jan 25, 1879 - Meatpacking becomes Milwaukee's Largest Industry

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The industry's acknowledged patriarch was John Plankinton, a native of Delaware who had come to Milwaukee in 1844. Within a year of his arrival, Plankinton owned the largest butcher shop in the county, and he had begun to cure and pack meat for shipment to more distant customers. As the number of farms around Milwaukee multiplied, a growing surplus of hogs and cattle attracted others to the packing business, including John Layton and his son, Frederick. The Laytons were English immigrants who owned a butcher shop downtown and a farm near what is now the intersection of Lincoln and Forest Home Avenues - an area known to early white settlers as Indian Fields and to more recent residents as the Layton Park neighborhood. Plankinton later partnered with Philip Armour. The pair's general manager, a young Irishman named Patrick Cudahy, later embarked on his own, setting up his packing business to the south of Milwaukee in an area that still bears his name.

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