This photograph from the early 1920s documents the continued growth and prominence of Calgary's first major industry, meat packing. Pat Burns, sometimes known as the Cattle King of the British Northwest, was the founder of the largest firm and commenced his career in the late 1880s, supplying beef to railway construction crews. This brought him to Calgary in 1890 where construction had started on the Calgary and Edmonton Railway. From an initial small slaughterhouse in Calgary, Burns expanded his business into a vast, vertically-integrated enterprise that comprised huge ranches in the Alberta foothills, large abattoirs in various Canadian cities and dozens of retail butcher shops in Alberta and British Columbia. Burns' beef could, therefore, go all the way from western grazing land to the consumer's table without ever leaving the company's control.
The Burns' facilities seen here date from 1913 when they were rebuilt after fire destroyed the existing buildings and pens. Note the complexity of the sorting and holding system designed to process hundreds of animals daily. From railway cattle cars on the main CPR line (seen on the right) cattle were taken directly through unloading chutes and then along gate-controlled passage ways to the holding pens. Some cattle were kept and fed for a short period in order to improve their weight and quality. The larger pens in the upper central part of the pen area were for this purpose. Other animals were ready for immediate slaughter but still had to be sorted according to type and quality. Stock was sometimes held pending market demand.
