Union Stock Yards

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The Union Stock Yards in Chicago in (1878).

The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards was a company and place in Chicago, Illinois. It operated for 106 years, beginning on Christmas Day in 1865 and closing in 1971 after several decades of decline brought on by the decentralization of the meat packing industry. The stockyards made Chicago the center of the American meat packing industry for decades; in the early 1900s, more meat was processed here than in any other place in the world. Timothy B. Blackstone was one of the incorporators and the first president of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company.

The size and scale of the stockyards, along with technological advancements in railcar refrigeration, allowed for the creation of some of America's first truly global companies led by entrepreneurs such as Gustavus Franklin Swift and Philip Danforth Armour. The mechanized process with its killing wheel and conveyors helped inspire the automobile assembly line.

The Yards were a major tourist stop, with visitors like Rudyard Kipling, Paul Bourget and Sarah Bernhardt. In addition, hedging transactions by the stockyard companies played a key role in the establishment and growth of the Chicago-based commodity exchanges and futures markets.

In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle uncovering the horrid conditions in the stock yards at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

The stockyards are referred to in Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago: "proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation."

The Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire burned on December 22-23, 1910, and killed twenty-one firemen, including the Fire Marshal James J. Horan. In 2004, a memorial to all Chicago firefighters who have died in the line of duty was erected at the location of the 1910 Stock Yards fire.

In 1971, the area bounded by Pershing, Ashland, Halsted, and 47th Street became The Stockyards Industrial Park. The industrial park is home to a variety of businesses, including Better Closeouts, Inc. and GraveyardMall.com. A remnant of the old stockyards gate still arches over Exchange Ave., next to the firefighters' memorial, and can be seen by those driving along Halsted Street.

The neighborhood to the west and south of the industrial park is still known as Back of the Yards, and is still home to a thriving immigrant population.

[edit] See also

[edit] External link

History of the Yards in A Biography of America
Back of the Yards Blog (Blogger living at 47th and Throop, Directly Across from the 47th Street Entrance to the Stockyards. Site Updated with Neighborhood and Personal News)