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 meat was raised, packed and marketed turned the factory into a relic. It was closed in 1979 and a decade later, everything was demolished except the gates.
“In the 35 years since the Armour plant was demolished, the structures have stood witness,” the city said on its Facebook page. The gates that once welcomed workers to the Armour and Co. meatpacking plant survived long enough to see the site and the adjacent former Union Stockyards transform into a business park with more than 80 businesses.
Decision to demolish
Brick and limestone gates seen in 2009 at the old Armour & Co. meatpacking plant in South St. Paul. The gates were demolished on Dec. 2, 2025. (Ben Garvin / Pioneer Press)
The decision to deconstruct the gates was driven by several factors, including the high price tags to either relocate or maintain the structures.
By removing the gates, the city is making way for Bonfe Plumbing and Heating to acquire the site at Armour Avenue and Hardman Avenue South for an office and warehouse building that could generate up to $175,000 in annual property taxes, the South St. Paul Voice reported.
The demolition of the gates is expected to wrap up this week, but not all bricks will be accounted for.
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“The city is salvaging intact brick and limestone elements of the structures,” said City Administrator Ryan Garcia on Thursday.
While there is no plan to formally display the salvaged materials, “the high-level discussion to this point has been around providing an opportunity for community members to obtain bricks as ‘keepsakes’ and, to the extent feasible, integrating masonry elements into a public art installation of some sort,” Garcia said.
The details of that potential project would be decided through a public engagement process next year, he said.
“Ultimately, the difficult conclusion was reached that deconstructing the structures and preserving those elements of the structures that remain intact represented the most fiscally responsible and holistically forward-looking approach, all the while recognizing that this approach was not a universally popular one,” the city said on Facebook.
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