organization of the
OMAHA GRAIN EXCHANGE
Seventy-five of those present at the banquet subscribed for memberships at $500 each, and Gurdon W. Wattles was selected as the proper man to secure new members. In a short time he announced that he had secured eighty new members and in November, 1903, the exchange was organized with a membership of 155. It began business as an organization on February 1, 1904, with Mr. Wattles as president, who was given the privelege of naming four of the nine directors. He selected E. E. Bruce, F. P. Kirkendall, Arthur Smith and A. L. Reed. The other four members of the first board of directors were N. B. Updike, Nathan Merriam, S. A. MacWater and A. B. Jaquith, all of whom were actively engaged in the grain business. The first home of the Grain Exchange was in the old Board of Trade Building, on the southwest corner of Sixteenth and Farnam streets. During the first year of the exchange, the total receipts of grain amounted to 16,433,285 bushels, the largest in Omaha's history up to that time. Each succeeding year showed an increase and in 1913, ten years after the organ- ization of the exchange, the receipts were 66,983,800 bushels, and the membership had increased to 193.
The encouraging conditions led some of the more progressive members to advocate the erection of a building suitable for the transaction of all lines of business connected with the grain market. In 1914 William J. Hynes, Barton Millard and F. S. Cowgill were selected as a building committee, with instruc- tions from the board of directors "to choose a site, have plans drawn and proceed to the erection of a building." The committee secured the lot at the southwest corner of Nineteenth and Harney streets at a purchase price of $50,000, employed F. A. Henninger, an Omaha architect, to make plans, which were approved by the board of directors, and the handsome eight-story building was erected upon the site, at a cost of $450,000. It is of the "L" shape, fronting 140 feet on Nineteenth Street and 150 feet on Harney, with the court at the southwest
OMAHA GRAIN EXCHANGE
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OMAHA AND DOUGLAS COUNTY
corner. The walls are of yellowish brown vitrified brick, with terra cotta trim- mings; the front doors are of heavy art bronze metal; the lobby and halls are floored and wainscoted with marble, and toilet rooms on each floor are finished in the same manner. On the ground floor there are eleven store rooms. From the second to the sixth floors inclusive are the offices of members of the exchange ; the seventh floor is occupied by the trading room, or exchange, 52 by 80 feet in dimensions, and on the eighth floor are the offices of the organization, the weigh- ing and inspection department, etc.
The new building was opened with religious ceremonies on February 1, 1904, just twelve years after the exchange was organized. Just before opening for the day's business, the grain men stood with bowed heads and listened to an appropriate prayer by Reverend E. H. Jenks, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, after which the Omaha Grain Exchange started upon its new era.
The officers of the exchange for 1916 were as follows: J. B. Swearingen, president; Barton Millard, vice president ; J. A. Linderholm, vice president ; F. P. Manchester, secretary ; Frank H. Brown, treasurer. The board of directors is composed of the president, two vice presidents, treasurer, C. E. Niswonger, J. T. Buchanan, W. J. Hynes, H. L. Olsen and E. P. Smith.
As an evidence of what the Grain Exchange has done for Omaha, it is only necessary to mention that at the time of its organization there were two eleva- tors-the Merriam and Twamley-doing business in Omaha, and two others-the Union and the Peavey-at Council Bluffs. The combined capacity of these four elevators was a little over three million bushels. Since the exchange commenced operations fifteen additional elevators have been built, giving the city a capacity of approximately eight million bushels, an increase of nearly 200 per cent in twelve years. In an interview on the opening day of the new building, G. W. Wattles, the first president of the exchange, said: "I believe the Grain Exchange the greatest thing that has come to Omaha. It has added millions and millions of dollars to the price of wheat to Nebraska producers. Some do not realize this, but they could easily figure it out it they tried."
Concerning the increase in the volume of business transacted, C. D. Sturtevant, chairman of the transportation committee of the exchange, says: "Before the grain men organized, there was considerable discrimination against Omaha in the matter of railroad freight rates and the first business of the exchange has always been to secure readjustment of those rates. Under the former tariffs, it was cheaper to ship grain from Wyoming and South Dakota by way of Minneapolis and the result was that very little grain from those states ever got past Minne- apolis. Now, Omaha is able to compete with the great northern milling center and is getting its full share of business from that section.
"By the readjustment of freight rates, for which the Omaha Grain Exchange is directly responsible, Omaha is now receiving grain from South Dakota, Wyoni- ing, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Montana and Minnesota. All this has helped to advertise Omaha, and our grain market stands today the largest primary market in the United States ; that is, more grain is received in Omaha directly from the farmer and the small elevator man than on any other market in the country. It is the second corn market in the United States and ranks with the leaders in wheat and other grains."
