Saturday, June 16, 2012

NICK BIELENBERG MEETS ANNIE BOGK



NICHOLAS JOHN BIELENBERG
1847-1927

Born: 08 June 1847, Holstein, Germany- Died: 06 July 1927 Deer Lodge, Montana

NICK BIELENBERG MEETS ANNIE BOGK

Written by Mrs. Granville (Allis Belle) Stuart, for WPA Montana Writers Material, December 18, 1940-Original file at Montana State University

In the very early days, Nick Bielenberg was out on the range when he learned of a big wedding; Eph Thomas was marrying one of Morgan Evans daughters. This was a real affair. The bride was to wear white satin gown, veil and orange blossoms and a preacher would perform the ceremony. Everything was imported from “The States.” This was in the early sixties. When Nick arrived in Deer Lodge everybody in town had gone to the wedding. His partner, Harvey McKinstry had gone and he had dressed up in the company party clothes and Nick had to take second best which wasn’t so good. He fixed up as best he could, Nick was a very large man and average size would not do. He about had to have his own clothes. His horse was played out and he had to go to Con Kohrs ranch for a fresh one and by the time he arrived the party was in full swing.

The first thing that struck Nick’s eye was a very pretty young girl, a stranger. Nick was spellbound. He had never in his life seen a girl so beautiful. She was a dainty piece of humanity. She was like a beautiful Dresden doll. He wanted to be introduced at once but not in the clothes he wore. He hunted up Harvey McKinstry and after much pleading induces him to trade clothes, just long enough to allow him to be introduced to the new girl and try for a dance with her.

All dressed up in the black broad cloth Nick was a swell looker, and he soon received an introduction to the little beauty but had to wait for several dances before she was disengaged. The admiration was mutual and Nick persuaded Miss Annie Bogk to go to supper with him. While having such a good time McKinstry was fuming in the background, motioning to Nick to come out whenever he could catch his eye but Nick oblivious to it all. Finally McKinstry wrote a note on a piece of brown paper. “You damn horse thief if you don’t come out here with my clothes, I’ll help Con Kohrs hang you”

Nick stayed with the girl until the party was over.

The next big wedding was the Bride in white satin and orange blossoms and a Minister to perform the ceremony was Annie Bogk and Nick Bielenberg, one of the happiest marriages imaginable. Nick would tell the story and wind up with, “I ran the risk of getting hung to get my wife.”

Creating Powell and Daly Counties of Montana


JOHN BIELENBERG
1846-1922


Born: 1 May 1846 in Holstein, Germany- Died: 16 June 1922 in Deer Lodge, Montana.

Legislative Minute: January 9, 1901

Creating Powell and Daly Counties

On this day in Montana legislative history —January- 9, 1901 — John N. W. Bielenberg, a Republican representative from Deer Lodge, stated his intention to carry a bill creating the new county of Powell.

On the next day, January 10, he introduced House BUI 4 to form the new entity from the northern three-quarters of Deer Lodge County. Bielenberg did so at the behest of residents in the town of Deer Lodge, who had lost their county seat to Anaconda in a hotly contested 1897 election. A similar measure — Senate Bill 3 — appeared simultaneously in the other chamber.

Senators approved Senate Bill 3 on January 29 by a 21-1 vote, and the House then substituted Senate Bill 3 for its Powell County measure. The House passed the substitute by a 65-0 vote, and Governor Joseph K. Toole signed the bill on January 31, 1901. So the new county of Powell was born.

But the story does not end there. Residents of the new county wished to reclaim their old county name: they wanted to make the town of "Deer Lodge" the county seat of the county of "Deer Lodge." Many people in Anaconda agreed, because they wanted to rename their division "Daly County," in honor of the recently deceased "Copper King"
Marcus Daly.

Early in February 1901, bills sprouted in the Senate to substitute "Deer Lodge" for "Powell," and to replace "Deer Lodge" with "Daly." Both bills passed the houses unanimously, and Governor Toole signed them on March 8.

