Business and Industry | Page 45

Minnesota State Lottery game featuring SPAM

Paper sheet with game rules and information on winning odds for the Minnesota State Lottery game sponsored by Hormel (and featuring SPAM), 2000.

SPAM can furniture

Recycled tin cans converted into doll furniture. Items include a rocking chair, armchair, and loveseat. All three seats are covered with red cushions. The chairs were made from round cans; the love seat was made from a SPAM can. Purchased in Austin, Minnesota, ca. 1965.

A meat processor at the Hormel Company

A meat processor at the Hormel Company, Austin, Minnesota, ca. 1955.

Hormel packing plant

Hormel packing plant, Austin, Minnesota, ca. 1932.

Jay Catherwood Hormel

Jay Catherwood Hormel of Austin, Minnesota, president of the Hormel Packing Company, ca. 1923.

SPAM

In 1937, the George A. Hormel Company, a meat-packing business in Austin, Minnesota, introduced SPAM luncheon meat to use up an excess of pork shoulder in their inventory. In the eighty years since its introduction, SPAM has fed millions of people and is available in more than forty countries and in over fifteen varieties and sizes.

Hudson’s Bay Company Trading Post, Georgetown

In 1859, the Hudson’s Bay Company built a trading post and steamboat landing near the meeting point of the Red and Buffalo Rivers in Minnesota. They named the post and the surrounding town Georgetown. The traders left the post during the US–Dakota War of 1862 but returned when the war ended. When the Northern Pacific and other railroad companies built lines through Clay County in the 1870s, the Hudson’s Bay Company abandoned its post at Georgetown.