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HISTORY OF THE STOCK YARDS
The first effort, of which there is any reliable account, to establish a general stock yards in Omaha was made in 1876, when John A. Smiley organized the Union Stock Yards Company and deeded to that company an eighty-acre tract of land then owned by him and lying just north of the city limits. The deed was to be held by Mr. Smiley, however, until the organization of the company was perfected. A number of Chicago capitalists interested in the live stock trade expressed sympathy with the movement and tentatively agreed to give it financial support, provided the Omaha Board of Trade would endorse the enterprise. But the Board of Trade had been organized only a short time and declined any official aid; so the whole project was abandoned.
The following year ( 1877) a live stock committee was appointed by the Omaha Board of Trade to investigate and report on the subject of encouraging the establishment of stock yards in or near Omaha. This committee, aft interviewing a number of persons, reported that it was impressed "with the ver. generally expressed views of not only the business men of Omaha, but also of the stock raisers and shippers themselves, north, south and west, of the importance and necessity of erecting and maintaining extensive stock yards and slaughtering houses in this city. We have sufficient assurances, from our own personal observations, as well as the opinions of live stock men, packers and dealers interested in securing the best market for their products, that Omaha is destined to become the principal market west of Chicago for the sale of cattle, sheep and hogs."
The committee further reported that it had interviewed Jay Gould and Sidney Dillon, of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, "to secure the necessary franchise and privileges for the erection and maintenance of stock yards on a scale commensurate with the magnitude and growing importance of the cattle trade of Omaha." Messrs. Gould and Dillon made fair promises and gave verbal pledges to the committee, but the promises and pledges were not kept and the stock yards failed to materialize under this plan.
On April 27, 1878, the Omaha Stock Yards Company filed its articles of incor- poration, signed by A. P. Nicholas, H. K. Smith, S. R. Johnson, J. F. Sheely, E. Estabrook and C. F. Goodman. On the same day another company filed articles of incorporation under the same name. It was composed of J. L. Lovett, W. C. B. Allen and W. J. Broatch, but as the articles of incorporation of this company were not filed until an hour and a half after the first mentioned, the Nicholas Company secured the right to use the name "Omaha Stock Yards Company," and Mr. Lovett and his associates abandoned their project. Mr. Nicholas had previously arranged for a lease for thirty acres of ground owned by the Union Pacific Railway Company, just outside the city limits to the south- west, for a term of four years, at an annual rental of about six hundred dollars, with the privilege of purchase at the expiration of the lease.
On May 4, 1879, another stock yards company was organized in Omaha under the name of the Union Stock Yards Company-the name first proposed by Mr. Smiley, when he organized his company three years before. The promoters of this company were William A. Paxton, W. C. B. Allen, W. J. Broatch, Herman Kountze and J. L. Lovett. This company insisted upon having the privilege of
WYTROY SIER WARDS NATIONAL ISA ANION STOCK YARDS NATIONAL HET
ESTANGE BUILDING, UNION STOCK YARDS, OMAILA
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OMAHA AND DOUGLAS COUNTY
using part of the tract leased to Mr. Nicholas, with the result that a portion of the Union Pacific grounds north of the tracks was leased to the Union Stock Yards Company.
In the winter of 1879-80, Mr. Paxton and his associates removed their yards to the Iowa side of the Missouri River, and in May, 1880, the yards of the Omaha Stock Yards Company were turned over to the Union Pacific, Mr. Nicholas and his coadjutors having found the business an unprofitable one under the conditions at that time existing. The Union Pacific also operated what were known as the "Bridge Stock Yards," located on the north side of that railroad and about half a mile east of the depot.
Notwithstanding these successive failures-or at least only partial successes- there were still to be found optimistic persons who believed that, by working along the right lines, Omaha could be made a great live stock market center. In the fall of 1882 Alexander H. Swan, an extensive cattle raiser in Wyoming, entered into correspondence with Leverett M. Anderson, of Omaha, to whom he suggested the plan of securing about two hundred acres of land just south of the city, a tract then known as "The Summit," and establishing thereon stock yards, packing houses and canning establishments. As the scheme unfolded these two men came to the conclusion that the contemplated two hundred acres were not sufficient for their purpose. Mr. Anderson was therefore authorized to secure options on a number of farms lying adjacent to "The Summit"-over eighteen hundred acres in all, including a large part of what was afterward platted as South Omaha. In this work Mr. Anderson was materially assisted by C. R. Schaller and by the middle of August, 1883, options were closed on 1,875 acres, for which the total price of $312,972.73 was paid, or nearly $167 per acre.