But "Daly County" lasted only one month. Some disgruntled citizens of Anaconda petitioned the Montana Supreme Court to nullify the two acts. And, indeed, on April 8 the Court found that the laws changing the county names violated the 1889 state constitution. Thus all county names reverted to their original designations: Powell and Deer Lodge.

The people in the town of Deer Lodge were the most perplexed. Within three months, they had been the residents of three different counties, and they never moved an inch. And all this craziness began on this day in Montana legislative history: January 9, 1901.


"Capitol capsules : Legislative minutes presented to the 57th Montana Assembly by the Montana Historical Society"

Author: Walter, David A., 1943-
Volume: 2001
Subject: Montana. Legislature; Montana. Legislative Assembly; Legislation
Publisher: Helena, Mont. : Montana Historical Society
Year: 2001
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Digitizing sponsor: Montana State Library
Book contributor: Montana State Library
Contributor usage rights: See terms
Collection: Montana State Library; Americana

Friday, June 15, 2012

My Experience In The Stock Business Savers Somewhat Of The Romantic.



CARSTEN CONRAD KOHRS
1835-1920


The following paragraphs were obtained From: In the land of Chinook; or, The story of Blaine county ([c1917]) Noyes, Alva Josiah, 1855- Subject: Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana Blaine County; Blaine County (Mont.) – History Publisher: Helena, Mont., State Publishing Company


John Bielenberg and Con Kohrs — now men who have all they need — lost all they had. Mr. Bielenberg told the writer that that winter of '86-'87 they lost $400,000 worth of cattle. They had enough with which to pay all their debts and as they were noted for their ability to rustle and also a knowledge of cattle and range conditions they were extended credit by A. J. Davis, the rich banker and mining man of Butte, and got on their feet once more. Mr. Kohrs told the writer the following concerning that transaction:

"My experience in the stock business savers somewhat of the romantic. I was a green German boy when I came to Montana. I was trying to get out of the territory and go west. I was camped on the Deer Lodge river and was waiting for the party to pull out when something occurred to change all my plans. I had learned something about the butcher business as a boy and thought I could make a living at that. While we were camped on the Deer Lodge a man had a beef to kill and asked if I had ever done anything of the kind. I at once told him I was sure I could do the job and he told me to turn myself loose. The pay that I was to receive was the head and neck. Now I want to explain to you that we had been living on short rations for some time and I was hungry and when that head was cut off I am ashamed to say it had the longest neck I ever saw on a cow brute, as it was cut off pretty well down toward the tail. Soon after I had finished this artistic job, a man who was to be somewhat noted in the story of Montana, Hank Crawford, came along and learning that I was a butcher (?) told me he would give me $25 per month and board if I would go to Bannack and work for him. Now twenty-five dollars was not much money in those days and that did not appeal to me but that word “board” was the one that made me consider his offer and take it, as I had not had enough to eat for days. I was a very able-bodied man in those days and did not know what tired meant but I was soon to learn it in all of its variations. That fellow Crawford must have sized me up for an animal of some kind, probably an ass, as the work first assigned me was surely some job. He had bought three wild heifers off someone on Cottonwood (the creek where the City of Deer Lodge is now) and helped me take them out a few miles and then told me that I was to take them to Bannack, a place that I had never seen. (He had asked me where my butcher tools were and I rustled a butcher knife and a hatchet and borrowed a hand-saw from a friend. These were well wrapped up and put in a wagon that some one was taking with them to the mines.)

