He began a meat wagon business and soon became a wholesale cattle dealer. In 1872, he entered into a partnership with James A. Hathaway, a Boston meat dealer. He took the business westward, to Albany and Buffalo, New York, and finally to Chicago in 1875.
Conceived Refrigerated Car
Chicago was the center of the cattle trade in the United States. It was a railroad hub serving all regions of the country and was close to the Great Plains. Its South Side rail yards were the site of the famous Chicago Stockyards, where cattle were penned before shipment elsewhere. Some of the breeds still roamed the plains freely, descendants of European stock brought over by the Spanish in the 1500s.
As the cattle buyer in his partnership, Swift came to realize that shipping live cattle from Chicago to the country's most populous markets along the Atlantic seaboard was an inefficient strategy. The cattle had to be fed along the way, some died in transit, and--since the railroads charged per pound--huge freight charges added tremendously to the cost of doing business. Smith also worried about the expenses involved in waste, since many parts of the slaughtered animal were unusable.
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