By David S. Rotenstein
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By David S. Rotenstein 36 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | WINTER 2010-11 am acquainted with the situation of Railroad on an East Liberty farm field about Stock Yards is widely hailed as a turning point the East Liberty Stock-yards,” Mr. R.S. five miles east of downtown Pittsburgh. Union in American economic and urban history Robertson told a Pennsylvania court stockyards were the industrial descendants of because for the first time a city’s dispersed in February 1875. “The smells arising animal drove yards where drovers (i.e., drivers drove yards were concentrated into a single from them were so exceedingly offensive of cattle or sheep), farmers, shippers, dealers, integrated shipping and sales facility.3 Ithat we were obliged to close the windows of and butchers stopped to rest and transact Less well known, but equally important, my house and to burn camphor all over the business as they traveled along turnpikes from were the union stockyards that opened in house.”1 Robertson rented a home near the farms to urban markets. February 1864 in East Liberty. Owned by stockyards and like most other urban dwellers The meat-producing and livestock the Pennsylvania Railroad and built and who lived and worked nearby, he found them a industries share a common origin narrative operated by a partnership of Chicago- and disagreeable nuisance. in which the world’s first union stockyards New York-based livestock entrepreneurs, the By the turn of the 20th century, many opened in Chicago in December 1865. “When East Liberty stockyards became the template American cities had neighborhoods like you speak of the stock for the Chicago Union Stock Yards and all Robertson’s where animals were concentrated yards you refer of the stockyards that followed. That’s no for sale, slaughter, and processing into food to Chicago,” coincidence; the East Liberty partners were and byproducts. These neighborhoods wrote the were dominated by large union stockyards National connected by railroads to a nationwide Provisioner 2 network of farms, feedlots, and smaller transit in 1903. The yards. Robertson lived near the world’s first establishment of I am acquainted with the situation of the East Liberty union stockyards, built by the Pennsylvania the Chicago Union “Stock-yards,” Mr. R.S. Robertson told a Pennsylvania court in February 1875. “The smells arising from them were so exceedingly offensive that we were obliged to close the windows of my house and to burn camphor all over the house.” HHC L&A, GPCC. WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | WINTER 2010-11 37 Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago drove yards, Present day Drovers Way, North Side, Allegheny City in the Atlas of the Cities of Pittsburgh, called Drovers Alley on the map. Allegheny, G. M. Hopkins and Co., 1872 Photo by author. HHC Library & Archives. instrumental in the founding of the Chicago stockyards and they handled livestock for the three leading livestock carriers of the time: the Pennsylvania Railroad, the New York Central, drovers’ inns located along British drove roads, 21st century have not aggressively questioned and the Erie railroads.4 The East Liberty were some of the first facilities to develop in these sources.10 partners profited from virtually every animal concert with taverns and inns in America.6 Stockyards are specialized entities that that entered and left Chicago by rail and again Among the first to chronicle these places were serve as warehouses and inns for the animals in each of the individual stockyards in the the authors of regional travel narratives and passing through them and for the people doing network stretching eastward to Philadelphia, early local historians.7 Other early sources business there. Stockyards also have a public Baltimore, New York, and New England. At include autobiographical works by farmers market function and they are inextricably tied the confluence of geography, railroad lines, and shippers as well as government reports to regulated common carriers—railroads— and market manipulations, East Liberty—for on railroad rates, livestock shipping, animal thereby exposing them to governmental a brief period—was the fulcrum on which the diseases, and meatpacking.8 scrutiny greater than most private-sector entire livestock industry balanced. More recently, researchers writing on businesses.11 In the second half of the 19th stockyards have relied on the published reports century, the institution was new and it issued by state and federal investigations into presented challenges to courts and legislators, The Union Stockyards meatpacking and livestock shipping that began not to mention the people who lived where they Stockyards are way stations for live and dead in the 1870s; the Chicago-first fallacy has its were built.12 Union stockyards (also known as animals and the people who ship, sell, and basis in these government reports.9 Economists terminal markets), while larger in scale and slaughter them.5 Drove yards, a European and historians writing on the meat-producing scope than other livestock facilities, have a much import derived from cattle stances and