Cancel for July 2: The Cudahy Packing Company, South Omaha

THE C. P. CO.

JUL

2

1900

SO. OMAHA

For the past few years I've puzzled over this cancel and others like it, figuring that it must have something to do with the Central Pacific railroad or the Canadian Pacific.  The Canadian Pacific made little sense since its lines ran far from Omaha.  The Central Pacific was a bit more likely, but it was the UP that was based in Omaha, and by the time of these cancels the original CP had corporately morphed into the Southern Pacific.  So neither possibility was likely.

So for other reasons I started to research meat packers, and I came to learn that Cudahy had had a major plant in South Omaha.  Problem solved?  I suppose there could have been other CP Co.s based in So. Omaha, but Cudahy would have been the largest.

From Wikipedia:

The Cudahy Packing Plant was a division of the Cudahy Packing Company located at South 36th and O Streets in South Omaha, Nebraska. The plant was opened in 1885 and closed in 1967.  The plant included more than 20 buildings that were one to six stories tall, covering five square blocks.  It was located on the South Omaha Terminal Railway, and next to the Omaha Stockyards, making Cudahy one of the "Big Four" packing companies in Omaha.

The Big Four included Armour, Swift, Wilson, and Cudahy packing companies.