The stock yards movement received quite an impetus on November 27, 1883, when Thomas L. Kimball, then assistant general manager of the Union Pacific Railroad Company gave utterance to the following opinion: "On the subject of beef slaughtering and packing houses at Omaha, I have to say that it may not be out of place in this connection for me to state some of the considerations, which seem to us patent, why Omaha should be selected as the point for establishing such enterprises. Slaughtering and packing is a business which, besides calling for skilled labor and a large force of men, requires, when carried on extensively, the employment of a large capital in permanent improvement. It is therefore manifestly desirable to locate where the men can be employed, as nearly as possible all the year round. Here, during the months when grass-fed cattle are fat enough for beef, that class of stock could be slaughtered, and during the remainder of the year the business could be run on corn-fed cattle. The estab- lishment of such an enterprise in Omaha would result in the shipment to Nebraska, and, to some extent, Iowa corn producing localities, of large numbers of cattle, about three years old, which had been raised to that age on western grass, for feeding a few months on corn. Corn can be had in this section of the country as abundantly and cheaply as in any part of the world; in fact, I think it no exaggeration to say that corn can be obtained more abundantly and cheaper than elsewhere.
"By this process of corn feeding, several hundred pounds can be added to the weight of each animal, bringing it into prime condition for the supply of Omaha slaughtering all the year. The successful slaughtering of Kansas City
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furnishes us proof of this proposition, inasmuch as that city sustains the same relations to the corn producing states of Kansas and Western Missouri, as Omaha does to Nebraska and Western Iowa. No enterprise of this sort can be made equally profitable if located upon the Northern Pacific, as that line lies outside of the corn belt. Formerly there would have been an objection to this location as compared with Council Bluffs or some points on the east side of the Missouri River, on account of the arbitrary tolls charged by all bridges over that stream, but it has now become the established policy of the Iowa railways to maintain the same rates between the East and Council Bluffs and Omaha, so that it will cost no more for the shipment of the product from Omaha than from Council Bluffs. The existence of six strong eastern lines centering at this point and competing for the business of Omaha, gives all the assurance necessary that the business located here will at all times secure as favorable freight rates as may obtain at any other point in the Missouri Valley."
The logic of Mr. Kimball's argument was acknowledged by all who professed to know anything about the subject, and the activity of Swan and Anderson in securing options upon a large tract of the most desirable land about the city caused others to become interested. In November, 1883, Mr. Swan made over- tures to Mr. Paxton, who, it will be remembered, was at that time connected with the stock yards at Council Bluffs, and presented the situation so forcibly that Mr. Paxton joined the South Omaha enterprise. He also used his influence to induce others to take stock in the company. The result was that on December 1, 1883, the Union Stock Yards Company was organized at Omaha and filed articles of incorporation, in which it was set forth :
"That we, Alexander H. Swan, William A. Paxton, John A. Creighton, Peter E. Iler, John A. McShane, Thomas Swobe and Frank Murphy, have associated ourselves together for the purpose of being incorporated under the laws of the State of Nebraska: That is to say, subdivision entitled 'corporations' of chapter entitled 'corporations,' being chapter sixteen of the Compiled Statutes of Nebraska of 1881 ; and, for the purpose aforesaid, we have adopted the following articles of association.
"First. The name of this corporation shall be 'Union Stock Yards Company of Omaha (Limited).'
"Second. The principal place of transacting the business of this corporation shall be the City of Omaha, in the County of Douglas and State of Nebraska.
"Third. The general nature of the business to be transacted by said corpo- ration shall be the purchase and sale, the feeding and caring for, slaughtering, dressing and packing and holding for sale, selling and selling for others, of live stock, including cattle, hogs, sheep and horses, and shipping by refrigerator cars or otherwise, of meats and the product thereof, and doing generally the business of a stock yards, whatever is incident or in anywise related to or usually connected therewith."
The capital stock of the company was fixed at $1,000,000, which could be increased by vote of the stockholders, and the company was authorized to com- mence business when $700,000 had been subscribed and paid in. As that amount of stock had been taken before the articles of association were filed, and the money paid into the treasury, the company began operations on the very day it was incorporated by the election of the following officers, to serve for one year :
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William A. Paxton, president; Alexander H. Swan, vice president; John H. Donnelly, secretary; James M. Woolworth, attorney. The first directory was composed of William A. Paxton, Alexander H. Swan, Frank Murphy, Peter E. Iler, John A. McShane and Thomas Swobe.
