Coastal Hide, Tallow and Packing Industries

Facilities for the rendering of hides and tallow and for meat packing flourished along the Texas coastal bend during the last half of the nineteenth century, when hundreds of thousands of wild longhorns roamed South Texas; packery channel was named for the facilities located along the waterway. At a time when long-term meat preservation was unavailable, the abundance of free range cattle and the inability to either ship the live cattle to eastern population centers or to effectively and efficiently preserve beef on site for later transport caused local entrepreneurs to develop ways to produce other marketable products from the animals. Hides were used in leather production, buttons and combs were made out of horn, and ground bones were used to produce fertilizer. Small amounts of meat were preserved by pickling, but the process was relatively ineffective.

Many documented packing and rendering plants dotted the coast, and waste was dumped into the bays and channels. The factories caused additional problems in sanitation and public health. Because of the abundance of cattle and their resulting low monetary value, factories often stripped the hides and other non-edible parts from the carcasses and left the meat to spoil, causing terrible odors and pest infestations.

The factories thrived for several decades, but hard winters and droughts in 1873 and 1874 depleted the cattle supply, making it no longer profitable to slaughter cattle just for their hides, tallow and bones. Because of this change in the cattle market, most of the facilities shuttered their doors by the late 1870s.