Denver labor bulletin., 1917-01-06

An advance of sixty per cent in the
packing operations of Colorado packing
plants has forced during the past year
plans for a large increase in the capacity
of the packing plants. In round figures
the gross business of Colorado plants in
1916 was $25,OOO0O0 as against Sl5,OoO,-
600 for the previous year. The bulk of
this business was done in the Denver
packing plants which now take care or
the territory from Mexico to Montana
and west to the Pacific coast, employing
about $500 men in taking care of this
production.
This great increase in packing house
operations has taxed the full capacity OF
all the packing plants in Colorado, with
the result that at all packing points
large sums have been spent during the
past year in increasing the facilities and
still larger amounts will be spent during
the coming year. In Denver alone in
1916 about 100000 was spent in new
packing house improvement and equip
ment; in Pueblo a new plant is being
constructed by the Nuckolls company,
which will cost in the neighborhood of
100000. The plant of the Colorado
Packing and Provision company at Den
Yer, operated by Armour & Company,
completed new killing plant during the
year at cost of about S45OOOO This
magnificent new plant, which is six
story, fireproof building, is the very last
word in modern packing house construc-
tion. Plans have already been made for
an addition to this plant to the storage
capacity which will cost in the neigh
borhood of half million dollars.
Swift & Company have been making
constant improvements in their plant
during the past year, and this company
is making plans for a large increase in
storage capacity which will mean an ex-
penditure of over 100000. The value OF
the output from these two plants during
the past year was approximately SlS,-
100000.
Both the Armour and Swift companies
have completed plans for modern office
buildings to take care of their clerical
forces which will be constructed early
in the spring. Both of these will be
three-story modern, fireproof buildings
and will be as complete office structures
as can be found anywhere in the coun-
try.
The Coffin Packing company which
has been doing an exclusively local bus
mess; has reached the utmost capacity
of its plant and plans have been made
for a new modern plant, which, when
completed, Will place this company in
the ranks of those doing an interstate
are being made and that construction OF
the new building will commence during
the coming year.
One of the features in the develop
ment of the packing industry will be
the effort made to take care of the Colo
RADIO fed sheep and lambs thru the Den
yer market. Heretofore the million and
a half output of Colorado feed lots has
been distributed and manufactured at
Eastern markets, being shipped alive as
far east as Buffalo, New York. The
local packers have been doing some ex-
perimenting during the last fall in
shipping Colorado lambs dressed to the
Eastern markets. This dressed product
has reached market in good condition
and has found ready sale, and both
the plants of Armour and Swift will
make speciality during the coming year
of slaughtering the Colorado fed lambs
and shipping the product dressed. 1t j.
expected that a large part of the out,
put from northern Colorado feed lots
will thus be manufactured in Denver in