Stockyards book wins Millennium Gold

 (Dec. 10, 2006) – “A Way of Life: A Story of the Sioux City Stockyards” has won a gold award in the 2006 Fall Millennium Awards competition. The 240-page book was among two percent of more than 2,100 professional-level entries that won a Gold Millennium.

  “A Way of Life,” written by Marcia Poole, covers more than 140 years of Sioux City Stockyards history. George Lindblade and Christine McAvoy, of G.R. Lindblade, were photo editors. Lou Ann Lindblade designed the richly illustrated book. It was published by the Sioux City Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center Association with funding from Missouri River Historical Development, Inc. (MRHD) and printed by Anderson Brothers of Sioux City. Stanley Evans, retired President and Chairman of the Board of the Live Stock National Bank, was advisor to the project. The book was released in May and has sold more than 1,300 copies.

The Millennium Awards competition honors outstanding local, regional and national print, web-design, TV, audio, video and film productions with the goal of inspiring and supporting the visual and creative arts community. Entries are judged on a point system and based on creativity; design; innovation; presentation and technical merit.    “A Way of Life” is available at the Sioux City Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center.   The book begins the Sioux City Stockyards story with the role of hogs as the “mortgage lifters” of the nation’s meatpacking industry, first in Cincinnati and then Chicago. It moves on to the arrival of James Booge in Sioux City in 1858 and his rapid ascent as a national leader in meatpacking.

“A Way of Life: A Story of the Sioux City Stockyards” took a gold prize in the Fall 2006 Millennium Awards Competition.

  The chronology follows milestones, including the arrival of the railroad in Sioux City, Booge’s move to South Bottoms, development of refrigerated technology, the rise of beef in the latter part of the 19^th century and the advent of farm-to-market trucking in the early 20^th century.

  Poole illuminates the connection between Corps of Discovery history and the Sioux City Stockyards Company. She highlights great challenges and tragedies, including labor strikes, devastating floods and the Swift & Co. plant explosion in 1949. “The Yards district and its allied industries were at the heart of Sioux City for more than a century. They pumped life into every part of the community and into places hundreds of miles beyond,” she says.

  Festivals and fairs, 4-H kids and Babe Ruth exhibitions figure into the colorful history. Pork Days attracted more than 20,000 people for a single event on Dace Street; Truckers’ Days honored the people who moved millions of head of livestock in and out of the Yards each year; and masterful communicators and boosters, including the Stockettes, supported the Yards as Sioux City’s economic core.

  “You can’t talk about the history of the Yards without talking about the South Bottoms and immigrants, urban development, Floyd River flood control, the White Horse Mounted Patrol, Half Moon Lake and dozens of allied industries,” Poole says.

  The theme that runs throughout is the Yards’ tradition of integrity. Sales were finalized with a handshake that was honored virtually without question.

  “A Way of Life” is also the story of an industry that changed radically, beginning in the 1950s. Tradition gave way to new ways of marketing and gradually the Yards faded as the place to buy and sell livestock. Then came the devastating Livestock Exchange Building fire of May 15, 1998, the final auction on March 28, 2002, and an end to a way of life.

  The Sioux City Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, exit 149 off I-29, is a private, non-profit institution built and sustained by MRHD and dedicated to “Commemorating a history of encounters.” Admission, all programs, exhibits and activities are free. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday.  For more information, call 712-224-5242 or visit www.siouxcitylcic.com.

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