The House of Morrell; with a foreword by William ... - University Library

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production, except that it stinted t;iitluT c;ist aiui fiuicci up hirther west,
at St. Joseph, Mo.
There is no need Id tell here the part that the development ot (lie livestock
industry played in tiie winning of the west. That story has been told
many, many times, in fact and fiction, on the artist's canvas and on the
silver screen. But it might be well to sum up the picture in the words of a
writer on the western scene as he says: "The story of America's cattle
trade is one of the most romantic tales of modern times. In its swing and
its dignity, it truly is a saga. This story deals with more than mere meat,
hides ami tallow; for its cogent, salient chapters have as much to do with
men and their achievements as with animals and their products. It is concerned
as much with the cowboy as it is with beefsteak. It begins by reciting
the doings of a Spanish knight in armor. It continues with accounts of
Indian conflicts, of range wars, of bravery and of cowardice, of heroic
generosity, of sordid thievery, of gentleness, murder and sudden death,
of the thousand and one things that happened upon America's frontier
and in the lonely wastes beyond. It tells of men who, raising livestock, not
only provided foodstuffs for a nation but also shaped materially that nation's
social and political thought."
It was during the second period in the story of meat that Cincinnati
became known as "Porkopolis," a city that had "perfected the system
which packs lifteen bushels of corn into a pig and packs that pig into a
barrel and sends him over the mountains and over the ocean to feed mankind."
At that time Cincinnati was the center of the area west of the Alleghenies
and east of the Mississippi river. This area produced great quantities
of corn and feeding that corn to hogs became a major industry. Cincinnati
was accessible to these interests and was easily in reach of markets
to the east and to the south. Railroads came to Cincinnati at this time,
too. And with the Ohio river giving her access to the Mississippi and the
south, transportation no longer offered any difficulties. Cincinnati did its
share in making meat packing the industry it is today
But Cincinnati's place in the picture was to dim as the great corn producing
areas of Illinois and Iowa were opened; as the railroads reached
farther and farther west; and as the people inhabiting these areas began
to demand a more convenient market. The factor clinching the meat packing
industry for Chicago was the Civil War. Chicago, far distant from
the scenes of major battles, moved into the picture easily, eagerly. Everyone,
producers, commission merchants and manufacturers, moved in and
produced the huge quantities of meat desired by the Union army. They
produced in such large quantity that Chicago took over the major share
of the meat producing business, and still maintains a large portion of it
today.
Meat's third period may be saitl to have started in i860 when the war
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