South St. Paul bids farewell to historic Armour & Co. gates

After more than 100 years in South St. Paul, the massive red brick gates at the former Armour & Co. meatpacking plant are gone.

The deconstruction of the gates, which was approved by the South St. Paul City Council last month, began Tuesday to the dismay of some local residents.

“I had two grandfathers that worked down there for many years. Right now they’re rolling in their graves,” one resident said on Facebook.

The two brick and limestone gatehouses served as the entrance to the sprawling Armour & Co. meatpacking campus. Constructed in 1919, the campus was once the world’s largest and most modern meatpacking plant. It also helped define the city’s way of life.

At its peak, the Armour complex had 4,000 employees who slaughtered nearly 2,000 animals an hour. But changes in the way mea