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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (June 19, 1921)
THE BEE: OMAHA, SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 1921. 10 Y Stock Yards Here In 40 Years Grow To Second in U.S. Remarkable Expansion Based on System of Fair Dealing and Honesty Powerful Factor in City's Growth. ,By BRUCE McCULLOCH. Keillor Jnurnul-Klorkmnit. It would be difficult to form any , thing like an adequate estimate of what the local live stock market has meant to Omaha and Nebraska. Imagine, if possiblle, the city and State without this big industry lo cated where it is and one can have a fair conception of what the pos session of next to the largest live stock market in the country has done for the financial and commer cial interests of" the metropolis as' well as of the farming and stock raising industry of Nebraska and the west. In less than 40 years the live stock market of this city has grown from practically nothing to a position second only to Chicago among the live stock centers of the country and this result has been achieved by a favoring combination of circum staces and conditions. - In the year 1884, the time was ripe for the estab lishment of a great live stock mar ket and packing center in Omaha and there were the men and the capital ready to start the enterprise and push it to success. Product of Conditions. The modern live stock market is a product of conditions that arose or existed shortly after the close of the civil war, the centralizing of popula tion due to industrial development, the discovery and application of re frigeration on a large scale and the extension and development of rail road transportation throughout the country. Unquestionably, however, St was rerrtgefhlJon that made the modern lfve stock market possible. Artificial ly cooled abattoirs . and storage houses brought about the develop ment of meat packing on a, large scale and when George H. Ham mond discovered that such a highly perishable product as fresh meat could be transported for unlimited distance in refrigerator cars it be cemc a moral certainty that big pack ing centers would be established at points convenient for the gathering , of live stock and the distribution of meats. Promise of Growth. Thi9 then was the situation along in the 70's when Omaha was just beginning to give promise of growth to metropolitan proportions and -the "big country to the west was pro ducing a steadily increasing supply of all kinds of live stock. The times were propitious, but conditions were not yet ripe and at least three am bitious attempts at starting live stock markets in the city failed prior to 1880. It was not until 1883 that a real beginning was made. At that time a (company was formed in which yuexanaer owan, vvniiam . rax' ton, John A. McShane. Thomas Swobe, John A. Creighton and Peter E. Her, were the moving spirits. A tract of land south of the city on what was then known as the old Drexel farm was purchased, stock yards erected, and in the sum mer of 1884 the Omaha live stock market became a reality. Feeding Center Planned. None of the promoters of the stock yards ever dreamed of Omaha ever becoming a leading packing center. Their program was to make this a feeding station where cattle, sheep and hogs could be fed and rested on their journey to eastern markets and where eastern packers could come and purchase supplies for shipment to their various and widely scattered plants. It was only a few months, however, until it de veloped, that a stock yards plant without a packing house was un economic, if not impossible. Inducements were then offered G. H. Hammond & Co., and in 1885 that packer opened up a large house adjoining the yards. In the same year Fowler Brothers, and the Anglo-American Provision company erected plants and began operations. Sir Thomas Lipton followed a year or two later, this plant being later taken over by the Cudahy Packing company. In 1887 Swift & Co. be came a fixture here and in 1890 Armour & Co., put up their big plant on Q street. Wtih the coming of these large, modem packing concerns the busi ness began to grow by leaps and bounds. The presence of a splendid evcry-day.in-the-year market at Omaha stimulated the production of live stock in the west and north west, so that at times it looked as if supplies of cattle, hogs and sheep would exceed the facilities for han dling them here. This fear, how ever, was groundless, and the follow ing table of receipts for the past 37 years clearly indicates that the growth of the market was practi cally coextensive with the develop ment in. live stock production: Total receipts of stock at Omahm for 37 vpars: BUeep. 