industries from the 1920s to the turn of the narrower definition than their counterparts 38 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | WINTER 2010-11 that function as trackside way stations where The Allegheny City drove yards thrived combined with the East Liberty yards’ intended animals in transit were rested, watered, and on the burgeoning numbers of meat animals functions as an integrated terminal facility, fed.13 Stockyards also hosted agricultural fairs, shipped by rail. By the end of the 1850s, livestock created an innovative institution. The railroads livestock shows, and 4-H events. Some urban was the dominant commodity shipped handled the details for getting the animals neighbors used stockyards for gambling and eastward. In 1859, for example, more livestock to East Liberty and the stockyard firm was other illicit activities, while frequent animal (by weight) was shipped on the Pennsylvania responsible for site preparation, construction, escapes damaged property, injured bystanders, Railroad than any other commodity. The U.S. and oversight of the facility. Joseph McPherson, and created impromptu urban roundups.14 Department of the Treasury reported that the a Chicagoan who in 1863 was the livestock agent Stockyards provided the contexts for tight- railroad in 1859 shipped 65,103,756 tons of for the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago knit urban ethnic communities, all starting livestock between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Railroad, was a partner in the new firm and he with founding of the first of these industrial By 1863, the figure was more than four times was its first onsite owner-manager. communities in East Liberty.15 the 1859 amount: 270,713,390 tons.17 McPherson began constructing a hotel To meet the new freight challenges, the and livestock pens shortly after the lease was East Liberty Pennsylvania decided to consolidate and signed and local newspapers reported on the integrate all Pittsburgh livestock operations. In progress.19 The 41-acre tract acquired by the The origins of the East Liberty stockyards lay the spring of 1863, the Pennsylvania Railroad railroad was bounded on the south by the in a different Pittsburgh neighborhood now board of directors authorized the purchase Pittsburgh and Greensburg Turnpike (Penn known as the “Mexican War Streets.” Pittsburgh of land in East Liberty for a new kind of Avenue) and the north by the Pennsylvania and Allegheny were adjacent 19th-century livestock accommodations. The railroad also Railroad. When the not-yet-completed yards cities with distinct industrial identities. As approved contracts connecting railroads opened February 1, 1864, the Pittsburgh key trans-shipment points for commodities originating in the midwest to ship all livestock Gazette boasted, “This point is hereafter to be moving east and consumer goods moving delivered at Pittsburgh for shipment east via the great cattle market of the west.”20 west, both cities were historically significant the Pennsylvania Railroad, as well as stock Conflict brewed among the partners as nodes in early transportation networks. destined for Pittsburgh buyers through the the new stockyards were preparing to open and When the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and new stockyards at East Liberty.18 In July 1863, in March 1864 the railroad canceled the lease Chicago Railroad completed its line between the railroad selected a firm—the Pittsburgh with the Pittsburgh Union Stock Association. Chicago and Pittsburgh in 1856, the railroad’s Union Stock Association—to build and Three of the firm’s partners sold their stakes Pennsylvania terminus was in Allegheny City, operate the stockyards. to McPherson; McPherson in turn found new north of the Allegheny River. In anticipation The Pennsylvania Railroad’s contracts partners: New York drove yard proprietor of the new business to be stimulated by the among the other railroads and the lessees, Archibald M. Allerton and Chicago livestock railroad, livestock entrepreneurs began buying land where they subsequently established drove yards and hotels next to the railroad’s main freight terminals. Establishments like drover James Allegheny City East Liberty Morgan’s “Morgan House Drove Yards” and Drove Yards hotelier William Veach’s “Drove Yard Hotel” Herr’s Island sprang up in Allegheny City among tanneries and slaughterhouses near the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago facilities.16 Hogs, cattle, and sheep were driven through the streets and across the Allegheny River to Pittsburgh to be reloaded into Philadelphia-bound Pennsylvania Railroad stock cars. This transfer was costly to the livestock shippers and was a smelly and noisy nuisance to Allegheny City and Pittsburgh residents. WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | WINTER 2010-11 39 “ The U.S. Department of the Treasury reported East Liberty Stockyards c. 1889 in Atlas of the that the railroad in 1859 shipped 65,103,756 tons of Cities of Pittsburgh, Allegheny, G. M. Hopkins and Co. HHC Library & Archives. livestock between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. By 1863, the figure was more than four times the 1859 amount: 270,713,390 tons.