When he turned me loose with those heifers they were in no frame of mind to give me much trouble because there were no other stock in sight. When I got the other side of Dempsy creek the baby cows saw a band of cattle that belonged to Bob Dempsy and they took for them as fast as they could go. The weather was hot and the exercise, which I did not need, caused me to get mighty warm. The fact is I was d---d hot in both mind and body. I chased those heifers and that band of stock all over those hills trying to cut them out. It seemed to me to be a useless expenditure of muscle and wind, as it did not seem to do any good. All at once I saw a man going by on horse-back and I called his attention to my trouble and asked him if he wouldn't use his pony to help those heifers change their minds and get them strung out on the road to Bannack as it seemed that I was about to run my legs off without accomplishing anything. Sure I was a foot! That was what I meant when I said that Hank must have taken me for some kind of an animal. "I afterward learned that the gentleman who helped me change the minds of those brutes and get them strung out on the road again, was Dr. Glick. He cut them out and helped me for a few miles and then rode on his way. It was one hundred and twenty miles from Cottonwood to Bannack. We came by the Big Hole and forded the river near the place where Brown's Bridge was afterward built. This was the first place where I could rest. I laid down thinking that the cattle would be tired enough to rest for a while at least. I know that I had only been asleep but a short time when I missed the heifers. I started on the back trail and caught them before they could cross the river. This was enough to satisfy me that they needed more exercise and that my only hope was to keep them going. I got after them and hazed them right along and when within a few miles of Bannack Hank came out and met me and they were soon placed where they could not run any more. I had made the 120 miles in about 36 hours. I only worked for him for one month at $25 per month, as he soon found out I could keep his books so he raised me to $100. I worked for him for some time and came to the conclusion to go into business for myself. I saw several of the miners and got them to loan me some money with which to buy a starter in the business. Some one had several steers for sale and I bought them with the borrowed money.

I turned them out up the Grasshopper just above town and that night they were run off by the Indians or some one else and I had to begin over again. The miners from whom I had borrowed the money knew the shape I was in and they asked me what I intended to do and I told them they must loan me some more in order to give me a chance to make something to pay them what I had first borrowed. They were nice fellows who were making money and they kindly helped me again. "When they discovered the mines at Alder I went there and began the business. Every time I could find steers for sale I got them and was a big cattleman in a very short while. I bought the John Grant ranch in '66 and with it about 600 head of cattle, probably the largest herd in Montana in those days. This gave us headquarters until we got more than we could handle to advantage in the Deer Lodge country so we had to change our base and look to the range in the central and eastern part of the Territory. A lot of us who had been in the business for years soon found that the Judith was well adapted to stock raising so we sent many of our cattle to that section. One soon expands on the range, that is, he soon allows his herds to scatter into the places where the best grass is to be had. It was in that way that we got several miles east of the Judith country by the season of 1886. The grass being better on the north side of the Missouri we got permission from the Government to put our cattle on the Belknap reservation. That winter we made such a big losing that we were broke. I met A. J. Davis one day and he said: 'Con, I hear that you have met with some heavy losses this past winter, how is it?' I replied that we had, but that we had enough to pay all we owed.' He then said: 'There is $1 00,000 to your credit in this bank so you can start in the stock business as soon as you want.' This was a surprise to me that the judge should offer us a credit without solicitation on our part, so I asked him how long the offer would hold good. I did not have any definite plan in my head as to what I wanted to do. I soon came to the conclusion to go to Oregon and look over the situation. I soon found that I could spend the $100,000 and as much more in what looked good to me. I wired Davis what I thought and asked for an additional $100,000. His reply was to do what ever I saw for the best. I had no sooner spent that money than I found where I could use $60,000 more and so wired him. To make my story short the judge allowed me to use that also. When I returned to Montana I owed him $260,000. I will say that that credit for which I had not asked came to us in time to help us make a success in the stock business. I had lived so long in Montana that Mr. Davis knew I had always met all of my obligations."

The man who would have the nerve to attempt to drive three head of wild range cattle on foot for over one hundred miles had nerve enough to get out from under almost any serious load. The ordinary cowboy would never have started on such a trip. He would have invited Hank to or directed him to a most decidedly disagreeable climate and gone off disgusted to think that anyone took him for such a fool as to even try such an almost impossible feat.

