The stockyards, dominated by Armour & Company, were a fixture of cities that shipped meat back east, starting in the 1800s in Fort Worth, Texas. Armour & Company in Fort Worth, began operating in 1903. Cattle in the 1800s were herded up the Chisolm Trail, through Indian Territory, to places like Dodge City, Kansas, where the railroad had reached. This photo is from 1913 Fort Worth and the stockyards are still existing there. Once Oklahoma City was formed, after the Land Run in 1907, Armour and Company established an outlet there.
Now, if you go to the stockyards in each of those cities, Fort Worth has remained rooted in the past and still has a vital area thriving around The Stockyards, even though Armour abandoned the area long ago. Oklahoma City, on the other hand, has let its area dwindle down to nothing, focusing their self image on new areas of development along the Canadian River, plans which Fort Worth is also doing along the Trinity River.
My grandfather grew up on the upside - the better neighbhorhood -- upwind from the stench and when he finished college in the early Depression years, he went to work at Armour & Company. When he married my grandmother, the announcement in her hometown newspaper had the headline "Local Girl Weds Employed Man".
Such were the jobs and the industry out west, then, when cows were raised in a healthy manner before they started the route to market.
We get local, grass-fed beef, and it is reasonably priced these days. The Big Island of Hawaii is a big beef raising area. The Parker Ranch is one of the largest ranches in the U.S.
http://www.parkerranch.com/Parker-Ranch/160/about-the-ranch
Posted by: Marianna Scheffer | March 03, 2009 at 09:52 PM
I remember taking our son to jazz camp in Emporia KS in the late 80s and hating to go there because of the stench from the feedlots and processing plants. I could never figure out how the musicians could inhale long enough to get the air they needed to make sounds with their horns!
Posted by: Sandy | March 05, 2009 at 04:51 PM