The Packing Plant That Wasted Nothing

The rapid advancement in the settlement of the Puget Sound country has opened up a field for many and various industries, even during the last three years, though handicapped by a general business depression. Among the plants that now stand as monuments of business enterprise and industry is the Pacific Meat Company's establishment at Meeker, on the Seattle–Tacoma line of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The Puget Sound Dressed Beef and Packing Company first owned the plant. In the 1890s a number of far-sighted business men reorganized it under the name the Pacific Meat Company. To this company the little town of Meeker owes its present aspect of prosperity, for the establishment keeps a very large number of employees continually at work.

At a distance the fine buildings of the company loom up in contrast to the smaller dwellings here and there, and surrounded as they are by neatly jointed fences, with the seemingly intricate network of stockyards on the north side, the picture is one that tells of prosperity and order. A closer investigation fills the visitor with admiration at the systematic and regular manner in which the vast amount of work done by the employees is carried out. Everything has its proper place, and as a result twice the usual labor is accomplished. The stockyards, with elevated exit and entrance, are located beside the main track, so that stock can be unloaded handily and driven into sections prepared for them. The yards are subdivided, so that cattle, hogs and sheep are separated.

In the main building, which is a fine two-and-a-half-story structure, the slaughtering department is kept busy. Here a force of fourteen men is kept busy from morning till night butchering sheep and hogs. In the killing department 75 head of cattle, sheep, 50 calves and 100 hogs are slaughtered daily on an average, with a capacity of twice that amount. In the packing department there is a splendid equipment which has made it possible for the company to turn out a superior quality of cured meats. In the cooling rooms, several in number, an even cold temperature is kept by means of cold currents of air, which are forced through pipes and back into the ice department again, where the moisture becomes solidified and the operation gone through again inversely. The sausage factory is provided with every modern convenience that would tend to combine quality with quantity. Under the skillful hands of the workmen the steam stuffers turn out sausages of every kind and description with remarkable rapidity. In the same room the company's patent lard mixer works; this machine is so constructed that all impurities so often found in lards are removed.

The fertilizing plant consists of dryers and crushers. All the offal from the killing department goes through these machines and comes out as a valuable compound for enriching soil. In fact, the plant is the most complete of its kind west of Omaha. The most remarkable feature to the uninitiated is that there is absolutely no waste. Hardly a drop of blood even is lost. Some parts are sent to Portland from which glue is made. The horns bring a good price. The two little bones in each foot of a cow or steer just above the hoof are saved and shipped to San Francisco to the sugar refineries, while the shin bones are sold at a round figure to manufacturers of bone-handled knives and forks.

The Pacific Meat Company has branch houses in every part of the state and the shipments made are the most extensive of any house on the Pacific coast. Some 2,000 head of cattle are being fed for market at Yakima and Elgin, Oregon. The officers of the company are L. Zimmerman, president and manager; J. D. Gardner, vice president; H. L. Achilles, secretary; and J. Heilbronner, treasurer. The company has just opened a fine large wholesale and retail house at the corner of Front and Columbia streets.