All cow men know how hard it is to drive two or three cattle any place. In the large herd they will stay together and, even though one happens to stray a little to one side, the main herd goes on and the stray can be brought back without any serious trouble. Take three head and if they do not stay together, and they are not apt to, there is all kinds of hard feelings in the cowboy's mind toward that little outfit. One will go one way, probably the other two in another direction, or the three may make up their minds to go in three different directions at the same time, while the cowboy is sure that there is only one way at a time that he can go. After the cattle have acted in this way for some time there is only one place where the cowboy wishes them to be and that is a place where the barbecue is certain and where they will no longer bother him. It recalls to the writer's mind a little thing that occurred at his ranch one day. One of his sons was trying to cut out a saddle horse from a band of fifty horses and take it to the corral. He was having a whole lot of trouble. Wm. Montgomery, the big ranchman of the Big Hole, was looking on and he said: 'That boy of yours puts me in mind of a hired man I had on my ranch. I sent him out after a saddle horse and he began just as the boy is doing, to cut the horse out and bring it in alone. He was not successful. He came and reported and I asked him why he did not bring the whole band in? He turned on me with disgust depicted in his face and said: 'How in hell can you bring in a whole band when it is d ---d hard to bring in one?


Reference

1. In the land of Chinook; or, The story of Blaine county ([c1917])
Author: Noyes, Alva Josiah, 1855-
Subject: Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana Blaine County; Blaine County (Mont.) -- History
Publisher: Helena, Mont., State publishing co
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT

Thursday, June 14, 2012

First Circulating Library Ever Known in Montana



NICHOLAS JOHN BIELENBERG
1847-1927


Digital Artwork Presented In The Above Photograph By
Patricia Bielenberg


The following paragraphs were obtained From: In the land of Chinook; or, The story of Blaine county ([c1917]) Noyes, Alva Josiah, 1855- Subject: Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana Blaine County; Blaine County (Mont.) – History Publisher: Helena, Mont., State Publishing Company

The getting of the steers to the railroad some times required days and even weeks. Of course weeks when men from Montana had to drive their stock to Cheyenne to load in those times before we had railroads in this country. To take cattle that distance required care, as they must take on flesh and not lose any. The way that could be done was to allow them to drift in the direction they were to go and their ordinary travel to fill would take them the required distance toward their destination for the day. 1

The fording of streams that must be crossed was not the easiest thing in the world. When such streams as the Yellowstone are at their high times it is no fun to swim a bunch of cattle and get your outfit over in safety. One man told me that it took them three days once to cross the Yellowstone with a herd of Con Kohrs' cattle and that eighty-three head were drowned in the attempt. 1

On these trips there was the night herd to be stood. It might be very easy pastime or it might, before morning, spell tragedy to some of the cowboys who might be mixed in a stampede. But it was a life the boys liked. 1

I recall a little story that was told me by Nick Bielenberg. "Quite a number of years ago I bought some cattle of Granville Stuart. We had to move them across the country to the railroad. Granville was along with the outfit but as far as making a hand was concerned he was no good. He was always a great fellow to read. He thought it would be a good thing to take a whole lot of books for the cowpunchers' enjoyment. Darned if I know how many he had, but anyway a sack full. The way those cowboys would tackle those books was a caution. They would come into camp and pick up a book and the cook would holler 'Grub Pile' till he was red in the face and he could never get all those fellows to come at the same time. Just as soon as a fellow would drop a book some other galoot would grab it. The cook called me aside one day and told me he was going to quit as the boys thought more of Granville's books than they did of his grub. It would never do to lose a good cook at that time in the game and I told him not to say anything and I would see that they would cause him no more trouble. It was the next day that we arrived at the Yellowstone so I gathered up the books and threw them into the river, thus starting the first circulating library ever known in Montana."1

