Jackson's Goodwins - They were chicken

submitted

This drawing shows the Goodwin Co., a poultry-processing facility that operated in Jackson for over 40 years before closing in 1950.One day in 1920, Jackson, Mo., resident Leander Allen Goodwin was aboard a 23-car freight train, rolling toward New York. The freight carried 13 cars of chickens.

Goodwin was on board to protect his interests.

His interest was chickens.

Goodwin operated one of the largest chicken shipping businesses in the United States, with depots in several states and headquarters in Jackson, Mo.

The journey came during a railroad strike. Aboard the train were 23 Goodwin representatives -- one for each car -- to guard, feed and water the birds, which had been routed through Canada into New York.

One of Goodwin's largest markets for chickens was the New York and East Coast market. In better days, when all the railroads were operating, train loads of chickens with 70 cars were shipped east.

Early in the last century, the poultry business in Jackson enjoyed national prominence, and the company handled and shipped chickens, turkeys, eggs, geese, ducks and quail.

The 1920s was a decade of growth for Goodwin's poultry and egg company.

Goodwin Co. was operating facilities that included buying stations, shipping operations, dressing plants, hatcheries and cream stations in more than 60 locations in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee.

"The company's gross sales at the time exceeded $3 million a year," said R. B. "Bob" Goodwin, a grandson of the company's founder. "In the 1920s, that translated into big bucks."

Fowl beginning

Leander Goodwin entered the wholesale poultry and egg business in northwest Indiana. By the turn of the century, Goodwin had moved his operations from Indiana to Southern Illinois, and then to Lutesville, Mo.

In 1894, Goodwin formed the Goodwin & Jean Partnership with Robert F. Jean of Dexter.

In 1907, the company moved its headquarters to Jackson, building a shipping and receiving facility, a poultry dressing plant, egg processing facility, cold storage facilities, ice manufacturing plant and a cream station.

Later, Leander Goodwin and W. T. Dickey purchased Jean's interest, and the company became Goodwin Co.

But the 1930s took a toll on the company. Goodwin continued to provide local and eastern markets with products, but by 1939 the company starting selling off its assets to remain solvent.

By the end of 1942, an operation at Delta was the only Goodwin company facility remaining.

Leander Goodwin remained head of the company until his death in 1943. At that time, his son, Robert B. Goodwin, became company president.

Then, in 1948, the Delta facility was sold, and the company formed a partnership with J. R. Bowman and repurchased the Jackson plant, operating the Goodwin Poultry Co. until 1950 when all operations ceased, ending an 85-year cycle of poultry processing by the Goodwin family.

Leander and Fannie Gillespie Goodwin were parents of five sons and three daughters. All five sons, Walter, Robert, Frank Ray and Roy, as well as son-in-law Weston Henderson, worked for the company. So did one daughter, Mary Jane Goodwin Gladish.

The Goodwin home, constructed in the early 1900s, consisted of 21 rooms. The "White House" was the work of Theodore Link, who had designed homes for prominent St. Louis families.

The former Goodwin home is now operated as White House Bed and Breakfast at Jackson.

B. Ray Owen is the Southeast Missourian's community news editor. Contact him at P.O. Box 699; Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702.