Biggest Manure Pile in U.S. History Excreted Sweet Stink of Money

“The manure was the result of profit, success, and capitalism,” says Sioux City icon George Lindblade, “but with so many cattle…the volume of manure is hard for most people to comprehend.”
“The manure was the result of profit, success, and capitalism,” says Sioux City icon George Lindblade, “but with so many cattle…the volume of manure is hard for most people to comprehend.”
(Creative Commons, Wikimedia)

Billed as the “world’s biggest pile of sh**,” in its day, a steaming, multi-story heap of manure large enough to fill a sporting arena once dominated the periphery of Sioux City, Iowa and triggered a war between the stockyards and city fathers.

Prone to consistent spontaneous combustion fires, the manure mountain reached its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s, culminating in an infamous “golden nugget” roadside sign, a 15’-tall odor-blocking fence, and an EPA enema.

Rare Air

Where Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota collide on the Midwest map, the Sioux City Stockyards once thrived as a giant Petri dish of commerce and color. The yards bustled for decades as a 20th century tableau of the surreal. Livestock, packers, yardmen, commission men, farmers, order buyers, dealers, truckers, feed companies, serum companies, rendering facilities, restaurants, railroads, banks, insurance agencies, bars, hotels, newspapers, printers, and a litany of forgotten characters and businesses were jammed into a 100-acre universe beside the Missouri River.

 

Manure Fire in Sioux City, Iowa. Photo by George Lindblade.

In summertime, the manure pile sometimes caught fire due to spontaneous combustion. George Lindblade’s lens captured Sioux City firefighters dealing with a manure blaze. (Photo by George Lindblade)

 

The scent of crisp dollars—clean, sweet ink pressed into cotton-fiber bills tucked into tannin-soaked leather wallets—contrasted with the lingering smell of physical waste from millions of cows, hogs, and sheep across decades of presence in the stockyards.

“The manure was the result of profit, success, and capitalism,” says George Lindblade, “but with so many cattle coming through on a daily and weekly basis, the volume of manure is hard for most people to comprehend.”

Lindblade, 85, is an icon of Sioux City and a legend in the photography industry. Starting with a box camera at age 7, Lindblade’s career carried him across the U.S. in pursuit of the majestic and mundane, and compelled popes, presidents, politicians, musicians, and pop notaries to cross his lens. Whether shooting documentaries or commercial photos, Lindblade has eyeballed the rare air of forgotten history—including the stockyards.

(For more on the stockyards, see Judas Goats: Agriculture’s Bizarre, Drug-Addicted Masters of Deceit Once Ruled the Killing Floor)

Cattle pens were cleaned daily, Lindblade explains, and the waste loaded onto modified dump trucks. “They kept the pens pretty empty of manure because everyone wanted to buy clean cattle and you had lots of buyers walking through. Once a truck was full, it unloaded on flat ground really close to I-29. That area turned into a gigantic manure dump. You’d almost have to see it to believe it. At one time, it was considered to be the biggest pile of manure in the whole world.”

A Manure Island

A stone’s throw from I-29 (interstate construction started in the late 1950s and finished by the early 1960s), the manure pile expanded outward and upward. “The trucks dumped at the edge, and then a drag line and bucket moved the loads onto the pile,” Lindblade recalls. “I’d estimate the cranes I saw went up at least 20’ in the air, and the pile easily covered a football field at its base. All together, the height of the manure was unbelievable.”

In the dry, baking summers, the manure pile frequently caught fire due to spontaneous combustion. Sometimes the pile smoldered; sometimes flames broke out; and sometimes the fire department arrived to douse the burning dung.

 

Massive manure fire in Iowa. Photo by George Lindblade.
Sioux City firefighters extinguishing a blaze at the Sioux City Stockyards. (Photo by George Lindblade)

 

“The stockyards predated I-29, so the highway encroached on the stockyards,” Lindblade explains. “The manure pile grew up right along the interstate, easily within 100 yards, and sometimes the odor would broadcast for miles when the wind came out of the south. Needless to say, the chamber of commerce in Sioux City was outraged, but the stockyards didn’t care about a bunch of city officials. They kept on cleaning the pens, piling the waste, and growing their island of manure.”

Invisible Barrier

Partially in reaction to chastisement from the Sioux City bureaucracy, the stockyards erected a roadside sign along I-29 and doubled-down on stink. “To stick it in the eye of the chamber, the stockyard placed a sign on the highway that declared something to the effect of, ‘This manure pile is here because of our cattle capacity and business.’ At the sign’s bottom, there was a picture of a gold nugget, with a caption: ‘The Smell of Gold.’”

The chamber of commerce was disgusted by the advertisement and incensed by the gall of the stockyards. Taking the bait, the chamber reacted via bureaucratic diktat, cordoning off the manure zone by erecting a 15’ metal fence along I-29 that served, in theory, as a breeze block.

“Seriously, they tried to divert the smell with a fence,” Lindblade exclaims, in between fits of laughter. “I wasn’t raised on a farm, but I’m smart enough to know you can’t trap odor behind a fence. It was about as effective as putting up an 18” barrier to keep your neighbor’s cat out of your flower bed. In reality, the metal fence may as well have been invisible and it made sense to no one except the city officials. Everyone driving up I-29 could still see the stockyard golden nugget sign; still see the manure pile; and still smell the manure.”

Strange Brew

In the mid-1960s, Lindblade estimates, due to proximity of the Missouri River, the EPA sounded the death knell for the stockyard’s manure mountain. “The manure was actually a source of goodwill because the area farmers got all they wanted and so did anyone else. Everyone ran at least one manure spreader and some guys ran more than one. The manure was probably offensive to about 10% of Sioux City, but the city still managed to get EPA to raise hell and force removal of the world’s biggest manure pile.”

The manure mountain is only one of many oddities concocted in the strange brew of the Sioux City Stockyards, but now lost to time. “That was back before genuine modern technology and digital automation,” Lindblade concludes. “Cattle equal manure and the stockyards adapted accordingly. Maybe the stockyard operation didn’t fit in with the wisdom of city officials, but the cattlemen weren’t the ones dumb enough to think a 15’ fence would stop the smell of manure. The city officials never did get it: That stench was the smell of money.”

To read more stories from Chris Bennett (cbennett@farmjournal.com 662-592-1106) see:

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

The Arrowhead whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Where's the Beef: Con Artist Turns Texas Cattle Industry Into $100M Playground

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

US Farming Loses the King of Combines

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Rat Hunting with the Dogs of War, Farming's Greatest Show on Legs

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

 

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