In 1915, Jack built the Pig Palace, (so named by a San Francisco newspaper reporter astounded by the $3,000 construction cost). Laid out in a circle, it allowed a single person to maximize care for over 200 hogs. The central feed house is a two-story circular tower with feed storage bins in the upper level—one pull on a lever dropped the feed into troughs below. Surrounding the tower are 17 hog pens, each having a courtyard with feed and water troughs, roofed sleeping area, and a fenced outdoor run.
London installed a water heater in the feed house to mix hot water in with the feed, and doors on either side meant the farmhand didn’t have to walk all the way around to access the pens. Opening a single valve filled all the troughs with water. London devised a system of flushing and sanitizing both in the Pig Palace and in the barns.
The birthing pens had iron pipes up from the floor and out from the wall about eight inches so that when the sow lay down she wouldn’t crush the little ones against the wall.
His neighbors laughed, but the design won awards and drew nationwide attention. When his prized pigs developed cholera London immediately went into action. Thinking that the disease had been brought to the ranch, he fenced off the animal area, so that the only entry was through a gate that required walking through a carbolic acid bath that disinfected the footwear of anyone going near the animals.