Edward Schlesser. History of Kenton, 135-138. Courtesy of the Kenton Neighborhood Association

I worked at Schlesser’s in the summer when I was going to school. I wasn’t on the killing floor, but I can remember when we processed horses. I think that is when I was first involved as an employee. We slaughtered horses and shipped meat to Europe in barrels.

Previous to that time, my father and my uncle started what was called Schlesser Bros. My uncle was C. C. and my father was E. E. They moved here at this particular location from Linnton where they had a very small shop. That was sometime in the 1920’s. They built a fairly large building which is now the Armour & Company Building. The Armour’s garage location was a series of corrals. They brought the horses in on railroad cars and lead them off the cars to the corrals.

The Schlesser brothers were in the beef business and one day a promoter came along and talked them into slaughtering horses. They organized a corporation called Portland Horse Products Co. Under that name the first batch of horses were slaughtered. It was then put on a ship to Holland. For some reason, they had difficulty getting their money for that shipment. They failed to get a letter of credit from the potential customer before the ship sailed. Being inexperienced in business they knew nothing of the export business, and since they were not paid, the meat was put in a warehouse in France and soon disappeared. They never did get their money. After that, the Portland Horse Products Co. went broke. So, my father and uncle took back their plant, but continued slaughtering horses. They didn’t freeze the meat. They boned all the meat, pickled it and put it into barrels. The barrels were rolled onto railroad cars and were shipped to New York. From there they went to Holland where they used the meat in their smorgasbords.

It was after that the horses, or availability of horses, began to dry up and there just weren’t enough in Eastern Oregon. At that time, we were killing about 100 horse each day. Train loads of horses would come in once a week.

While we were doing that, a by-product from the pickled horse meat business was canned dog food. So, a fairly large building was built next to the plant and in there we canned dog food under the name of “Mankind Dog Food.” That label was well known then and sold in the Northwest and in the South. Carloads of canned dog food went south. It was all government inspected because the horse packing plant was government inspected. It was virtually all meat.

After the horses became scarce my father and uncle decided to go back into the beef business. That was in the depression days about 1935-36. They began to slaughter sheep, hogs and cattle. They just sold fresh-dressed meat.

(Ed remembered the hog ranches that were along the slough. He could not remember where, but remembers a hog ranch that had hundreds of hogs.)

There were some houses on Tyndall at that time, between Armour and Columbia Blvd. On the other side of the street a man lived who took care of the corralled horses. It was nothing more than a shack.

I used to ride the corralled horses, but it wasn’t a very smart thing to do. They were wild. It was virtually impossible to ride them until they were “Broke”.

The man who took care of our horses, and I, tried to break them. We would watch for a good-looking horse and work with it until we could saddle it. I can remember one year we sold three horses to a banker called Harvey Dick. He was the son of the U. S. Bank owner, downtown. He used them to play polo. So, we would buy a horse from my father for $40 and sell it to Harvey for $300. We would break them to lead, ride them and sell them. Harvey trained it to play polo. That was a summertime occupation before I worked in the plant.

In 1941 the plant was sold to Armour just before the war. Armour eliminated the slaughtering and just processed meat. They still brought the meat in on rail cars. When they needed fresh meat they would purchase it from Pacific Meat who still slaughtered.

There were a lot of meat processing and slaughtering plants in this area. It was convenient for the purchasing people and butchers to come out here and go to different plants.

In those days, all the waste products from the slaughter houses went into the slough. There was a lot of fishing done in the slough. We used to bring a “22” down here and shoot rats.

The property here, where my company is now, (Ed has a wood molding plant on ColumbiaBlvd.) used to be an old fuel company. They would put coal on barges and come up through here and unload the coal.

East of here was M & M Woodworking Company. It is now Simpson. Malarkey peeled the logs at their plant in St. Johns. They were the original company who started peeling logs to make plywood. They peeled in St. Johns, brought the logs in here and then made the plywood.

I don’t know if it is because of zoning, but I really don’t remember anything going on the south side of Columbia Blvd. On the north side, it is unrestricted use. That is why there were, and are, rendering companies here, along with the smell.

I remember when the Bishops built the scouring mill down there. I think it was always a scouring mill.

I have a log reloading company in Coquille. I buy and sell logs down there. That is where I learned the wood business. You get sawdust in your blood and that is it. We prefinish moldings here. We bring in moldings from Northern California and prefinish them. We have a plant in Aurora that manufactures them. I went from horses to beef to wood. My conscience doesn’t bother me, but it did bother me slaughtering the horses. Nowadays, the wild horses are protected by the government.