Reference

1. In the land of Chinook; or, The story of Blaine county ([c1917])
Author: Noyes, Alva Josiah, 1855-
Subject: Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana Blaine County; Blaine County (Mont.) -- History
Publisher: Helena, Mont., State publishing co
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Montana Comrade Charles Bielenberg, Patriotic Instructor


CHARLES P. H. BIELENBERG (1846-1924): Pictured Above in the Center Rear of Photo Holding American Flag

From the department of Montana Comrade Charles Bielenberg, patriotic instructor, sends the following:

It is a pleasure to say that the work in Montana is progressing nicely, and that the people are awake to the fact that the youth of the country should be more fully acquainted with their duties as Americans and patriots. I have sent out many letters to boys and girls in different parts of the State, in which I have suggested the ideal of patriotism that I would have them cultivate. The public-school teachers are cooperating in a very commendable manner, and time will show that growth in patriotic love for country which is so essential to the perpetuity of our institutions.1

Reference
1. 64th Congress 2D December 4, 1916-March 4, 1917. House Documents. Vol. III Congressional serial set By United States. Washington: Government Printing Office 1917

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

MEAT PACKING AN IMPORTANT DAVENPORT INDUSTRY



THE DAVENPORT DEMOCRAT AND LEADER

HENRY KOHRS, PIONEER FOUNDED BIG PACKING INDUSTRY IN DAVENPORT

Sixty-nine years ago a little meat market was opened in Davenport at Second and Harrison Streets. Over the door hung a sign telling the world that Henry Kohrs was the proprietor. That little meat market has been gone and forgotten many years, but it was the incentive and the nucleus for the founding of Davenport’s biggest industries of today-the Kohrs Packing Company.

Sixty-nine years ago Mr. Kohrs sold bologna sausage and other meals over the counter. Daily receipts ran from $5 to $10 a day. The latter amount was considered a big day’s business. Today, the annual production of the Kohrs Packing Company runs into millions of dollars. In his little butcher shop Mr. Kohrs spent his spare time in planning and visioning the future shop already referred to. From house and to transect business on a big scale. To what extent this dream was realized is evident today in the tremendous volume of business transacted by the company bearing his name. The Kohrs Company are now killing and converting into choice hams and bacon over 800 hogs per day. When new improvements now under way are completed, this number will be increased to 1,200.

Mr. Kohrs, whose foresight enabled him to realize the possibilities of Davenport as the center of many industries and as a dominant shipping point for the west, was born in Holstein, Germany, Nov. 15, 1830. The education of Mr. Kohrs was received in the excellent schools of Germany, and there he learned the butcher trade. When 23 years old he came to the United States and for a short time was in New York City but soon removed to Davenport, landing here March 13, 1854.
Being a hard working and industrious young man, he soon secured employment in a dry goods and grocery store, from which he went to a clothier’s, and in this way became acquainted with the language and customs of his new home. With the meager from his wages, he was enabled in 1855 to start business for himself in a humble way, opening the little butcher shop already referred to. From time to time, as his limited capital increased Mr. Kohrs moved to larger quarters. During all this time he worked very hard making every change pay in increased sales receipts, and carefully saving all he could, so that in 1874 he was able to embark in the pork packing business in a small way and so laid the foundation for the present immense Kohrs establishment.

The present plant stands on its original site but there have been many changes, new buildings being erected and additional machinery and equipment being added as the business grew, until today the Kohrs establishment is one of the leading packing plants in Iowa and its product is not only shipped into every state of the union, but also finds a marketing many foreign countries.

If there is one word above all others in the American vocabulary to which Mr. Kohrs accredited his success, it is punctuality. He was so punctual in making his deposits every day at the Iowa National Bank that the officials of the institution, so it is said, were accustomed to setting their clocks by his arrival at the bank. Mr. Kohrs was just as punctual in all his habits and business transactions. For many years he was a familiar figure in the business section of the city as he drove to the bank every morning at 10 o’clock to make his deposits and transact other business. These were days before the advent of the automobile, and Mr. Kohrs rode in a one-horse buggy, to which was hitched his pet horse “Daisy.” Daisy was a steed of almost human intelligence and new her master like a book.

