The Portland Union Stock Yards were incorporated in Portland, Oregon, in June 1902 by William H. H. Morgan, William H. Daughtrey, and Oakes M. Plummer. The stockyards operated at 17th and Vaughn in Northwest Portland until September 1909, when they moved to the Kenton neighborhood. The company was largely owned by the Chicago-based meat-packing giant Swift & Company until 1936, when its stake in the stockyards was acquired by the United Stockyards Corporation.

In the Kenton location, the Portland Union Stock Yards operated at the convergence, or union, of different railway lines that transported cattle, hogs, and sheep to slaughter for the Portland market. In 1916, Lewis Irvine Thompson designed a new administration building for the Portland Union Stock Yards with directors’ offices, an in-house bank, several vaults, a barbershop, and a rotunda featuring a marble mosaic inlaid floor.

Sources: "The Portland Union Stock Yards: A Case Study in Livestock Marketing," by E. L. Potter, Oregon State College Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 536, 1953; "Articles of Incorporation," Oregonian, June 5, 1902, Page 8; "Huge Yards Open," Oregonian, September 16, 1909, Page 10; "Policy Unchanged for Stockyards," Oregonian, November 17, 1936, Page 20.

Born in Albany, Oregon, in 1888, Lewis Irvine Thompson was a Portland, Oregon-based architect who was associated with John Virginius Bennes in 1910 and opened his own office in 1911. Thompson was also an inventor and patented a number of automobile inventions, including the Thompson Air Spring. He designed the administration building for the Portland Union Stock Yards in 1916. Thompson died in Los Angeles, California, in 1930.

Sources: National Register for Historic Places registration form for Jeanne Manor Apartment Building, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1998; National Register for Historic Places registration form for Cardwell-Holman House, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2005; "Lewis Irvine Thompson," Oregonian, January 16, 1930, page 13; vital records on Ancestry.com.