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Stockyards program, (Jan. 18, 2008) – The Betty Strong Encounter Center will celebrate Siouxland’s stockyards heritage with a program by author Marcia Poole and photographer George Lindblade at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 27 in the Stanley Evans Auditorium. Admission will be free. At the conclusion of the program, visitors will receive an Eaton Bar, a chocolate confection produced by the Palmer Candy Company. The special edition treat honors Fred L. Eaton, the banker who came to Sioux City from Vermont to lead the reorganization of the Yards after the Panic of 1893 and build it into one of the nation’s leading central public markets. Eaton is a focus of “A Way of Life: Stories from the Yards,” the second volume of the Center’s Yards history project. The books were written by Poole; G.R. Lindblade & Co. designed the books and served as photo editors. Both books were published by the Sioux City Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center Association with funding from Missouri River Historical Development, Inc. (MRHD). They are available at the Center. “When you take a good look at stockyards history, in Sioux City and throughout the nation, Fred Eaton emerges as a key leader,” says Poole. “Under Eaton, trucking rapidly took hold as the main mode of transporting livestock to market. Along with road improvements and refrigeration technology development, trucking transformed the industry, eclipsing the railroads and putting more control in the hands of farmers and ranchers. By 1929, Sioux City was the nation’s No. 1 trucked-in market, outranking Omaha, Kansas City and Chicago.” Palmer Family archives were a rich source of photographs, documents, letters and other materials for “A Way of Life II.” Doug Palmer, president of Tegra Corporation (formerly Terminal Grain Corporation), and Marty Palmer, president of Palmer Candy Company, are great-grandsons of Eaton. The Center’s event will present other highlights of more than a century at the Yards. The afternoon will include showings of “A Way of Life, with Stanley Evans,” a DVD produced by G.R. Lindblade & Co. Evans, who was president and chairman of the board of the Live Stock National Bank, was advisor to the Yards book project until his death in December 2006. The Yards and its allied industries pumped life into every part of Siouxland and hundreds of miles beyond. “It wasn’t one person or family that made the Yards a great place. It was thousands of people – wonderful people – who made the Yards what it was,” Evans says in the introduction to volume II. One chapter tells the story of John “Jiggs” Donohue, a legendary commission man and consummate Yards promoter. Donohue’s connections brought Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe Louis to Sioux City as part of his Stockyards promotional plan. Among Donohue’s high-profile publicity stunts was a trip to the 1928 annual stock growers’ convention in Havre, Mont., aboard “The Spirit of South Dakota.” He promoted the airplane as the sister ship of Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis.” Volume II looks at the impact of the Swift & Co. workers’ strike that dragged on from late September 1938 until almost February 1939. It also includes the January 1946 nationwide strike when President Harry Truman ordered the federal government to take over meatpacking plants to prevent a meat shortage. Service men and women had returned from World War II to find an increased cost of living but little or no increase in their wages. The Live Stock National Bank robbery of 1935 and stories of legendary commission men also figure into volume II, as well as dozens of sidebars that pick up family memories and unique events and aspects of the Yards. Photos and memorabilia were contributed by more than 70 people and institutions, including Morningside College which boasted one of the nation’s leading livestock marketing education programs. Readers learn more about Stockyards Company official and broadcaster Don Cunningham who was known as the “voice of the Yards.” Cunningham took every opportunity to promote the central public market system. In one of his 1940 radio broadcasts, Cunningham urged homemakers to “use more lard” in their pie-making. Lard was best for baking and good for hog prices, he told listeners. A lard-inspired recipe for kolaches is drawn from the 1987 Stock Yards Centennial Cookbook, compiled by The Stockettes, a group organized to promote goodwill among all aspects of the livestock industry. Both Yards book are available at the Center. The Betty Strong Encounter Center is a private, non-profit institution built and sustained by MRHD and located on the Missouri Riverfront, exit 149 off I-29. Admission and all programs are free. For more information, call 712-224-5242 or visit www.siouxcitylcic.com.
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