Being a newcomer to town, I have trouble believing that less than ten years ago several thousand hogs were slaughtered each day in Dubuque at “The Pack” processing plant.
According to Dubuque, the Encyclopedia by Randolph W. Lyon (1991) and the Telegraph Herald (“The Pack” by M.D. Kittle, July 31, 2005), about 3,500 Dubuque Packing Company employees processed 9,000 hogs daily during peak production in the 1970s. If processing was continuous, as it must have been, 375 hogs were processed every hour, which is over 6 hogs per minute.
Even as late as 1997, between 6,000 and 7,000 hogs per day were slaughtered in Dubuque (“Meatpacker Weathers Controversy” by Kathy Bergstrom, TH, October 19, 1997).
It’s hard to imagine the logistics of such an operation, the semi-truck and railroad traffic, crowded stockyards, deafening noise of animals and machinery, nauseating stench, relentless back-breaking work, and so on.
Astonishingly, “The Pack” is rubble today, recently demolished to make way for a shopping center. After years of losing millions of dollars, severe pay and benefit cuts, thousands of layoffs, and a series of questionable sellouts, “The Pack” closed for good in 2001.
To learn more about the rise and fall of meat packing in Dubuque, this weekend I checked out a copy of The Dubuque Packing Company & Charles E. Stoltz by Thomas Gifford (1997) from the library at the University of Dubuque. I’ll post a summary of this odd book in the next week or two.
For current information about large-scale pork processing, see this December 2006 video clip from PBS about the Smithfield Meatpacking Plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, a plant where 5,500 workers slaughter 33,000 hogs each day.
June 28, 2007 at 8:59 pm
How long have you lived in Dubuque?
June 29, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Since mid-2005.
October 18, 2007 at 6:47 pm
On one of my first visits to Dubuque in the early 90’s, I was walking around with my brother when I heard the most terrifying screams off in the distance. It sounded like a woman fighting off a fierce attacker. “What is that?” I asked in a panic. “Oh, it’s just the hogs,” my brother replied nonchalantly. “In the packing plant.”
February 20, 2008 at 2:59 am
Click here to see a short video clip about the Dubuque Pack.
June 3, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I worked here for nearly three years from 1993 to its first closing in 1995. We processed 780 hogs an hour on two shifts, and usually killed a total of around 10,500 per day.
June 14, 2008 at 10:11 am
Thanks, Andy. I’d really like to hear more about your experiences at the Pack. If you or anyone else who worked there is willing to share your experiences, I’d consider posting them on the Dubuquer blog. -Mike at dubuquer@gmail.com
June 16, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] On the Kill Floor at the Pack in Dubuque Andy Gross, production employee and supervisor at FDL Foods from 1992 to 1995, recalls his experiences working second shift on the kill floor at the Pack in Dubuque. [...]
July 10, 2009 at 7:43 pm
[...] July 10, 2009 Posted by conatz under Uncategorized | Tags: workers, Iowa, Dubuque, The Pack, slaughterhouse | Leave a Comment | Andy Gross, production employee and supervisor at FDL Foods from 1992 to 1995, recalls his experiences working second shift on the kill floor at the Pack in Dubuque. [...]