Fulton Packeries

Early Fulton was surrounded by ranches and could be accessed by water, making the town a leading packing center on the Texas coast. The industry flourished from 1868 to 1882. At first, the packeries rendered only cattle hides and tallow and dumped the carcasses in the bay. Later, as demand for beef as food increased, they packed pickled, salted, or dried meat in barrels for shipment by steamer to New Orleans and other ports. At the industry’s height, Fulton’s packeries included the Boston Beef Packing Co.; Carruthers, Fulton, and Co.; Lyman Meat Packing and Canning; W. S. Hall Co.; American Meat Packing Co.; Meriam Packing Co.; McNeill, Nash and Co.; and D.L. & E.G. Holden, which in 1871 became the first mechanically refrigerated slaughter house in America. As early as 1870, some packeries also processed turtles from Aransas Bay. Weighing from 100 to 500 pounds, turtles were trapped and kept alive in submerged 12-foot-square rope and wood pens until the price was highest per pound. In 1890, the Fulton Canning Co. produced 40,000 2-pound cans of turtle meat. In 1895, Texas imposed restrictions to halt the severe depletion of turtles and oysters in its bays, but the turtle population could not be saved, and by 1900 turtle packing in Fulton had ended. Beef packing also declined rapidly after a rail line arrived in 1888 and allowed live cattle to be shipped to distant packing plants.

Fulton, Texas · United States