The Sidney herald., 1955-02-17

SldQSl1LS141OQoG VI IA1C COA4APd1l
scene in the process of the
new building construction
program.
The Valley Meat Co., of which
Nick Hansen is controlling owner
and active manager has been in
operation since 1912 when he dis
continued his local retail meat
business and established a whole
sale meat processing enterprise
which Immediately took hold in
a trade sense and has since been
a leading source of supply for re-
tail meat dealers in most of the
towns in northeastern Montana.
MI. Hansen came to this coun-
try in 1910 from his native Den
mark where his father was a cat
tie buyer all his adult life and
Nick was early initiated into the
business. Locating first at Custer,
South Dakota in the Black Hills,
he spent two years there, when
the family moved TO Sidney and
he went to work for thu late A,
Vaux in the latter s lumber bust
ness.
In the spring of 1913, Hansen
in partnership with Hans Larson,
opened his first meat market in
Sidney in the building on Central
avenue across from the Johnson
hardware store which is now the
Sidney Beauty Shop. Larsen later
sold his interest in the business
to Sig fairfield with whom Nick
continued the partnership ar
rangement for two years when
he sold his interest to the late
Jack Leach, with the intention o1
returning to Denmark. With the
U. S. entering World War I in
1917, he had to abandon that
plan, and he put in the next two
years buying and shipping cattle
to packer markets with fine sue
cess.
In 1919 Leach, Vaux and Ear
Varco started the Sidney Provl-
sion Co. with a meat department
and Nick, in partnership with Lit
tie Nels Anderson and Andrew
Miller bought the old market back
and operated there in the retail
meat business until 1928 wher
they moved the business into the
building on the site of the presen.
Gamble store, known as the Gold.
en- Rule Store which had beer
closed out in a sale of the bust
ness to the J. c. Penney Co.
Established in the new location
Hansen bought the Andersen anC
Miller partnership interests anC
operated the business as sole own.
er until 1912. That year he pur.
chased the old Armour Dreamer,
in the southeast corner of thu
same block, and discontinuing thu
retail business, turned the slaugh.
terhouse he had acquired in thu
deal with Anderson and Mile,
into a combination slaughterhous,
and processing plant, where b,
killed and processed as many a
220 head of cattle a month, de.
livering the meat to retail mar.
kets as far west as Havre ant
north to the Canadian line.
During the IS years he has beer
wholesaling meat Mr.. Hansen ha
done an immense business which
steadily increased from the start
The foundation of this success wa
a thorough knowledge of the bus
mess as a livestock expert, par
ticularly with regard to cattle an;
hogs, for which he is widel,
known.
Now he is opening here on tn
site of his success the most mod
ern small meat processing plan
in the state if not the entire north
west, with a storage capacity 70
100000 pounds of meat. Tn.
new building is of reinforcet
concrete construction, meeting ev
cry specification requirement .
the federal and state sanitation
boards. It has a standard size xiii
ing floor, a refrigerated area 70
removing animal heat from ana