Cudahy Packing Company: The Omaha Packer Built by Michael and Edward Cudahy

How the Cudahys Came to Omaha

South Omaha became a packing center in the 1880s. John A. McShane became president of the Union Stock Yards Company in 1884, and the first packing house connected to the yards was built that year. By 1887, Thomas J. Lipton had opened a packing house with a capacity of 1,000 hogs daily, according to Historic Omaha.

In July 1887, Michael and Edward A. Cudahy came to Omaha to take over the Lipton plant, backed financially by Philip D. Armour Sr. Michael managed the operation and Edward served as superintendent. Sources differ on the plant's earliest date: the Wikipedia article on the Cudahy plant says it opened in 1885, while the Omaha history places the Lipton opening in 1887.

The 1887 Start and the Stockyards Bonus

The company received a $150,000 bonus from the Union Stock Yards Company. Hog slaughtering began on November 10, 1887, and cattle killing started the following month. Omaha's stockyards used such bonuses to attract packers, and Swift was brought in the same summer with an 11-acre land grant and a bonus of about $135,000.

The pattern shows how packing towns competed. The stockyards company wanted steady buyers for the cattle and hogs shipped to its pens, so it paid packers to build next door. Armour & Co. completed its own Omaha plant in 1898, which put the Cudahys in a market with three large neighbors. A Fowler Brothers plant had been built in 1886 with a $135,000 bonus, and Hammond was already shipping in its own refrigerator cars in 1885.

Becoming the Cudahy Packing Company

In December 1890, Armour withdrew and the firm was reorganized as the Cudahy Packing Company, Inc. Michael became president, and Edward became vice-president and general manager. The Wikipedia article on the Cudahy Packing Plant notes that the plant became known as the Cudahy Brothers' plant, on the South Omaha Terminal Railway beside the Omaha stockyards.

The Plant: Five Blocks of Packing

The Omaha plant stood at South 36th and O Streets. It included more than 20 buildings, from one to six stories tall, covering five square blocks. It was one of the Big Four packing companies in Omaha. South Omaha grew rapidly around the packers and earned the nickname Magic City. Its population passed 10,000 within three years of the stockyards opening, and it was annexed to Omaha on June 5, 1915, adding more than 25,000 residents.

Those numbers describe a company town in everything but name: a neighborhood that grew because packing plants needed workers beside the stockyards. The sources reviewed give no headcount for the Cudahy plant specifically, so none is stated here.

People and Papers

The Nebraska State Historical Society holds a small collection of Cudahy Packing Company materials. It includes a December 15, 1903, letter from Edward A. Cudahy, who lived from 1860 to 1941, a company history, a Rex Brand advertisement and a February 1929 issue of The Spotlight, a monthly published by and for employees.

Closing and Legacy

The Omaha plant closed in 1967. The Wikipedia article gives the date without a stated reason. Omaha's packing era faded as the industry decentralized, but the company's name remains attached to the plant and to South Omaha's history. For more about how cattle reached the plants, read farm.FM's ranching coverage or a farm.FM story about stockyards.