Swift & Company: The Chicago Packer That Shipped Dressed Beef by Refrigerated Rail

From a Cape Cod Butcher Shop to Chicago

Gustavus Franklin Swift was born on June 24, 1839, in Sagamore, Massachusetts, and began working at age 14 for an older brother who was a local butcher, according to the International Business Hall of Fame profile. Other accounts describe him starting a meat business at 16 with $20 from his father. Sources differ on the age, but they agree he began small and bought cattle on Cape Cod.

He opened a meat market in Clinton, Massachusetts, in 1869, where annual volume reached roughly $35,000 to $40,000. By 1875, he had concluded Chicago was the best place to buy cattle, and he moved there and incorporated the business, according to the Encyclopedia.com history.

Why Chicago and Why Refrigerated Cars

Swift decided that Chicago offered the greatest selection of cattle and let him bypass middlemen, which lowered handling costs. He planned to slaughter in Chicago and ship the meat, which saved freight on the animal's inedible weight and feeding charges along the way.

Capital was short. According to the Hall of Fame profile, he persuaded a company to build the refrigerated railroad cars he needed, with 15 percent paid up front and the balance repaid from earnings. His early shipments met resistance from eastern markets that refused to buy the dressed meat. Swift lost $500 on one car, then opened a branch-house market on a leased site. Branch houses became the company's way of selling directly to customers.

Building the Company

Swift & Company grew quickly. It opened London shops by 1900 and a Fort Worth, Texas, plant in 1902. The company's refrigerator car fleet, which was patented and operated as a company line, exceeded 5,000 cars by 1926, and sales reached $1.4 billion in 1943.

In Omaha, the Union Stock Yards Company brought Swift in during the summer of 1887 with an 11-acre land grant and a bonus of about $135,000, according to Omaha's packing history. By late 1888 Swift was operating in buildings valued at $300,000 and slaughtering cattle and hogs. A major plant at Grand Island, Nebraska, opened in 1965.

More Than Beef: By-Products and Branded Goods

Swift sold far more than dressed beef. The company's catalog included pork, hams, sausage, bacon, poultry, eggs, butter, lard, shortening, oleomargarine, bouillon cubes and soaps, including scented toilet soaps. Branch houses also sold cheese and cooking oils in the 1920s. Under a consent decree, Swift was forced by 1920 to dispose of some sideline businesses.

A 1915 safety first campaign reportedly cut plant accidents by 50 percent, according to Encyclopedia.com.

Crisis, Decline and Ownership Changes

In 1893, rumors that the company had failed reached the Chicago Board of Trade. Swift said publicly, "Swift & Company has not failed. Swift & Company cannot fail!" He then secured expanded credit, and employees and department heads lent savings during cash shortages. Gustavus Swift died on March 29, 1903.

The Fort Worth plant closed in 1971, and many other plants closed over time, partly because the company exited the beef business for a while and partly because meatpackers no longer depended on railroads for shipping. In 1982 the company was renamed Swift Independent Packing Company. In 1983 it bought the Worthington, Minnesota, plant from Armour's parent, Greyhound. ConAgra acquired 50 percent in 1987 and the rest in 1989, and a 2002 investor group led by Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst took majority ownership with ConAgra keeping a 46 percent stake.

Honors and Memory

Swift appears in the International Business Hall of Fame, and the Saddle and Sirloin Portrait Foundation's portrait page for Gustavus Franklin Swift Sr. records him among its inducted livestock figures. For ranch stories that follow cattle from pasture to plate, see farm.FM's ranching pages or a farm.FM story about stockyards and packers.