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The Wichita slaughterhouse district was just to the west of the MoPac main line, with only the Rock Island and some slum houses in between. The Armour and Swift plants faced west, to the Santa Fe and N. Broadway. Behind them were the pens. To the north was Jacob Dold, which might originally have been served by the Frisco. On the opposite side of the MoPac, facing 21st, was the Excel slaughterhouse and maybe some other meat operations. So the MoPac served a small part of the slaughter industry directly, but had access to the Wichita Union Stockyards through the WTA (Wichita Terminal Association, which still exists), to ship critters in and body parts out.
So in this case, the hides were from cows and sheep mostly. They would have been outbound loads, since I don’t know of any tanneries in the immediate area. A dead critter hide probably smells the same, whether muskrat or bovine.
There would have been outbound tallow loads also, which at least were in tank cars.
Ron Merrick