6,693 19.4K4 41,490 79.422 172,138 162.517 153.873 169,885 188.588 452,273 243,945 204,870 358,006 627,160 1,086,138 1,086,819 1,276,775 1,314,841 1,742,639 1,863,703 I,76f3fi5 1,970,502 2,166,U6 2,038,777 2,105,949 2,167,014 2.984,870 2.977,570 2.960,507 3,222,133 3.113,889 8.268,279 3,170,908 3,016,631 3,385,696 3,789,188 2,890,748 ia84 ..... 88.603 1885 116.963 1888 .I... 148,515 1887 239.377 1888 355.923 1889 473,094 1890 615,337 1891 601,002 1892 755,069 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 852,46 821,612 686,103 (86.678 810.949 812,244 837,663 828,204 818,003 1,010.815 1,071,177 944,192 1,020,892 1.079,373 1907 1,158,716 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1916 191B 1917 1918 1919 1,036,625 1,124,618 1,223,533 1,174,312 1,017,195 962.103 938.817 1,218,342 1.434.304 1,719,822 1,993,366 1,975,236 1920 1,602,799 Hosts 3,68 152,524 447,019 1.056,524 1,262,647 1.224,691 1,702,723 1.537.887 1,613,384 1,400,451 1.932,677 1,186,726 1,218,370 1,610,981 2.101,887 2.216,482 2,200.926 2,414,052 2,247,428 2.231,067 2,299,627 2,293,956 2.393,551 2.253,662 2,424,851 2,135,493 1.894,314 2,366,684 2,880,244 2,642,709 2,258,620 2,642,973 8.116,820 2.796,696 3.459,633 3,179.118 2,708,482 Total. .34,059,222 73,388,353 58,010,738 While the above figures set forth clearly the steady growth of the Omaha live stock market and the equally steady development of the vast and rich territory stretching hundreds of miles to the west of the Missouri river, there is another in teresting story contained in these statistics that does not appear on the surface. In 1885 -the Omaha market, if it had any rank at all, stood 12th among the market cen ters of the country. Today this market stands second only to Chi cago in the volume of live stock handled, having outstripped all com petitors except the great Illinois metropolis. Seven Leading Markets. The standing of the seven leading markets of the country is shown in the following compilation of total combined receipts of cattle, hogs and sheep at these points for the year 1920: Total Head of Stock. Chlrag-o 18,600.000 Omaha. 7,201.000 Kansss City 6.650.000 St. Louis 6,236,000 St. Paul 4.330.000 St. Joseph 3,888,000 Sioux City J.280.000 Omaha has been particularly for tunate in the character of the men who were given the task of estab lishing a stock yards and packing center here. In its 37 -years' his tory only four men have held the position of general manager, and they were all real men John Boyd, W. N. Babcock, W. J. C. Kenyon and Everett Buckingham. It is no disparagement of his predecessors in office to say of Mr. Buckingham that it has been under his aggressive, constructive and judicious manage ment that the yards have reached their greatest efficiency and the mar ket has achieved its presnt com manding position. Tremendous Business. It takes more than a combination of stock yards, railroads and pack ing plants to create a great market, however, and the live stock commis sion merchants have been a most po tent factor in building up the tre mendous business at this point, lhe Live Stock exchange, with its rigid rules for the conduct of trading, its high code of honor and the splen did personnel of its membership has given the market an unimpeachable character to the commercial world as well as to the live stock produc ers everywhere. Although Omaha is next to the largest live stock market in the country, there are plenty of people in the city who have little idea of the magnitude of the live stock in dustry that is centered here. The stock yards and packing district cov ers an area of approximately a sec tion of land and represents an in vestment of over $50,000,000. The yards proper cover probably 250 acres and contain upwards of 5,000 pens, all paved with brick or con crete and equipped with every mod ern device for handling stock prop erly. Daily capacity is about 30,000 cattle. 50,000 hogs and 100,000 sheep, and there have been many times when this capacity has been taxed to the limit. On Cash Basis. Fifty-four live stock commission firms look after the stock that is re ceived every day and there are over 100 feeder buyers, order buyers and traders on the market continuously. Twelve packing plants, six of them large, and half dozen smaller con cerns, furnish a big demand for all the stock offered and there is seldom a time when any of the cattle, hogs and sheep have to be- carried over to the following day. There are ap proximately 12,000 men and women employed in the industry and the pay roll amounts to over $13,000,000 annually. For the year the volume of business varies from $300,000,000 to $400,000,000, or a daily turnover at the banks of about $1,500,000, and this is all in cash, all transac tions at the market being strictly on a cash basis. It does not require much imagina tion to figure out what this vast daily volume of business means to the city. This $1,500,000 going through Omaha banks and business houses furnishes the very life-blood of commerce. In years of panic and seasons of depression it has proven a life saver and has made Omaha the metropolis of the state. Cash Market. To the country the market ha3 meant even more. It has meant that the stock grower 500 miles west of here has a cash market for every thing he produces and he can realize on his stock within 24 hours of the time they leave the ppstures or feed lot. The live stock market at Omaha has added hundreds of dollars to the value of every acre of land in west ern Iowa, Nebraska and the west. There are several very distinct and separate organizations or lines of business that go to make up the live stock market, the railroads, the Stock Yards company, the Live Stock exchange, the Traders Ex change, the packers, South Side banks and the Bureau of Animal Industry. The railroads haul the live stock to the transfer point at the market and haul the finished products and feeder live stock out from the trans fer point at the yards. All of the railroad lines that enter Omaha handle their live stock and meat busi ness through a joint agency at the stock yards. This joint office now has 81 employes and during the year 1920 they handled 244,000 cars of live stock, neat, coal, salt, etc., and col lected ftrirrht charges amounting to over $18,000,000. Facilities for Yaiding. The Union' Stock Yards company pruviucs me lacumes tor yarding, feeding, watering and wcighine the live Mock that comes in and goes out of the market each day. This com pany owns the stock yards, the Ex change building, the horse bam in fact, all of the buildings and im provements in the yards proper, and in addition they operate their own railroad department, which handles the business in the stock yards dis trict, accepting the inbound cars at the transfer point and delivering the outbound cars back to the various lines at the proper transfer points. The Stock-Yards company makes a direct charge to the shipper for their services in yarding and weighing their live stock and they also make a charge for the amount of the feed actually fed to the various shipments of live stock. The general impression among most people is that the stock yards are owned by the packers. This is not true in regard to the Omaha stock yards. The facts are, and they can be readily verified, that no pack ing company owns a share of stock in the Omaha stock yards and that the total holdings 'of all the packers and members of their families inter ested in the Union Stock Yards com pany of Omaha amount to less than 29 per cent of the total stock out standing. There are 806 stockhold ers in the Omaha Stock Yards com pany, one-half of whom live in the state of Nebraska. Included in the ist of stockholders are 320 males. 431 females, 12 educational and re ligious societies and 43 estates. These 806 stockholders are scattered Our Motto: "QUALITY and SERVICE" Beef and Pork Packers Manufacturers of MIDVALE AND OKAY BRANDS SMOKED MEATS, SAUSAGE AND LARD Distributor of PRODUCE, BUTTER AND BUTTERINE All Cinds Fertilizer and Stock Foods We solicit country shipments of Live Poultry, Packing Stock and Butter and Eggs. Cold Storage Warehouse at Missouri Valley, Iowa HIGGINS PACKING CO..fec. Branch House, 1211 Howard Street over 35 states in this country with eight stockholders living abroad. The stock in the Union Stock Yards company is offered for sale occa sionally and can be purchased by anyone desiring same and has always been a good investment. By Word of Mouth. Under the system of trade now in effect, everything is done by word of mouth and upon a man's honor. No written contracts arc signed, nor is any money paid down on sales or purchases. On the contrary, a wave of the hand or a nod of the head may close a deal that involves as much as $50,000 or $60,000. The vast volume of business transacted in the limited time in which it is done can only be handled where men are absolutely on the square and have confidence in each other. The records for the year 1920 show that there were handled at the Omaha market 109,550 cars of live slock and the statistics show that there is an average of four transactions on each load of livestock sold, which makes approximately 500,000 transactions during the year. The matter of trade is so thoroughly understood that out of this vast number of transactions only eight disputes in trading were serious enough to be taken before the arbitration committee of the ex change, to which all disputes in trade are referred, and out of the eight disputes taken before the arbitration committee, only two were appealed to the appeals committee. Remarkable Achievement. This achievement is all the more remarkable when one stops to con sider that there are 54 live stock