From the bank Mr. Kohrs was in the habit of going regularly to John Hill’s place on lower main street, where he would meet a number of his old cronies and together would spend a social hour before returning to his work at their little “Fruehscotten.” During all Mr. Kohrs's calls, Daisy was allowed to stand unhitched at the curb. So if he was detained longer than usual in the bank, Daisy would pick up step and travel down to John Hill’s without her master. She knew that he would be along presently, and he always was. After her master’s death, Daisy was pensioned by the Kohrs family and turned out to graze in pastures green for the rest of her days.

Mr. Kohrs was a man of sterling character and strong personality. His word was his bond. There was no need of other security. He was fond of music and children and a liberal patron of all measures brought forth for the good of the community. He was a pioneer Turner and a lover of skat. He loved horses and when other members of the family adopted the auto on its first arrival, he remained loyal and steadfast to his favorite horse and buggy.

Mr. Kohrs was one of a group of citizens who purchased the ground upon which is now located Lookout Park, and presented it to the city. He was a prime mover in numerous enterprises, of both commercial and charitable nature, and in every way was one of Davenport’s best pioneer citizens and city builders. Mr. Kohrs remained in the harness almost of to the time of his death, December 31st, 1917, at the age of 87 years. But from his little butcher shop of pioneer days, he had the satisfaction of seeing developed the big industry of the present day. His life ambition had been realized and he died in peace and contentment.

The business founded by Mr. Kohrs has in later years been developed into its present gigantic form by the surviving members of the family. W. H. Gehrmann is president of the company; John Kohrs is vice president, and Frank Kohrs is secretary and treasurer. Their “Crown” brand of hams and bacon is famous the world over.

AN ERA GOES TO THE HOGS


From Quad-City Times Monday December 15, 1980

By John Williard

An Era Goes Out With The Hogs

Oscar Mayer slaughter operation links back to Davenport’s Foundations

When the last squealing hog meets its maker at Oscar Mayer & Co.’s Davenport plant next spring, an era will die with it. Hog slaughtering has been a part of the Davenport scene ever since sausage-craving Germans began settling in the mid-19th century. Growing from small butcher shops into sprawling brick structures that dominated the city’s west end, the packing industry helped lay the foundation for modern Davenport. The city located in the heart of a two-state pork producing capital, would become one of the largest hog slaughtering centers in the nation. In 1895, more than a half –dozen packing firms supplied a city on the move with bacon, pork, ham and sausage. Most packers were clustered in the same area where Oscar Mayer plant is today – along West 2nd Street near Fillmore, close to the Mississippi. Before refrigeration, packers cut ice from the river to cool their meats.

The early Davenport packers included Henry Kohrs, 1343 W.2nd St., John Ranzow, 1334 W. 2nd St.; John Ruch, south side of 2nd near Fillmore; and John L. Zoeckler, 1337 W. 2nd St. Armour Packing Co. also had a plant extending from 101 to 115 Perry Street. The offices of the Davenport Beef Co. were at the corner of Perry and Front Street (River Drive). Another leading packer at the turn of the century was Tri-City Packing and Provision Co. on South Howell Street.

The Davenport packers kept steamboats busy. Packets heavy with sow-bellies cruised downriver to the South, supplying blacks with the poorer quality meats. Sweat smelling Westphalian hams produced in Davenport were shipped to leading restaurants throughout the Midwest. Davenport’s largest and most successful packer was Kohrs Packing Co., the nucleus for Oscar Mayer. At the time Kohrs was acquired by Oscar Mayer in 1946, it was paying pork producers in excess of $5 million a year. Kohrs was founded in 1872 by Henry Kohrs, one of the many Germans who found freedom from the political upheaval of his homeland on the broad prairies of Scott County. The company grew from a corner butcher shop into an international supplier of pork products. By the 1940’s, Kohrs’ fleet of refrigerated railroad cars carried the company’s red and yellow Crown Brand symbol to New York, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Mobile, Baton Rouge, Meridian, Miss., Houston, and Los Angeles.

