The Rise and Fall of Sioux City's Stockyards and Meatpacking Industry: 1868-2002

Presenter Matt Anderson, Curator of History at the Sioux City Public Museum, will give an overview of Sioux City’s meat industry from around 1870 when James E. Booge started his first large-scale hog slaughtering operation. The photographic presentation will include the founding of the Union Stock Yards Company in 1887 and the subsequent emergence of Sioux City as one of the nation's leading livestock markets and meatpacking centers. It will end with a discussion of the decline of the central public market-based system that led to the closure of Sioux City’s stockyards in 2002.