commission firms at the Omaha mar ket, employing 250 salesmen and about 33 firms of yard traders, em ploying approximately 150 buyers, and add to this 75 packer buyers you have a total of 225 buyers. All of these men start at eight o'clock in the morning to sell or buy that day's receipts and taking it on an average throughout the year trade is mostly completed by noon. It has taken years to build this sys tem up to its present high degree of efficiency, and honesty, and if someone comes along and says he has a better plan we will want to be sure that it is a better plan before accepting it and breaking down the system now in effect. One of the most necessary factors at any public market is the packers, because they provide a cash market for all kinds of killing stock every business day in the year and at times like these one can appreciate what a cash market means t any conn modity. More than a million doN lars a day was paid out for live stock purchased at the Omaha yards last year, and of this amount a large portion came from the packers. Evolved From Experience. Some there are, of course, who would change the present marketing system and it is doubtless true that in some respects improvements could be made and in time these im provements will come. But the present plan is not of mushroom growth. It has been evolved from the experience of the ages, a pe culiarly American plan and pe culiarly adapted to the conditions ex isting in mis country. There are so many advantages in the present live stock marketing system that it is safe to predict that in the market of the future none of these advantages will be sacrificed. It is equally safe to predict that owing to its strategic position near the geographical center of the coun try, on the natural route between the vast producing teritory of the West and the great consuming regions of the east, Omaha will al ways be a great market, its future growth and greatness to be com mensurate with the development of the country. I Quality Sv l "Sr "If It's Dold's, It's Best" Ham Bacon Lard Sausage Boiled Hams , Pork Beef Mutton Dold Packing Co. ,- 36th and L Sts. Ill o m a h a Omaha live Stock . xebansfe THE OMAHA LIVE STOCK EXCHANGE was organized in 1889, five years after the opening of the Omaha yards. Those who had come to the . Omaha market to trade very quickly discovered that some governing body was absolutely necessary for the mutual protection of the patrons of the market, both shippers thereto . and therefrom, and those doing business thereon. This need for a centralized control has been - felt by every other public market in the country and has been met by the organization of live stock exchanges. . Every trade executed by members on the Omaha Market is made under the rules of the Live Stock Exchange. There fore the live stock shippers to the Omaha market who consign their stock to any member of the Live Stock Exchange may feel absolutely assured that their interests will be properly safeguarded, that their live stock will be sold for the highest price, that the money received therefor will be promptly and carefully returned to them and that they have a personal represent ative attending to their interests, whose duty and pleasure it will be to fulfill these obligations to the letter. .ft Ship to Any Member and Secure the Most Reliable Prices and Excellent Service This 'Advertisement Paid for by the Following Members: Lou Bick Commission Co. . -'"V Bliss & Son Commission Co. Bliss-Wellman Commission Co. Bowles Live Stock Commission Co. Bryson Brothers Commission Co. Buchanan & Son Commission Co. Burke-Rickley Commission Co. Byers Brothers Commission Co. Clay-Robinson Commission Co. Clifton Commission Co. ' Byron Clow Commission Co. Corn Belt Commission Co. Cox-Jones-Van Alstine Commission Co. W. F. Denny Commission Co. Donahue-Randall Commission Co. ' Allen Dudley Commission Co. Dworak-Stolinski Commission Co. Farris-Marcy Commission Co. Fonda Commission Co. Gant Live Stock Commission Co. Great Western Commission Co. Ingwersen Bros. L. S. Commission Co. Inter-State Commission Co. Jackson-Signall Commission Co. Laverty Brothers Commission Co. Laird Commission Co. Lee Live Stock Commission Co. Lindley Commission Co. Martin Brothers Commission Co. Melady Brothers Commission Co. Mutual Live Stock Commission Co. Omaha Live Stock Commission Co. John Ralston Commission Co. Record Live Stock Commission Co. Roberts Brothers & Rose Commission Co. L. E Roberts Commission Co. Rosenbaum Brothers Commission Co. W. R. Smith Sheep Commission Co. Standard Commission Co. Tagg Brothers & Moorehead Com. Co. Wagner & Dolezal Commission Co. Williajns & Sons Commission Co, Winn Brothers Commission Co. Wood Brothers Commission Co. Geo. M. Wood Sheep Commission Co. Wood-Oswald Commission Co. t ... - . .