The next step was to select a location for the yards. After Mr. Swan and his associates had purchased the large tract of land south of the city they formed a land syndicate. On February 21, 1884, the Union Stock Yards Company purchased from this syndicate 156.48 acres, described as part of the southwest quarter of Section 4, Township 14 north, Range 13, the purchase price being $78,250. This tract is now bounded on the north by M Street; on the east by the right of way of the Union Pacific Railroad; on the south by Q Street, and on the west by Thirty-sixth Street. Actual work on the stock sheds and pens was commenced on April 8, 1884, under the immediate supervision of President Paxton, and on the first day of August the yards were pronounced ready for the reception of stock. John F. Boyd was appointed superintendent and for nearly two weeks his office was a sinecure. No stock arrived at the yards. On August 13, 1884, a train of twenty-five cars came in over the Union Pacific, carrying 531 cattle consigned to the Uinion Stock Yards (Limited) by F. Walcott, of Medicine Bow. The cattle were fed and cared for until the next day, when they were reshipped by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad for Chicago. This was the first transaction in live stock by the Omaha Union Stock Yards (Limited). On the 27th two car loads of hogs were received over the Union Pacific from the firm of Black & Nash, of Kearney, Neb., and like the cattle were sent on to the Chicago market.
GROWTH OF THE MARKET
Twenty-five years after the establishment of the stock yards, one of the officials, in reviewing the progress of a quarter of a century, said: "It was slow work at first; the market did not build in a day, and for a considerable time the yards remained merely a feeding station for stock en route to the eastern markets. Being located on the natural route from the West to the East, the beaten trail, so to speak, of the stockmen going to and from market, Omaha's natural advantages were easily advertised, and as the volume of stock which stopped at the Union Stock Yards, for rest and feed, increased, it at length began to draw buyers and dealers as honey draws bees.
"First came the speculators and traders, some of them being shippers them- selves; then feeder buyers, countrymen and farmers looking for cattle and sheep for feeding purposes; then buyers seeking supplies for outside packing houses, and finally the packers themselves, one by one, started to locate their plants at South Omaha, until today a great live stock market and packing center, third largest in the world, makes famous in the realm of commerce the city of South Omaha, which has furnished figures to make the name of Nebraska conspicuous in the markets of the world."
Although there is no romance in figures, they often tell the story of growili and development better than it could be told in any other way, and below is given a brief comparison of the figures that have made "Nebraska conspicuous
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in the markets of the world." First, the number of animals received at the Union Stock Yards in 1884, the first year of business, was as follows :
Cattle 88,603
Hogs
3,686
Sheep
5,593
Horses and mules
489
Total
98,37 I
Less than one hundred thousand head of stock! And of this number received, nearly all were reshipped to eastern markets, to wit:
Cattle
83,459
Hogs
752
Sheep
2,009
Horses and mules
419
Total reshipments 86,639
From these figures it will be seen that less than twelve thousand head of the total receipts found a market in Omaha in 1884, chiefly hogs and sheep. After thirty-one years the figures tell a different story. The receipts for 1915 were:
Cattle
1,218,342
Hogs
2,642,973
Sheep
3,268,279
Horses and mules 41,679
Total
7,171,273
During these thirty-one years the great packing houses had grown up in Omaha and these concerns bought a large number of cattle, sheep and hogs, so that the reshipments for 1915 were as follows :
Cattle
516,283
Hogs
629,836
Sheep 1.317,203
Horses and mules
38,755
Total reshipments 2,502,077
While in 1884 only a little over 12 per cent of the stock received at the yards found a market in Omaha, in 1915 over 60 per cent of the animals received were sold in the local market. If the horses and mules be left out of the consideration, the percentage of stock sold in the local market would be much higher. In 1910 there were sold at the Union Stock Yards nearly half a million more feeder sheep than in any other market in the United States, and this record has since been maintained.
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OMAHA AND DOUGLAS COUNTY
TIIE FIRST SALE
It may be of interest to the reader to know when and by whom the first sale of stock was made at the Union Stock Yards for the local market. Several live stock commission men have claimed this distinction, and to settle the question, J. C. Sharp, secretary of the Union Stock Yards Company, recently hunted up the old records. The first sale was made on September 15, 1884, by Green & Burke, a commission firm whose offices were located at the old Bridge Yards. A car load of cattle from Plum Creek, Neb., had been billed to the firm at the Bridge Yards, but the railroad company-through mistake, or for the purpose of helping the new stock yards-delivered the car at the Union Stock Yards. Green & Burke were notified and Mr. Green went to the new yards. Knowing that John Yeager, who had a butcher shop at the corner of Eleventh and Farnam streets, wanted to buy some good beef cattle, Mr. Green sent for him to come and look at the cattle just received from Plum Creek. Mr. Yeager soon appeared on the scene and purchased the entire car load. This was the first sale at the Union Stock Yards. It was made by George B. Green, of the firm of Green & Burke, and John Yeager was the first purchaser.
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