Gustavus Franklin Swift

Prior to the Civil War, people in cities got their fresh meat "on the hoof."  There was no way to deliver meat without its being spoiled from any distance, so each city had it own slaughterhouses.  Fresh meat outside the city was pricey and only available in season. 

The Western Plains had a bounty of meat.  The problem was how to get it to the people living in the cities far away from the Plains.  Enter the refrigerated rail car.  Meat could be slaughtered in the West, shipped by refrigerated rail car to Eastern cities.  No longer would whole boxcars of animals need to be transported in overcrowded rail cars where a percentage always died from bad conditions during transport.

One man capitalized on this idea and became a household name - Gustavus Franklin Swift.  From the age of 14 when he purchased his own heifer, dressed and sold it door to door, Swift had been in the cattle market in Cape Cod.  In 1875 he found his way to Chicago and began to have a vision of how beef could be cooked and dressed before being sent out from Chicago.  At this point in time, this was only possible during the winter months, but Swift envisioned a year-round business.

Swift had an edge over his Chicago competitors - he knew and understood the meat business in New England,  He made a deal with the Grand Trunk Railroad that if they would transport his beef, he would purchase the refrigerated cars to do so.  He bought 10 cars and by 1881 he was delivering his dressed beef to the East Coast.

When the railroads saw Swift's success and that they could increase their business by carrying dressed meat, they all wanted a piece of the traffic.  The butchers on the East coast saw their chance to sell more beef as well, so they became partners with Swift.  Swift brought the price of beef down so much that it has become known as the "era of cheap beef."

Next time...How Swift did it
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Today in Pioneer History: "On October 7, 1960 the first episode of Route 66 debuts on CBS.  The one hour program followed two men Buz Murdock and Ted Stiles as they drove across the country in a Corvette doing odd jobs and looking for adventure.  The show was shot on location from Miami to Los Angeles for four years.  The real Route 66 was a two-lane highway that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles.