Closing a “Meat” Loop: Swift and Armour Come to Texas (December 27, 2025)

by Scott Sosebee

Today, in 2025, we sometimes take for granted that when we walk into a local grocer we will have a plethora of fresh cut meats for our purchase. Thanks to federal regulations concerning inspection and safety, we also never worry about the health quality of what is displayed. The value and worth of our current system of food production is something that can be admired, and in many ways it is unparalleled in the rest of the world, but getting to that point was a long and often contentious process. Part of that evolution was due to the maturation and acceptance of governmental regulation into business practices, but another significant component was the advancement of the meat packing industry, a process in which Texas has played a vital role. And when it comes to meat packing the “giant” of the industry in our state was for years the Swift and Armour Companies. Their company’s relocation to Fort Worth in the “Stockyards” represented the beginning of Texas becoming a center of the meat-packing industry.

Texas, of course, had been vital to the beef industry long before Swift and Armour came to Fort Worth, but Texas cattle were almost exclusively sent out of state for transport to markets, although there were some very small meat packing concerns on the Texas Gulf Coast. Since there was no practical way to keep meat from spoiling after processing, marketers shipped bovines live, in some fashion, to the packing houses in the North and East. While the creation of a national market for fresh meat after the Civil War had created the emergence of large-scale ranching and subsequently the overland cattle drives to railroad heads for shipping, huge growth in the meat packing industry had to wait until 1881 with the invention of the refrigerated rail car.

The rail-car’s inventor, Gustavus Franklin Swift, quickly developed a large, integrated network, of cattle procurement, slaughtering, meat-packing, and them shipping meat to market. Swift had originally had his operations in Boston, but he had moved to Chicago in 1875. Swift’s Company became a dominant force, but he was joined by others in the rapidly expanding and lucrative market. Phillip Armour was one of those. Armour, a New Yorker who made a fortune supplying beef contracts to the Union Army during the Civil War, had based his original operations in Milwaukee, but after the opening of the Chicago Union Stockyards in 1865 he moved and built a company that rivaled Swift’s in size and technological expertise. Chicago thus became the unquestioned center of the packing industry, but what if a meat packing plant could locate closer to the source of the product?

When the Texas and Pacific Railway arrived in Fort Worth in 1875, promoters built pens to hold cattle and the Fort Worth Stockyards opened in July 1887. But local business leaders dreamed of a much larger and more comprehensive operation, which included a packing plant, and that meant that they needed capital to expand their operations. Enter Greenlief W. Simpson, who like Gustavus Swift, was originally from Boston, and had become wealthy in his native city investing in railroads, factories, and other booming businesses during those heady days of 1870s and 1880s industrialization. Fort Worth leaders approached Simpson and in 1889 he, along with some associates, purchased the operation and also chartered the Fort Worth Packing Company.

The Company struggled in its early years and almost went under during a national recession in 1893, but the creation of a Fat Stock Show in 1896, as well as an independent newspaper, the Weekly Livestock Reporter, turned conditions around and the Stockyards became viable. However, success brought other problems. The convenience of having such operations in Fort Worth meant that cattlemen throughout Texas rushed to bring their cattle to the Stockyards, and the need to buy the huge increase in cattle had stretched the Stockyard’s cash flow. Simpson had to find a solution.

What Simpson and the Stockyards needed were partners, and what better ones that the two leading meat packers in the nation? It made sense for all parties. The Stockyards would gain vital cash to keep its operations competitive, and Swift and Armour would finally have a presence near the largest cattle operations in the world. The two packers and Simpson began negotiations in 1898, and Swift and Armour drove a hard bargain. The two rivals formed a joint operation—the Swift-Armour Company, which was only applicable, at that time, to the Fort Worth operation—and they then asked for and received, at no cost, twenty-two prime acres in the heart of the Stockyards to build a packing plant. They also negotiated to receive a one-third interest in the Fort Worth Stockyards Company, and a $100,000 cash payment (divided between the two parent companies, ostensibly to defray the costs of building the plant). In return, Swift and Armour agreed that all livestock slaughtered in their plant would pass through the Fort Worth Stockyards, and they would pay to acquire the cattle, as well as yardage and other charges.

The two entities finalized their agreement in 1902, and the Swift and Company plant opened in March 1904. When it opened, it immediately became the fifth largest livestock market in the nation, and within a decade only Chicago was larger. Later, Swift added a canning factory to the site and expanded operations so that by 1920 they were processing more than 2,000 head of cattle a day. Swift and Armour had “closed a loop,” as now Texas was not only the leading producer of live cattle, but a leading state in the processing of the product. It became a very lucrative arrangement.

The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.