THREE QUARTERS of a CENTURY of PROGRESS
1848-1923
A Brief Pictorial and Commercial History
of Sioux City, Iowa
published 1923
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Cudahy Packing Co.
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Armour & Co.
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Midland Packing Co.
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Sunlight Produce Co.
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Swift & Co.
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Sioux City is Important LiveStock and Packing Center
For over half a century Sioux City has been one of America's recognized centers of meat packing-The Home Market for the Great Northwest.
SIOUX CITY'S greatest industry started slightly over half a century ago in 1871. At that time a small plant was opened at Fifth and Water streets. The story of the beginning of the industry here reads like the story of the man who wanted a horse because he had a horseshoe nail. Once started it grew because of natural causes. A boat load of wheat went down in the Missouri river just opposite Sioux City in 1871. This was raised but the wheat was water soaked and of little value. An enterprising citizen, James E. Booge, purchased the reclaimed cargo and also enough hogs to eat up the wet grain. The hogs thrived but when the feed was gone there was little market for the live porkers. Here is where he hit upon the plan that was later to make Sioux City one of the six outstanding markets of the world in live stock and packing. He built a small plant and dressed the hogs and sold the finished meat.
This first plant consisted of four walls, a roof and a ring in the middle of the floor to which the animals were tied while being killed. Contrast this today with the giant plants which used over a million and a half animals last year and which will use over two million during 1923. These plants are modern in every respect and supply thousands of people with their daily meat.
Practically the first traffic in live stock here was that of a handful of men banded together to furnish feeders to a limited territory surrounding Sioux City where farmers wished to utilize their surplus corn and fodder to the best advantage by feeding young stock to be sold to the packers. The city has always had an ideal location for a center of live stock trading and packing. It is located in the heart of the world's greatest corn belt and on the edge of the hog and cattle producing sections. Is it little wonder that the city within a half a century grew to be sixth in the United States in live stock receipts and in the value of packing house products?
Perhaps no industry had so great difficulty in getting a start. The first yards were built at Division street but was entirely wiped out by the floods of 1892. The business was then transferred to the present location and started again, but this time on a still larger scale. The troubles were not over for the following year came the depressing panic of 1893 which caused hard work on the part of the officers and directors to pull through with the
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Live Stock Exchange
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Sioux City Horse & Mule Co.
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Sale Ring (Stock Yards)
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Pig Pens (Stock Yard)
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Stock Yards
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newly reorganized yards. However, once over this difficulty the history of the yards has, been one of success year by year. Each year the market reaches out a little farther and takes in more of the live stock section of the west, until today it receives shipments from every state in the stock producing area of this country.
The coming of the packers a few years later was all that was needed to insure the success of a good all around market here. The Cudahy company was the first of the nationally known companies to place a plant here, and credit is due them for pioneering the field. Armour & Co. established themselves here a few years later, followed by Swift & Co. These three have continued to grow and help to build up the rapidly growing market. At the same time there have been a number of successful small independent plants including Sacks Bros., Smith Bros., Iowa Dressed Beef Co., and others who have added their share to the development of the Sioux City market.
The Sioux City Stock Yards Co. owns the vast area of pens covering over 30 acres and including unloading docks, a giant reinforced concrete double-decked hog house, a highly developed truck unloading department and other conveniences for the shipper. They receive and hold the stock received until ready for sale by the owner or through the owner's agent—the commission man. This company has nothing to do with buying or selling and get a flat rate per animal without regard to the price that the animal brings. The commission man, on the other hand, is not connected with the company and represents only the live stock owner. Traders are another class who buy and sell on the market for themselves and are not connected with the stock yards company or the commission man. In this way a producer is assured of the best possible price for his animals without the trouble of coming to the market with them. The Live Stock Exchange is for the protection of the shipper as well as the Sioux City interests.
The hog department handles the greatest number of animals. It consists of the hog pavilion with 170 sales pens. As this is being written workmen are pushing forward an addition to this house which will greatly increase the facilities and provide for the increasing business. In connection with this has grown a new business unknown when the yards were started 40 years ago. This is the shipment of hogs by motor truck. In 1922, approximately a quarter of a million hogs found their way to market in that way and necessitated the providing of a new method of receiving these animals. This was made possible by the establishment of a department exclusively for this kind of business. It is one of the first of its kind in the United States and is now exceeding all other markets in the number of hogs received in this manner.
Adequate facilities are provided for cattle, calves, sheep as well as horses and mules. The latter are handled through the Sioux City Horse and Mule Market. From the time these animals enter Sioux City where they are received by the Sioux City Terminal Railroad Co., until
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they go into the packing plants or are reshipped to some other packing center, they are well cared for by modern methods employed.
The total number of animals received on the Sioux City market last year was 2,833,410, of which over a million and a half were used locally. Being in the greatest hog state in the country, it is only natural that Sioux City should receive primarily hogs. Last year 1,855,829 hogs were received here which will be increased by at least fifty per cent in 1923. In 1887 there were only 72,317 hogs on the Sioux City market. During the thirty-six years since then, there has been over forty million hogs received here. The reason for this is that stock producers have always received fair treatment at the hands of the Sioux City stockmen and continue year after year to send their stock to this market.
There is no one factory in the city as large as either the Cudahy or Armour packing plants. These plants each employ in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred employees—many of them skilled laborers. A complete story of anyone of the plants would fill more than this entire book and would require years of study. Each has its owner buyers with offices at the yards where they appear on the market daily and buy the stock required for their respective plants. This gives competition, insuring the producer of a good price for his animals. The plants operate the entire year turning out products, many of which go into the foreign markets of the world. Thee output last year was valued at over $62,000,000.
Sioux City has always been more than a market—it has been a live stock developing center. The men engaged in the live stock business have spent time and effort during the last fifty years in developing a better class of live stock in the territory. Today Sioux City has the reputation of being one of the largest pure bred live stock markets in the world. This is due to the steady increase in the character of the stock. Farmers and ranchers have been shown that high grade stock brings better money on the market.
One of the greatest builders of better stock is the annual Sioux City Stocker and Feeder Show staged by the live stock men of Sioux City and the territory. It is held in the early fall when ranchers are buying to feed. Thousands of high grade animals are brought in from all over the west and placed on sale. Prizes are awarded for the best animals in several different classes. Then those who desire may sell their stock at public sales. A sales pavilion has been installed for this purpose and the results have been good. It gives the seller and the buyer an opportunity of coming together in Sioux City. Buyers come from all over the east as well the west, to purchase stock at the Stocker and Feeder Show.
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Serum Plants (Sioux City Stock Yards)
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Stock Yards
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American Serum co.
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Truck Uploading Platform (Sioux City Stock Yards)
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Sioux City Serum Co.
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