Encyclopedia Dubuque
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
ARMOUR & COMPANY
ARMOUR & COMPANY. Philip D. Armour, a native of New York State, began to work in the pork-packing business in Milwaukee and made a fortune after the CIVIL WAR. In 1875, he moved to Chicago to take charge of Armour & Co. (a firm owned by Philip and his brothers), which had started its move to Chicago in 1867.
During the late nineteenth century, Armour became a national operation and one of the country's largest businesses. By 1880, with an average of over 1,500 men on the payroll at any given time and as many as 4,000 during the peak season to process $17.5 million worth of meat, Armour was Chicago's leading industrial enterprise and employer. By the late 1880s, Armour slaughtered more than 1.5 million animals each year and reached about $60 million in annual sales. Many of those sales came from the processing of all the parts of the animal—“everything but the squeal”—making such products as glue, lard, gelatin, and fertilizer.
In November 1893 Armour opened for business in Dubuque at their cold storage and meat wholesaling establishment in the remodeled Booth mill building at the corner of Third and Iowa STREETS. The main storage room was 14 x 49 feet and had the capacity of holding two railroad cars of meat. A system of overhead tracks and switches allowed one employee to unload a railroad car directly into the cold storage. The ice storage room had the capacity of storing 100 tons of ice. The provision and salesroom in which non-perishables were stored was 12 x 48 feet. The sausage room was 12 x 20 feet and the entire building was lit with electricity. (1)
When Philip died in 1901, the company employed about 7,000 Chicago residents and had a total workforce of 50,000 nationwide. In 1910, Armour had about 8,700 workers at its Union Stock Yard plants. In the early 1920s, the company had financial troubles and the Armour family gave up control of its operations. But Armour remained a leading Chicago employer. During the worst years of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, over 9,000 men and nearly 2,000 women worked for Armour at the Union Stock Yard and another 1,400 men and 400 women worked for its related Chicago-area businesses which produced soap, glue, and other goods made from packing-plant waste.
Armour remained one of the nation's largest companies at the end of WORLD WAR II, when annual sales stood at $1 billion. Its business declined in the postwar period. In 1959, Armour stopped slaughtering in Chicago. In 1970, Armour was bought by the Greyhound Corp., which relocated the company to Arizona.
The 1934 Dubuque City Directory listed 298 Iowa for this wholesaler.
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Source:
1. "Ready for Business," Dubuque Daily Herald, November 24, 1893, p. 4
Armour & Company. Historical Marker Database: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=31247
Armour & Company. encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2554.html
Armour and Company. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour_and_Company