Arbogast & Bastian, also known as A&B Meats, was the name of a slaughter-house and meat packing plant located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Once a national leader in hog slaughtering, the company had the capacity to process most of the 850,000 hogs raised annually in Pennsylvania for slaughtering. In its heyday, Arbogast & Bastian slaughtered an average of 4,000 hogs daily.
Arbogast & Bastian was founded in 1887. The company operated for nearly a century prior to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1984, citing cash flow issues brought about by market turmoil and labor disputes. The following year, in 1985, the company filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
With the exception of the company's offices and the storage building, the Arbogast & Bastian plant was demolished in the late 1990s.
The surviving offices were later incorporated into the America on Wheels museum, which was opened on the site of the former Arbogast & Bastian plant in 2008. The storage building was redeveloped, and became RB Collection: Ruozzi Brothers Collection, a trading and restoration center for classic and vintage automobiles, and Palazzo Reale, a residential complex with seven luxury residences. Both buildings, RB Collection and the America on Wheels museum, form what is called the Automobile Corner of America.
History
19th century
thumb|Wilson Arbogast, a co-founder of the company
thumb|Morris Clinton Bastian, a co-founder of the company
thumb|A 1910 illustration of Arbogast & Bastian's facility by the Hamilton Street Bridge and Dam on the [[Lehigh River]]
thumb|An Arbogast & Bastian Co. truck delivering home dressed refrigerated beef in a [[Mack Trucks|Mack Truck, ]]
The Arbogast & Bastian Company was founded in 1887 by Wilson Arbogast and Morris Clinton Bastian. Arbogast, who was born in Freeburg, Pennsylvania, in 1851, was a school teacher by training who entered the wholesale provisioning business in the early 1880s in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Bastian, who was born in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania, in 1859, operated a general store in Allentown.
The two partners built a two-story building and stable at 25 Hamilton Street, in Center City Allentown, purchased two horses, and started supplying provisions and lard to local businesses and distributors. They used their building as a smoke house, and offered freshly-smoked hams and bacon that were prepared using meat purchased ready-cured from other suppliers. Ready-cured meat is meat that, after slaughter and butchery, has been treated by curing in order to prevent the growth of bacteria and to reduce the opportunity for botulism to grow, allowing for safer transport and storage. This grew into a strong business for Arbogast & Bastian, since these goods previously had to be imported from New York City and Philadelphia, and suffered in freshness and quality because of the time required to get the finished product to Allentown.
In 1890, the company added a hog slaughtering department, in order to offer fresh pork and sausages to their customers. The capacity of the plant increased from 150 hogs per week at inception, to over 1,500 hogs per week in 1905.
Arbogast & Bastian Company was formally incorporated in Pennsylvania, with $200,000 in capital ($ million in dollars, adjusted for inflation.), on June 19, 1902. The additional capital raised by the corporation was used to purchase more land and build larger refrigeration facilities and a power plant. By 1905, Arbogast & Bastian's revenues exceeded $1 million per year, amounting to $ million in dollars, adjusted for inflation. It was the first reinforced concrete meat-packing plant in the United States.
The Arbogast & Bastian plant, which allowed for more sanitary and safer operations, was designed and built in direct response to the unsanitary conditions in Chicago's meat-packing plants The bankruptcy was immediately triggered because one of the company's customers had issued a stop-payment on $800,000 worth of checks paid to Arbogast & Bastian. About 380 workers lost their jobs.
Months after filing for bankruptcy, Purity Bacon Products Corp., one of A&B's most profitable divisions,
With the closure of Arbogast & Bastian, only two major meat-processing facilities operate in Pennsylvania, Hatfield Quality Meats in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, and Martins Abattoir & Wholesale Meats, Inc., headquartered in Godwin, North Carolina.
The redevelopment, which was called "Lehigh Landing," was originally designed to include a museum, a brewery, walking trails, a footbridge across the river, and a promenade for festivals.
The plant was dismantled in late 1990s. On June 30, 1998, the company's large heart-shaped sign, long a fixture of the Allentown skyline, was taken down.
The offices of Arbogast & Bastian, had not been torn down and were later incorporated into the America on Wheels museum, which was opened on the site of the former Arbogast & Bastian plant in 2008
Both buildings, the RB Collection and America on Wheels Museum, now form what is known as the Automobile Corner of America in Allentown.