Jan. 06, 2006 - 16:48 MST

MORE YORE

The Christmas lights on our city and County Building stay on through Stock Show time here in Denver. Tradition, it is, and many residential setups remain lit at night through this time too.

Being a person born and raised here in Denver, very early on a few givens imposed themselves on my mind. West was where the mountains gave us that remarkable afterglow from the sunset reflecting off the clouds, another given was a person could tell which way the breeze was blowing just by nose alone. Didn't have to be outside, a whiff would tell you by the odor of the stockyards that it was coming from the north, from the south came the odor of Gates Rubber factory. Then there were the squirrely days when the breeze changing directions would bring a blend of both.

Another given was the fact the the town was amaller and the countryside on all sides was closer (including the barnyards and pigstys) as well were the hog farms just north of town, and then too the city folks kept chickens which added to the myriads of house flies bred in the Stockyards.

Another given was the ever present sound of train whistles. Through Denver and environs ran five railroads back then. Laying abed at night in the cold of winter a few blocks east of Santa Fe Drive where the trains went south the whistles seemed to be almost at our door. A comfortable feeling for me, indicating that the world was still working, though I might be pinned down to a bed.

And the mighty given for winter time here in our town was the show that came to be known as the National Western Stock Show. It is still held here in town, but the industry that gave birth to it is long gone. When I was a child Dad took us out to the Stockyards to have a look. It was mind boggling to me all those vast acres of holding pens with cattle milling around and the packing plants looming overall. Dad telling me that those cattle would soon be killed and made into the meat being sold in grocery stores. The packing plants surrounding the yards, all a part of the processing. Rails went into there to bring cattle in and meat out.

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There is a short article in the Rocky Mountain News by Joanne Kelley of that paper, today about what happened to our vast stockyards and packing plants. I quote in full:

STOCKYARDS THAT ONCE TEEMED WITH BOVINE LIFE ARE LONG GONE

"The animals arrived by train to meet their fate, biding their time in the hubbub of acres of pens stretched along the railroad tracks north of downtown."

"For most of a century, Denver's stockyards teemed with cows and other critters all year long -- not just when the annual stock show rolled into town. From the 1880s through the 1960s, Denver was the region's go-to bazaar for buying and selling livestock."

"It was an impressive site," said Tom Noel, a history professor at the University of Colorado. "They (the stockyards) were filled."

"Denver's dominance began to erode in the latter half of the 20th century when hauling all those animals into the city by train began to seem increasingly impractical. Eventually, the stockyards went bust and shut down completely around 1980 as a year-round concern."

"Improved roads, and trucks that could haul animals more cheaply than trains, contributed to the demise of the yards. Auction houses began to spring up much closer to farms and ranches."

"There was a shift . . . . to the rural communities," said Chuck Sylvester, who served as general manager of the stock show from 1979 to 2003."

"The giant meatpacking plants that had set up shop near Denver's pens also moved to outlying areas. The city's former processing facilities were eventually replaced by parking lots to accomodate the throngs that visit the stock show each year."

"Packinghouse Road is now National Western Drive," said Sylvester, who lives in LaSalle, a farming community outside of Greeley, Colorado."

"The first prominent stockyards opened in what is now LoDo (Lower Downtown), along Cherry Creek at Wazee Street. but when residential development pushed them out, they moved to the northeast along the train tracks on the South Platte River."

"For decades, "the river ran red" with packinghouse waste until rendering plants began processing it, according to historian Noel's new book, Riding High."

"Though they cleaned up the river, rendering plants fouled the area with pungent odors that downwind Denverites sniffed about," Noel writes."

"The country markets that replaced Denver's centralized one still operate in such places as Greeley, Fort Collins, Brush and La Junta."

"But even those have been threatened by the advent of video auctions, which allow ranchers to sell their livestock from their own barns and fields."

"Still, the aromas that go with the business remain a fixture of sorts wherever the livestock reside."

"We look at it as prosperity," said Sylvester, whose family still operates a farm in LaSalle."

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I remember the Platte River Valley going through Denver when I was a child as more or less a flat bottom of land with farms on the south of town and various enterprises a bit further north, threading through everything were the rails, near downtown were the warehouses of all sorts and other industreies and businesses, and the Union Station where the mail came in, passengers embarked or alit, in my early years the mail came by rail car into the Union Station, that was our only source of incoming and outgoing mail.

Then came the stockyards and packing plants.

There was no leash law back then, dogs and their excrement were every where, gutters were filled with cigarette butts, candy wrappers and other detritus. Those were the days that screen doors were an absolute necessity.

My wife's father worked in the packing plant as did one of my brothers-in-law and my youngest brother-in-law worked there in the summers to earn tuition money.

Back then transportation to and from work and shopping expeditions to "down-town" were made via street car trolley's. During the busy times of day the street cars pulled trailers, and were pretty will fully loaded then. After the rush the trailers were parked on sidings. Our house was just down the alley from the avenue where some of the trailers were parked. The sound of street car wheels on the rails a half block from our house, and then squealing as they went around the curve onto East Evans Avenue going out by the University of Denver echo in my soul today.

Those were the days when Daniels and Fisher's Tower downtown and the Catherdral of the Immaculate conception just a bit uptown stood out as quite visible landmarks. They towered above the street signs, some of which were atop buildings down there. Those are another long gone curiosities that lent color to a trip to downtown. Many of them by using stepping relays made their lights appear to rotate around the edges, and then came neon.

Now about one hundred years from its beginning comes to us The National Western Stockshow helping us remember how things once were. Just a short little trip back to my childhood, MORE YORE . . . . . . . .

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