Alan Van Zandt as published on StJoeChannel.com
“They would kill horses and the smell was terrible.”
Old Kill Room
(KAUFMAN, Tex.) Paula Bacon is a fifth generation Kaufman, Texas resident. There’s a street named after her family and a historical office just off of the city square that belonged to her family.
Bacon is a former mayor of Kaufman and is proud of her community, except for one fact: Her city once was the location for a horse slaughter plant.
“(Kaufman) was perceived universally and just 100 percent as that place that you killed horses,” Bacon said. “It was just a tremendous negative to how people looked at our community.”
Dallas Crowne Packaging operated in Kaufman as a horse slaughter plant for 25 years. It closed in 2007, while Bacon was mayor, after funding for U.S.D.A. inspectors was discontinued.
Aside from the stigma of having a horse slaughter plant in town, Bacon says another problem with Dallas Crowne was its location.
“It’s the first thing you see when you come into our community,” Bacon said. “The fact that it backed up to a neighborhood was really awful.”
Robert Eldridge owns the land right next to the plant with his wife Jualine.
“Kill day was the worst day of all,” he said. “They would kill horses and the smell was terrible.”
Eldridge says it wasn’t a good place to raise a family. He maintains property values in the area have been going up since since the plant’s closure and he is personally investing in the area.
“You could hear them whinnying all night. You could hear them stomping in their corral.”
Bacon and others said there were also problems with waste generated from the plant.
“The plant was putting in the waste water system way more polluted water than was permitted,” Bacon said.
The Dallas Crowne facility has sat idle since 2007. A for sale sign sits out front of the building, but there are no takers…(CONTINUED)
Click (HERE) to read rest of story, see video and to comment
Healthy horses waiting to be slaughtered back when Kaufman’s Dallas Crown horse slaughterhouse was in operation ~ photo courtesy of Kaufmanzoning.net
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Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
I just want to let everyone on this blog know about the two bills S.1406/H.R.1518 called “The Prevent All Soring Tactics or (Past) Act. Please support these two bills by calling your Rep and Senator. I was sent this by the Humane Society.org I
subscribe to their blog. I didn’t know about these two bills they seem to have about 250 House members that have cosponsored and 50 in the Senate. That’s a good start to shut down this horrific cruelty.
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Thank you Barb. Will post this information on Facebook. The battle to protect; save our Wild Horses/Horses, never ends.
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Also these Slaughter houses used to throw out heads of horses and their limbs out behind their facility for all to see that passed by, and the Crime rate was higher…………………. These Slaughter houses were beyond the imagination horrible, for all !!!!!!!!! There was a Slaughter house here in Cleveland 35 yrs ago located West 65th and storer avenue that was suppose to be Slaughter cows only, But i first hand saw horses also, i was horrified and scarred by the sight of this , the smell on Saturday was so bad the people living in the neighborhoods surrounding this despicable place would not even venture outdoors. I also have a first hand story about this place when I was 12 i ventured there during one of these Slaughter days , it was so horrible i had to taken to the Hospital………………………
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Arlene, I cant imagine how bad it was for a 12 year old (or ANY age) to see this. It breaks my heart that our horses are still going thru it. No normal person could possibly live or be near one of these plants without feeling that way. Which goes to show what kind of people could tolerate this brutality.
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Dear Maggie Frazier, What I saw there on that day, stayed with me night and day for ever so long I couldnt shake it for years I would have horrible nightmares, wake up shaking and crying hysterically , my Mom would have to slap me to get me out of it, it is part of why I am here, I never want a horse to ever go through that ever again……………….. and also never have a child see that inhuman torture being done to the innocent animals !!!!! The horses are beautiful examples of forgiving love and i am bond to their innocence, peace and freedom forever……………..
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Good gracious, Arlene, no wonder you’re such a dedicated advocate. That must have been absolutely horrific for a young girl! It’s hard to believe that in this day and age there are still millions of people who have no idea that this is happening. But if they’re not in the horse community, or didn’t grow up around it, they can’t really be expected to know. That’s my sole purpose on my Ride For Their Lives, to help people become aware of this, and to ensure they know just how much power they have to stop it forever. We all need to spread the word to anyone who will listen, and sometimes even I they don’t, that our legislators must co-sponsor the S.A.F.E. Act right now! If it’s not out of committee, through both the House and the Senate, and signed into law before January 1, 2015, it has to start all over again from step one.
Kaufman was most definitely a nightmare, but it’s also proof positive that it will never change, never improve, and will never, ever qualify as an option to humane euthanasia, or even a well-placed bullet.
Please, please contact your Congressmembers today.
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I just wish I had a polite, tactful response to the commonly-heard, “Well, would you rather they were starving along the roads to be hit by cars?”
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rcatheron, two things. One, why would a starving horse be hanging out along or on the roads unless someone was feeding them there? Two, if you are driving and hit a car in front of you YOU get the ticket since it’s a FAILURE TO OBSERVE situation, unless it’s someone’s privately owned sacred cows, for which you will be fined if you injure kill one.
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Dear rcatheron, I usually dont like to talk about it , i was always told to forget it , its over now, but i would say no its not it still goes on……………….. back then i did not realize what really was going on all I wanted to do was see the animals there , never thought i would see what i saw. they would have them outside sometimes with little calves with them , all i could think of was they have little babies , didnt think or know what Slaughter was, right next door there was a roller skating rink it was huge , i was on my way there………
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I had no idea, arleneorlando. How awful.
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So happy the plant was closed and the place up for sale all this time shows people there do not want it to open again, It is a horrible practice to kill healthy animals for meat and then to let the meat go over seas, who is getting the high dollars from all this? Horses are not for food, they are not raise for food, they worked to be here and built this country and went to war. Have some respect for the animal , stop all the killing .
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Here is a link to a fictional story but apparently based on a true story about a man that refused to give up fighting for horses – both domestic and mustangs – and surely this included burros and mules too. The “hero” of the story did not give up fighting horse slaughter and although we all can’t do everything that needs to be done … we can all do something.
http://www.lrgaf.org/slaughter/savin.htm
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I remember reading about Litt & Chappel before – have seen the longriders blog, too.
Certainly shows that America’s attitude towards the wild ones hasn’t really been altered by time, doesn’t it? Now the BLM is carrying on Chappel’s ways.
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Nasty-sure hope they close them all across the country-horses should be loved or run wild & free like in parts of the West! Joe M.
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I just wanted to add this information. France is involved in a struggle for its very survival because of the trouble in its government. The country has out of control unemployment, 60 % of the businesses have closed and the population is leaving in droves. When I read that I wondered just how could anyone buy expensive horse meat? I don’t think they can because with this kind of unemployment and trouble going on in this country I think it make mark the end of eating horse meat simply because the population is to poor to afford it. I think this has been going on in a lot of the EU countries the past few years. They have the same type of greedy government the we have only worse. The EU has told France that it has to make some tough decisions or the EU will not loan them the money to help them dig out of the hole their in. Sounds like Detroit. The horse meat coming from Canada and Mexico may be going to the companies that are mixing it with beef because that is still going on.
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