Unidentified Carstens Packing Co. employee stands in front of a heavy duty truck with trailer on July 10, 1926, at the company plant, 1623 East J St. in the Tideflats. The truck and accompanying trailer are labeled "Carstens Products" and state that the U.S. government has inspected meats processed by the firm. Customers could be assured that the meat was safe to eat, no small worry after the horrors of the meat packing industry uncovered decades before by novelist Upton Sinclair.
These cattle were confined within the Carstens Packing Co.'s stockyards in July of 1926. Feeding troughs were built within the pens and many of the cattle pictured have their heads buried deep inside the bins. Carstens was a major meat packing firm located in the Tideflats since 1903. The stockyards had space for 1,200 cattle. The cattle would have been fattened up, slaughtered, and their meat processed by Carstens' large workforce. (TNT 3-31-27, p. 6-article on Carstens plant)
Three unidentified employees at the Carstens Packing Company plant, 1623 East J St., in Tacoma look over the sides of beef hanging in one of the Carstens' meat lockers. Carstens Packing Company was the largest independent meat packing company on the West Coast, with plants in Tacoma, Seattle and Spokane. They provided quality assured wieners, beef, bacon, ham, sausage, lamb, pork, veal and many other meat products. A copy of this photograph was ordered by the Poodle Dog Restaurant in Fife to be part of the Richard's Commercial Photography photo mural at the restaurant. The Carstens Packing Company was sold to Hygrade in 1952, and closed in 1990.
Carsten- Hygrade employees pose in the yard at the meat packing facility at 1623 East "J" St. According to Richards Studio notes, the picture is of 300-400 people. The locally owned Carstens Meat Packing got its start in Tacoma in 1903. In 1954, it was sold to the Hygrade Food Products Corporation. In 1990, the company made the decision to close its Tacoma plant.