Before the turn-of-the-century, Davenport’s packing house district was a miniature version of Chicago’s famed Union Stockyards. Wagon teams from Scott County farms hauled plump. Corn fed hogs to stockyards bounded by 2nd, 3rd, Fillmore and Myrtle streets. After their hogs tipped the scales at the old Schroeder & Brandt weighing station, farmers collected their cash. Then, with their wives in tow, they might shop for millinery, shawls and cloaks at J. H. C. Petersen’s, the Boston Store or other department stores on 2nd Street. Back at the packing plants, the hogs were corralled in holding pens. They were pushed together so tightly that a man could walk across their backs. Leon Zoeckler, Davenport, was one those who walked piggyback. Zoeckler, 90, is the grandson of pioneer pork packer, John L. Zoeckler. As a youngster, Zoeckler armed himself with a .22-caliber rifle and walked across the hog’s backs, dispatching each animal with a quick shot to the head.

The animals were bled, scalded in boiling vats to remove hair and butchered. The intestines were boiled, and the resulting grease was sold to soap plants. The intestines were used as fertilizer. The stench of the boiling hog innards was unbearable, and Zoeckler’s mother would scold him if he got to close to the pot. His clothes would stink for days. The odor of the slaughter houses was overpowering on the west end, but residents didn’t seem to mind. “We never complained about the smell. It was our daily bread,” Zoeckler said. Zoeckler, a retired insurance agent, still has a receipt from his grandfather’s business. It dates back to 1898, the year Ed Platt’s delicatessen on 3rd Street ordered 69 pounds of bacon from John L. Secker. The bill was $4.83, or seven cents a pound!

Others associated with the city’s meat packing industry included John H. “Harry” Gehrmann, 89, Davenport. Gehrmann, a grandson of pioneer packer Henry Kohrs, was a partner and vice president of Kohrs Packing Co. When the plant was acquired by Oscar Mayer in 1946, John H. Gehrmann turned over the keys. Gehrmann joined the company after earning a master’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin and working briefly for a packing house machinery manufacturer in Detroit. He played a role in Kohrs expansion during the 1920s.

About the time Leon Zoeckler was assassinating hogs at his grandfather’s plant next door to Kohrs, young Gehrmann was watching packing house workers take their lunch at the saloon on the corner of 2nd and Fillmore. They’d reach for their personalized beer tankards that dangled from a rack above the long bar. A work day at the packing plants typically began at 7 a.m. In the days before refrigeration, all slaughtering was done in the winter months only. After the hogs were butchered, the hams and bacon were wrapped in paper and then placed in canvas sacks sewn by a crew of women seamstresses. The canvas-covered meats were dipped in a glue solution to protect them from the penetrating bites of blow flies. The meats were stored in ice cut from Credit Island harbor. Men with wagon teams moved out of the frozen surface to harvest ice. They sawed lagged blocks of ice and hauled them to the packing plant ice houses. Fritz T. Schmidt, a wine maker on Fairmont Street, allowed Kohrs to use his 30-foot deep aging caves as a supplementary cooling area.

All work done at the Davenport packing plants was done by hand until 1898. That year, William H. Gehrmann, John H. Gehrmann’s father, ushered in the industrial age by installing a back fat cutter at Kohrs. William H. Gehrmann had been a partner in the company, and he became president after Henry Kohrs death in 1917. Gehrmann continued to expand and modernized the plant in the 1920s. New construction included the four-story “hog hotel,” a containment area where doomed porkers spent their last hours. More than 3, 500 hogs could be accommodated in rooms equipped with running water. William H. Gehrmann was a former physical education teacher who married one of Henry Kohrs’ daughters. He learned the meat packing business in Montana where he worked at a plant owned by copper king Marcus Daly, founder of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. Gehrmann also traveled to Germany to learn modern packing technology.

