Western Railroad Discussion > Bena Ca Slaughterhouse on Mojave Sub

Anyone know when the old slaughterhouse at Bena was torn out was in the area in March 2017 and everything was leveled .

Posted from Android

Dave Dodds
San Dimas, CA

Everything there, including the fertilizer plant, has been gone for decades...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

WP805A Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyone know when the old slaughterhouse at Bena
> was torn out was in the area in March 2017 and
> everything was leveled .

The building you are referring to was torn down in 2015 or 2016.  It was there when I drove thru in March/April 2015 but gone the next summer.  I do believe that it was never a slaughterhouse, it was just painted with a sign saying that for a movie shoot a long time ago.  The building was in such terrible condition, I wouldn't be surprised if it just fell down on its own one day.

It didn't fall down but it was in pretty bad condition. The roof metal got to blowing around. The local feed lot was using it for feed storage but it coudn''t even keep the hay dry.
  It was torn down a coupe years ago. I miss seeing it on the way to town.
-Bill-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/17 05:54 by crazybill.

Photos anyone?

Posted from iPhone

The remaining building was never a slaughterhouse, it just smelled like it!! Used to go by in Summer and the guys would
be out raking up piles of the fertilizer mix-yow!!!!

Out

> Photos anyone?

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3521184,3521892
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1793215,1794573

The fertilizer plant began operation in March or April of 1962. Before that, the site was occupied by a section camp along with the old Bena depot building that is now at the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/17 14:00 by johnsweetser.

Bena was a feed lot for many years, hence some of the smell. Just like Harris Ranch on I-5, a feed lot and they smell wonderful!

Couple of the owners of the feed lot are still kicking and doing well in Kern County. They now operate or have interests in feed lots in Texas.

To clarify, the Bena feedlot had nothing to do with the Bena fertilizer plant. I don't exactly know when the feedlot started but it was after 1973. The cattle were fed cull carrots, which are the orange streaks seen in the aerial photo in the first link I previously posted.


callum_out wrote:

> The remaining building was never a slaughterhouse, it just smelled like it!!

I doubt that the Bena fertilizer plant smelled like a rendering house since it was a chemical plant. However, I'll admit that I have never personally smelled a rendering house.

John Sweetser



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/17 18:04 by johnsweetser.

John, you'd be surprised what ends up in cattle feed. Now Bena never smelled as bad as Baker Commodities in
Vernon but whatever they were blending in Bena was really nasty.

Out

callum_out Wrote:
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> John, you'd be surprised what ends up in cattle
> feed. Now Bena never smelled as bad as Baker
> Commodities in
> Vernon but whatever they were blending in Bena was
> really nasty.
>
> Out

The most comon chemical fertilzer is Amonium Nitrate. One of the 2 primary jobs I did while a truck driver was using dry bulk tank trailers. I did a team run once in which I picked up a load of Amonium Nitrate in Yazoo City Missippippi and delivered it to a distribution center in Yuma AZ. That place stunk.