2 – CHAPPEL BROTHERS CORPORATION – 2015 LAST REVISED 01/04/16
MCHF & WHC HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE:
CHAPPEL BROTHERS CORPORATION
YEAR OF INDUCTION: 2015
DISTRIT OF INDUCTION: 2
Philip Mitchell (PM) Chappel and his brothers, Earl and Ernst, founded The
Chappel Brothers Corporation (CBC) in Rockford, Illinois, during World War I. Their
horsemeat packing plant grew to be the world's largest. CBC shipped horsemeat,
intended for human consumption, to Europe.
Family history has PM’s wife Louise (Howe) Chappel drawing his attention to
backyard dogs fighting over horse offal. PM saw a business opportunity. In 1922, he
introduced Ken-L-Ration, the first canned dog food produced in the United States.
Only Campbell's Soup purchased more tin cans for their product than Ken-L-Ration.
Early Ken-L-Ration labels featured a picture of dogs playing poker. In 1930, Ken-LRation began sponsoring the radio show The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, and their print
ads featured the famed German Shepherd.
In 1927, while on a horse buying venture in Eastern and Central Montana, PM
found another business opportunity. The harsh realities of homesteading had forced
many homesteaders to abandon their homes and land, and turn their horses loose on
the open range. The price of horses had dropped to pennies on the pound, which
would not cover the cost of shipping them to market. Ranchers also felt the pinch.
They turned out their horses with thoughts of gathering them again when the market
improved.
PM Chappel took action. The CBC was incorporated in Montana in February
1929. The company bought and leased large tracts of land that gave CBC ownership
of all the unbranded horses grazing those lands. At the peak of the venture, CBC
owned or leased 1.6 million acres in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. In
Montana, an estimated 60,000 horses grazed on lands roughly bounded by the
Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers and the Red Water River east of Circle to the
Musselshell River in the west. The outfit divided the vast amount of land into four
operational divisions: Oswego, Miles City, Fort Belknap and briefly Sweeney Creek then for a season in South Dakota due to drought in Montana. CBC cowboys began
removing thousands of horses that were overgrazing the range.
The company also spurred local economies as it leased and purchased land,
paid taxes and wages. During the lean years of the Depression, the CBC employed
dozens of men and paid higher wages than other outfits. Riding for the company was
mostly seasonal work, four to five months in duration. Some cowboys rode for the
CBC a season or two while others returned season after season. Many of the cowboys
who learned discipline and hard work while riding for the CBC later became
successful in ranching or other fields.
CBC cowboys were typically young tough men in their 20’s and able to work
long hours in the saddle for seven days a week. They answered to the names of Slim,
Slatts or Bearfoot. They were reputedly the best of the best horsemen. The cowboys
gathered thousands of horses and branded them where they found them. For this
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reason, local ranchers sent representatives called “reps” to retrieve their horses
swept up by CBC roundups. After the roundups, the cowboys sorted and trailed
horses to railheads for shipment to Rockford. They broke saddle horses for the
remuda, gelded two-year-old stallions, and branded colts. Their work was dangerous
and hard. No wonder, under-aged cowboys were required to have their parents sign
a waiver. Each member of the wagon crew had a specific job to do. The wagon boss
was in charge of the crew and roundup. The horse wrangler handled the horses, and
the nighthawk was the wrangler who herded the remuda at night. The cook ruled over
the chuck wagon and fed the men. He was the lone man the cowboys excluded from
their practical joking. If they made him mad, he might quit and leave them to fend for
themselves.
In 1934, when prices on the horse market rebounded, CBC sold horses by
boxcar load. Local operations wound down by 1936 and in 1937, with most of the
animals gathered and shipped, CBC discontinued its operations in Montana. After
that, area cowboys were paid $5 per head to gather stragglers. The company operated
in Rockford until 1942 when it was sold to the Quaker Oats Company in Ohio. PM and
Louise moved to Argentina and started a new canning business near Buenos Aires.
CBC reunions were held in Wolf Point in 1975, 1977, and 1987, and attended
by former cowboys and their families, and the family members of PM and Louise. In
1994, Miles City hosted the final roundup of the CBC cowboys.
Whether referred to as Chappel Brothers Cannery, or Coffee, Biscuits, Colts, or
Corned Beef and Cabbage, the outfit and its cowboys was the last vestige of the Old
West open range era. As former CBC cowboy Claire Boyce wrote:
The C. B. C. was prestigious in that if you held a job there, you were automatically
considered a top hand by your peers. It really never stopped there either. When we
walked into a dance hall, the girls would whisper, “The C. B. C. cowboys!” They would
drop the neighbor farmer boys like a steer in the road; and we would damn sure give
them a whirl!
Information supplied by Catherine Rich Demeter, granddaughter of PM Chappel, owner, and
Elizabeth Bridges Cahill, daughter of Shirley Bridges, foreman Oswego Division.
Unpublished writing of former CBC cowboy Claire Boyce.
Jordan Tribune, February 2, 1984, The Days of the CBC by Al Johnson.
Montana: The Magazine of Western History, autumn 1986, Rounding up “Canners” for the
“Corned Beef and Cabbage” by Robert W. “Ike” Eigell, former CBC cowboy
The World Famous Miles City Jaycee Bucking Horse Sale, Collector’s Edition, 1982, Copyright
John Moore, The 30s – Era of the CBC.
A Loose Ladigo and A Locked Dallie. "When the Legend is Truth," unpublished writing of
Owen G. Badgett. CBC History – A Bold End To An Era.
"Left on the High Plains and Come Ride with Me," by Mary Lou Davis. Copyright 2012.
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http://www.rockfordreminisce.com/Chappel_Brothers.html (accessed 4/6/2015)
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