Fascinating tale of a uniquely Western enterprise
10/15/2001
Miller & Lux, a meatpacking conglomerate established by two San Francisco butchers in 1858, entered the twentieth century as one of the nation's largest industrial corporations. In Industrial Cowboys, David Igler, an historian at the University of Utah, draws a picture of a company that completely dominated the industry with a "herd of one hundred thousand cattle [which] grazed upon 25 million acres in company land in three western sites." Part corporate history, part uniquely Western tale, Igler traces the firm's expansion from meat wholesalers to cattle, irrigation, and land reclamation leaders. He also explores a wider subject, the transformation of the American West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly the impact of industrial development on the physical and natural environment of the West.