Another stay at the Hog Hotel’

Photo of Kohrs Packing Plant (Davenport, Iowa) 1910

Another stay at the Hog Hotel’

Quad Cities Times

By John Willard | Monday, June 19, 2006

Hog slaughtering is long gone from Davenport, but a vestige of the once booming industry still survives at the Kraft Foods/Oscar Mayer plant, 1337 W. 2nd St.

Some Oscar Mayer employees who read a column in the Quad Cities Times by John Willard on Monday, June 19, 2006 about the city’s packing house heritage note that a portion of the five-story hog containment building at the plant, known to generations as the “Hog Hotel,” is still standing and stores spare parts for maintenance. Employees still refer to it by that name.

Jeff Merrill, a maintenance employee, said the structure is recognizable from the street by the wind-sock flying over it.

Another employee writes: “The Hog Hotel really was a hotel. At the end of each day, some animals were kept overnight to allow for a prompt start-up the next morning if there was a delay in new deliveries such as bad weather.”

As hog slaughtering moved to more efficient, single-story buildings designed for rapid mechanized movement of animals, such as the one that Triumph Foods wants to build in East Moline, the Oscar Mayer plant became obsolete. It nearly closed in the early 1980s.

The jobs were saved when the company shifted to food processing and transformed the turn-of-the-century plant to virtually an all-new facility.

The $10 million project included demolishing 86.000 square feet of space in the center of the plant relating to slaughtering and knocking down half of the 120,000-square-foot hog containment building, or “hog hotel.”

The remainder of the space was rebuilt as a maintenance center. Still in place is a spiral staircase leading to the fourth and fifth floors, with two-inch high risers that made it easier for the porkers to climb.

The “Hog Hotel” was among the improvements completed in the early 20th century by Kohrs Packing Co., which was acquired by Oscar Mayer in 1946. More than 3,500 hogs could be accommodated in rooms equipped with running water.

Kohrs, founded in 1872 by German immigrant Henry Kohrs, was among a half-dozen packing plants that thrived in west Davenport to satisfy the tastes of the city’s many Germans.

Today, Kraft Foods/Oscar Mayer employs 1,600 people in Davenport, making it among the Quad-Cities’ five largest employers. Products include bologna and other cold cuts sold retail and to food services; wieners and Lunchables packaged cheese, meat and crackers packs.


References
Another Stay at the grand Hog Hotel. Quad Cities Times by John Willard
Monday, June 19, 2006

Retrieved on 22 February 2008 from
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2006/06/06/opinion/columnists/john_willard/doc4485075a86528694724421.txt

HENRY KOHRS (1830-1917)

HENRY KOHRS

1830-1917

In the spring of 1854 a young man, industrious in spirit and indomitable in determination, selected young and already thriving Davenport, Iowa as the place where he would earn his living. Up from grocer’s helper and clothing store clerk to builder of one of Iowa’s most exclusive meat packing houses—that, in brief, is the story of this intrepid man of progress. To the memory of Henry Kohrs, pioneer Davenport businessman and founder of Kohrs Packing Company, this site is respectfully dedicated.

Reference
Kohrs Packing Company, 75 Years, Davenport Iowa, Bawden Brothers, 1947 Published by Bawden Bros., Inc. Davenport, Iowa.

Kohrs Hams

Kohrs Packing Plant 1910

Photo of Kohrs Packing Plant (Davenport, Iowa) 1910

Vacancies at the Grand Hog Hotel

Quad Cities Times

By John Willard | Tuesday, June 06, 2006

For generations, the five-story, 120,000-square foot structure that loomed over west Davenport was the final destination for hogs in a meat processing operation that made the city one of the largest hog slaughtering centers in the nation.

Until it was phased out in the 1980s, the hog kill operation — under Oscar Mayer and its predecessor, Kohrs Packing Co. — had been a vital part of the city’s economy. Other packing plants such as Armour Packing Co. brought an overpowering odor to the west end, but residents didn’t seem to mind.

“We never complained about the smell. It was our daily bread,” a worker once recalled.

Now that Triumph Foods has the financial incentives to proceed with its $130 million pork processing plant in East Moline, let’s look back at the meat packing industry that once thrived in Davenport.

In 1895, the city counted more than a half-dozen packing firms producing bacon, pork, ham and sausage. Most packers were clustered along West Second Street near Fillmore Street, where the present Kraft Foods/Oscar Mayer plant is today.

Davenport’s largest and most successful packer was Kohrs Packing Co. Founded in 1872 by Henry Kohrs, a German immigrant, the company grew from a corner butcher shop into an international supplier of pork products.

At the time Kohrs was acquired by Oscar Mayer in 1946, it was paying pork producers in excess of $5 million a year. During the 1920s and 1930s, the plant was a busy place as farmers and their Ford Model A trucks loaded with hogs rolled in from eastern Iowa.

Strategically located near the Mississippi River, a source of ice in the days before mechanical refrigeration, the plant was considered modern for its day. In an age before mechanization, its vertical design enabled animals to be lowered by gravity to the various slaughtering stages. The animals were bled, scalded in boiling vats to remove hair and butchered.

By the early 1980s, the plant had become obsolete for hog slaughtering operations, which had moved to efficient, single-story structures designed for rapid mechanized movement of animals.

Oscar Mayer’s Davenport plant shifted its focus to meat processing. The old “Hog Hotel” was razed in the early 1990s, along with other outdated spaces.

Today, Kraft Foods/Oscar Mayer employs 1,600 persons in Davenport, making it among the Quad-Cities’ five largest employers.


Vacancies at the grand Hog Hotel. Quad Cities Times by John Willard Tuesday, June 6th, 2006. Retrieved on 22 February 2008 from http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2006/06/06/opinion/columnists/john_willard/doc4485075a86528694724421.txt

Kohrs Jar

PATENTED JULY 14, 1908

Business Card

Kohrs Jar "Diamond Shape"

VINTAGE FRUIT JAR MARKED
KOHRS, DAVENPORT IA.
BOTTLE IS 8 & 1/4" TALL
THE SHAPE IS A VERY ODD DIAMOND SHAPE.
NO DAMAGE, OLD ZINC LID

Kohrs Pure Lard

Worker remembers Hog Hotel’ smell

Quad Cities Times

By Mardel Peters, Davenport | Tuesday, June 20, 2006 

John Willard’s June 6 article on the “Hog Hotel” brought back memories of Oscar Mayer (Kohrs Packing Co.). We at Brammers Manufacturing (cabinets) were the building directly west of that plant. Wow! Talk about the odor! The east winds brought it all. I retired in 1989.

We all were so happy when the hog slaughtering ceased. There is no smell as bad as that was. Having lived on a farm as a child, I’d forgotten the pig smell, which was in a smaller dose.

I don’t envy the people in East Moline.

Mardel Peters

Davenport

References

Retrieved on 24 February 2008 from
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2006/06/20/opinion/letters/doc44971920838bf670033097.txt?showComments=true

Kohrs Packing Company Postcard

Kohrs Packing Company Postcard

50 lb Kohrs Crown Lard

Kohrs Crown Lard: 50 lb net. U.S. Inspected and Passed by Department of Agriculture Establishment No. 114, Davenport, IA.