C. Swanston began his long association with the Sacramento Valley in 1886 when he established his first meat-packing plant and abattoir along the Sacramento River south of the city. Late in 1915, in what is now North Sacramento, the company opened a "splendid new plant...embracing the most modern of sanitary meat packing devices." Swanston & Son, Inc. may have improved the quality of meat in the Sacramento Valley, but judging from the photos on this advertising page from a 1920 Elk Club publication, they didn't improve the air. From the stinky sloughs to the rancid reek of rendered creatures, Sacramento suffered the smells taken for granted in those primitive, pre-smog days.
