Four-Thousand Dollars for One Hog (1897)

MARSH, BRIGGS, WOODS

Posted By: Ken Akers (email)
Date: 5/23/2016 at 20:41:00

Audubon County Journal (IA)
Thursday, Mar. 11, 1897, pg. 2
Four-Thousand Dollars for One Hog.

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Happy Union sold for $4,000 yester-
day.

This is the most sensational commer-
cial transaction on record in the world
of swine and tops by $400 the highest
previous price paid for a hog.

No one imagined on Wednesday,
March 3, 1897, that the world's record
would be broken at Jefferson, Iowa.
But it was.

When Mr. Marsh, of Waterlooo, rep-
resenting a company of five men, bid
$4,000 for one hog!. Was this a bona-
fide auction sale or a big joke? Mr.
Briggs, the well known Glidden breed-
er, had bid $3,900 and he said he was
not joking, and when Col. Woods said
"sold" and Mr. Marsh said "to the
Happy Union Stock Company," and
later put up the bankable collateral
for $4,000, it became evident it was not
a joke.

$4,000 for a hog.

Do you realize what that means?
The equivalent of eighty average
horses; one hundred and twenty good
cows; the value of a good 100 acre
farm.

Thus Happy Union will leave Greene
county bearing the proud distinction
of being the highest priced hog in the
world. He weighs in the neighbor-
hood of 600 pounds any is certainly a
magnificent specimen of pork. His
pedigree is exceptionally fine, and as
both his parents are dead he is the last,
it might be said, of a race of wonderful
hogs.--Jefferson Bee.