The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
the plant at 1825 West Main Street
Fred Eckart was Fort Wayne's original meat packer, and long its largest: a German immigrant who, by the tradition the genealogical society copies, came to America at sixteen with fifty cents in his pocket. The tradition is carried here as tradition; the documented record is the scale. The Fort Wayne Gazette of 8 February 1879 already called his operation "mammoth," while the News-Sentinel's Cityscapes history of 5 December 1982 dates the huge plant at 1825 West Main Street to 1887, at a cost of $25,000 — and the Business record lets both dates stand. The plant was bought by Kuhner Packing of Muncie in 1940 and sold on to Marhoefer in 1946; the stockyard burned in 1949.
Sources:
- Businesses — "Fred Eckart Packing House" (the Gazette of 8 February 1879, the Cityscapes plant dating, the 1940 and 1946 sales and the 1949 fire).
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana (ACGSI) — the immigration tradition, copied as tradition.