The new technology did not did not extend to sanitation. Te main sewer was the Mississippi River. As a youngster, Leon Zoeckler remembers dodging mound of hog entrails while swimming near the Crescent railroad bridge. “I was swimming in garbage. I think the river is much cleaner today. Even the clams are coming back.” Zoeckler said. The packing houses harbored colonies of rats attracted by the open dumps of hog guts. During periods of high water, the rats scaled willow trees to escape the flood. Young Leon and his friends would pick off the rodents with .22-caliber rifles. The city later ordered a halt to their marksmanship practice.

Federal inspection of meats started in 1904, a factor that forced packers to upgrade their sanitation procedures. Two years later, Kohrs bought Zoeckler’s, and the company continued to modernize. The entire plant was rebuilt in 1915. During Prohibition, the adjacent Davenport Brewing and Malting Co. dried up. After a brief life as a produce market, the brewery building was purchased in 1926 by Kohrs and turned into a cold storage facility. The stockyards disappeared in the early 190s as farmers began selling directly to packers. Kohrs still was a busy place as convoys of Ford Model A trucks rolled into the plant from eastern Iowa farms during the 1920s and 1930s. Alfred Arp, 85, an Eldridge area farmer, once trucked in a 500-pound hog during the depths of the Great Depression. He received the not so piggish sum of $7.50 for the critter. “We didn’t stick around town in those days to shop. We took our cash and left quickly.” Arp said.

The president of the company during this period was Frank Kohrs, son of Henry Kohrs. Frank Kohrs was elected president and general manager after the death of William Gehrmann in 1933. A patrician man with snowy white hair and fine tailored suits, Frank Kohrs served as trustee of the Municipal Art Gallery and as a director of the Chamber of Commerce. He died in 1956 at the age of 80. The Kohrs president surrounded himself with European antiques at his palatial home high atop the Marquette Street bluff. The stately Victorian mansion, built in 1879 by furrier Targott Richter, is the Ten Twelve Marquette Restaurant today. Frank Kohrs' company was a tempting piece of meat when Oscar Mayer began looking for new acquisitions after World War II. By 1946, the company was shipping 200, 000 pounds of meat daily from its plants.

The Kohrs plant offered a good opportunity for Oscar Mayer to strengthen its competitive position in the U. S. heartland, and Kohrs was ready to sell. “I was the last active partner. There was no one else in the family old enough to take over,” John Gehrmann recalls. The Madison, Wis., meat packer took over Kohrs in 1946, leasing the plant first and then buying it. Ironically, the acquisition coincided with Kohrs’ 75th anniversary. The company had published a lavishly illustrated, 60-page Diamond Jubilee history for its employees.

“Today Kohrs is looking forward to even greater production, to greater internal expenditures and to greater service to customers here in the Middle West and to others from coast to coast, from border to border, wherever Kohrs is known for quality Crown Brand pork products,” the Diamond Jubilee book said. The growth would come under the flag of Oscar Mayer & Co. Like Kohrs, Oscar Mayer & Co. also traced its roots to a German-born-butcher—Oscar Mayer who started with a Chicago meat market in 1883. Oscar Mayer & Co quickly began expanding and modernizing the Davenport Plant. Today it is Oscar Mayer’s second largest plant. Oscar Mayer didn’t want Kohrs cold storage plant. Kohrs Cold Storage Co. remains an independent business today under the leadership of Carl Gehrmann, John H. Gehrmann’s son. The Oscar Mayer take over came off without a hitch, John H. Gehrmann said, “We turned over 3000 employees and a million dollars in assets. We closed the door one night, they opened it the next morning.” Although Kohrs’ Mack trucks aren’t seen on Quad City streets, the name Kohrs Packing Co. lives on. Kohrs is no longer king but the crown lives on.