Porkopolis

I woke up in the city formerly known as Porkopolis. Would Porkopolis be the North American equivalent of Poggendam? No, it's Cincinnati which once was the world's major pork processing center. Poggendam, of course, is the nickname of the town of Varsseveld in the Netherlands. Who doesn't know?

Cincinnati owes a great deal of its rapid growth and prosperity to the pig. Hog processing plants and their by-products were responsible for the founding of many of Cincinnati's nationally prominent industries. Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Macy's and Chiquita are all headquartered in Cincinnati.

Celebrating its 200th birthday in 1988, the city commissioned British sculptor Andrew Leicester to create a 300 foot, narrative piece on Cincinnati history and the importance of the Ohio River to its growth and economy. There are 17 major elements, including winged bronze pigs (reflective of the city's dependence on the pork industry), set atop tall columns of riverboat stacks topped with crowns (in reference to poet Longfellow's description of Cincinnati as the Queen City of the West in his poem Catawba Wine).

The winged pigs have gone to heaven, though. Cincinnati is no longer a center of pork industry.