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

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