Photo illustration by Natalie Nelson for eater.com
RC Farms raised more than 250,000 pigs for market since opening in North Las Vegas on April 13, 1963. Robert "Bob" Combs, a fifth-generation hog farmer, processed casino buffet scraps to feed the pigs. The farm was on a 173-acre property bordered by El Campo Grande Avenue, Bruce Street, West Ann Road and Commerce Street.
Bob lives by the ideology of waste not, want not and is a huge proponent of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. His father paid for surplus food to feed pigs at the family farm near San Diego, but on a family trip to Las Vegas in 1963 for the father's 70th birthday, he discovered leftover food was free to anyone who could haul it away. Bob's father mortgaged their San Diego home to buy the existing pig farm at this location and put Bob in charge. In the years since, Bob built and maintained the farm using repurposed materials. He also received revenue from processing other recycleables, such as plastics and metals.
RC Farms was featured on television on the Casino Food Recycler episode of "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe that aired in 2006, the Prime Dining in the Pen segment of America's Heartland in 2007 and in a segment of "Bizarre Foods America: Las Vegas" with Andrew Zimmern in 2012.
The pig farm became notorious for its pungent odor, especially after a rainstorm. The high school that was built nearby came to be known as "Pigsty High". Even the odor from a food-flavor manufacturing plant on Craig Road near Interstate 15 was thought to be coming from the pig farm.
North Las Vegas became the second-fastest-growing city in the United States during the real estate bubble and residential neighborhoods soon surrounded the pig farm. However, the new neighbors weren't pleased to live near a foul-smelling business and complained about the odor. Additionally, the farm did not fit into the city's development plans, which included developing North Fifth Street into a major transportation corridor, and officials wanted Bob to move. However, Bob turned down offers to sell for as much as $75 million in 2005. He saw it as God's work, turning waste into food for pigs, which became food for people.
At the end of 2015, Bob, now in his mid-70s, succombed to the fact that his body can't serve him the way it could when he was a younger man and decided it was time to retire. The land was put on the market and sold to a developer for $23 million on November 1, 2016. The developer said they are planning three phases of development with housing tracts and a retail center with space for a grocery store. RC Farms officially closed in January, 2017.
For over 50 years, RC Farms operated with this mission:
Produce more protein and reduce pollution by feeding livestock mostly recyclable commodities. In doing this, we are addressing two of humanity's concerns. Through recycling we are assisting in one aspect of God's greatest creation...Life.
Satellite imagery of the area around RC Farms (center) in 2002
Satellite imagery of the area around RC Farms (center) in 2016
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This puzzle cache was inspired from a puzzle cache in Douglasville, Georgia by TFulton42
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Hints and tips posted after the FTF
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