Kansas City, Mo., Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Company's Plant is the title on the old post card, published in color by Hugh C. Leighton Co., manufacturers, Portland, Me., and made in Germany. It was mailed from Kansas City Dec. 27, 1910. The huge packing house facility, built in 1893 at Osage and Adams in the Armourdale district of Kansas City, Kan., occupied 17 acres of ground and had about 1 million square feet of floor space. It dates from a time when Kansas City ranked second in the U.S. in the livestock market and the packing house industry. (At times, when the wind was right and a heavy aroma of packing house odors hung over the city, this rating became a dubious honor.) The Kaw River is seen in the background. Buildings have signs designating their use. At the top right the large S&S sign identifies the building as Beef House, No. 3 and on the small frame building in right foreground is the sign Stables. Teams and wagons are seen near the open entrance. The eight-story building in center has the sign Schwarzchild & Sulzberger Co., New York, Chicago and Kansas City. Two steam engines with freight cars move along the railroad tracks and a siding shows additional cars, no doubt refrigerated, awaiting cargo, whole sides of beef, pork and lamb.Marcel Weill, 5050 Oak, remembers working at the plant the summer of 1914. Butchershops were a separate entity then, he says, and meat not part of the grocery business. My job, starting at 6:00 a.m. in the wholesale meat department, was to phone every butcher shop in Kansas City for their day's order. Meat was not pre-cut or packaged then. Deliveries would be made by 10 o'clock and later in the day orders would again be taken to butchers who had phoned in needing additional meat. I drove a Model T open-ended Ford to deliver these late orders. The company was sold to Wilson and Co. about 1916 and in 1950 the Kaw Storage & Warehouse Co. acquired the property. A fire last month destroyed a remaining slaughter house, belonging to the last owners, the Schock Truck Leasing Company. Kansas City Times, October 5, 1984. Speaking the Public Mind: Your recent Postcard from Old Kansas City photo story was especially interesting to me because my father, Albert Peterson, was car route sales manager of the S&S plant in Kansas City during this period. The sales staff, numbering about 40, sold the company's products in the Midwest, from Arkansas to Winnipeg, Canada, and travel, of course, was by train. Our family left Kansas City in 1915 for New York City. Our home for five years was in Mt. Vernon where my sister was born. We later returned to the Midwest where father became associated with Wilson & Co. in various capacities. I know the wholesale meat department of S&S was a separate entity from the car-route department .Mr. Weill must have been very young when he worked for S&S. He has a remarkable memory to recall that which happened so long ago. My wife and I always enjoy Mrs. Sam Ray's postcard stories. Mr Weill's recollections added frosting to the cake. Albert S. Peterson, Leavenworth, Kan. Kansas City Times, October 20, 1984.
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