Chicago’s Lost Union Stockyards | Chicago's 2nd Great Fire
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- Опубліковано 7 сер 2024
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Discover the fascinating history of Chicago's Union Stockyards, from its early beginnings as a small livestock market to becoming the largest meatpacking center in the world. Learn how Chicago's location as a rail hub played a crucial role in the growth of the meatpacking industry, and how the invention of the refrigerated railcar transformed Chicago into a national meatpacking hub. However, the success of the stockyards came at a cost, as the working conditions and slums surrounding the stockyards were notorious. The video also covers the great fire of 1910 and the downfall of the Union Stockyards. Finally, explore what remains of the historic site today. Don't miss this fascinating look into the history of one of America's most iconic industrial sites.
00:00 - What happened to Chicago Stockyards?
01:10 - Chicago’s First Stockyards
02:28 - How Chicago’s location as a rail hub influenced the meat packing industry
03:08 - The opening of Chicago’s Union Stockyards
06:04 - The refrigerated railcar made Chicago a national meatpacking hub
07:45 - The Manpower & Slums behind Chicago’s Union Stockyards
09:10 - Chicago’s other great fire
10:47 - The Downfall of Chicago’s Union Stockyards
11:37 - What remains of Chicago’s Union Stockyards today?
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IT’S HISTORY - Weekly tales of American Urban Decay as presented by your host Ryan Socash.
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Scriptwriter - Bex Weinstein
Editor - Patrycja Klimczuk,
Host - Ryan Socash
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Some images may be used for illustrative purposes only - always reflecting the accurate time frame and content. Events of factual error / mispronounced word/spelling mistakes - retractions will be published in this section.
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I remember the stock yards. The cal sag canal back in the day, used to be called "bubly creek". Because there were so many hides and bones from the pigs and cows dumped in, as they rot in the river you'd see constantly bubbles rising to the surface. I got a few stories about that location from cops I knew when I was a teenager. Real criminal 💩.
As a kid growing up in Chicago, I'll never forget being able to smell the Stockyards from more than a mile away!!!😖🤧!!!
Maybe you also remember a huge carnival we called the "free fair on the Southside" which were located on or near this stockyard. It was like a smaller version of Riverview (which I also got to experience as a very small child). But, there was this ride at the fair by the yards that was called "Flight to Mars" that ran on steel tracks that smashed into neon doors and ran enclosed in the dark w/ special effects lighting. It was so cool. Sort of like a early version of Space Mountain. We'd take the Western bus So. from Armitage to get there. Good times.
I know those smells from visiting Sioux Falls in the 1980s. If the wind was just right we could smell the meatpacking plants on the other side of the city.
What brought me to this thing was because of my dad's history with the St Paul stockyards which were sadly torn down.
I could smell it every time it rained on the soil, long after the stock yards were demolished. It was a sickly sweet, nauseating, chemical odor.
@@alidaweber1023 I can relate. I lived in St Paul. We still had the stockyards there until the 90's.
My great grandfather was a railroad man working for Southern out of Spencer NC. I never met him as he died in 1969 but have a Stockyard Inn shot glass from one of his trips there.
My great-great-grandmother Carrie Martin lived on Halsted between 43rd and Root Streets from 1899 to 1903, then moved elsewhere in the area. She had her own barbershop that she initially operated out of that home on Halsted. I have her business card from that first address, and it seemed designed to have great appeal to the men working at the stockyards across the street. She offered not just barbering services, but “first-class laundry” and “fine cigars and tobaccos.” So, someone could head out of his rental apartment, stop by her place for a trim and shave, drop off his laundry, head into work, then return to get his clean clothes and pick up a cigar or two to enjoy after dinner, or maybe at the bar a half-block south.
Huh
I remember my Dad taking me down to the stockyards gate in 1971 on the day it officially closed. I was very young, but I remember him telling me that this was history and he wanted me to see it. He told me about watching the 1934 fire from the front porch of his house, and my grandfather telling him that he was watching history, and how he always remembered that. I didn't realize until many years later that we were watching history every day.
Thanks for the great video. It's hard to imagine how vast an operation Union Stockyards was.
Great video as always! It’s worth noting that the Stockyards are the inspiration behind the name of the Chicago Bulls. The team played their first season at the International Amphitheater (which was owned by the Union Stockyards btw) on 42nd & Halstead right next to the Stockyards before moving to Chicago Stadium. Another thing worth mentioning the NBA’s first expansion team, the Chicago Packers (now the Washington Wizards), also played at the Amphitheater and got their name in a similar fashion as a nod to the meatpacking industry.
Whatever happened to the Ampitheather? I know that used to have concerts and wrestling matches there.
@@swannoir7949 I think they tore it down in 2000. It just lost out in popularity due to newer and bigger facilities like the Rosemont Horizon/Allstate Arena, the expanded McCormick Place and the United Center. I still remember going to the rodeo at the Amphitheater and riding a horse for the first time back in the 80s but given its old amenities and it not quite being in the nicest place in town given all the old rundown warehouses at the time, it just lost its appeal.
Not sure if you made a video on it or not but it would be interesting to hear about the reversing of that Chicago river and how/when they did it. Where the water goes now, etc.
I worked at a chemical plant that is still there in the BACK of the YARDS neighborhood. They take rendered animal fat and process that into chemicals used in everything from crayons and tires to cosmetics and soaps. They even had a rendering plant there but was decommissioned a couple decades ago. That's as close as you'll get to the smell of the stockyards now, in the city.
Really great video as always! Fan since the singer building video! I have a request for a video about the Hudson terminal in New York. It was built in the 1900s and demolished in the 1960s to make way for The World Trade Center. I would really want to see a video for these buildings.
That is a FANTASTIC idea! We will 100% make the video about the Hudson terminal in the coming months. WTC episode is currently being edited, it was a long time coming. Feel free to send me any additional info via social media and stay tuned!
The Union Stockyards moved to Joliet to eke out a few more years. I hauled an few loads of livestock there in the 1980s. I attended the auction when they shut it down. I bought an aerial photo of the yards from 1945 that hung on some office wall. You should have mentioned the International amphitheater and the livestock show. For many years it was the premier livestock show in the country. I remember attending a few Bulls games at he Amphitheater before they moved to the Stadium
Funny that NASCAR now has a racetrack in Joliet.
Just restarted the Jungle. An incredible piece. Sinclair worked, "undercover," in the yards before writing his masterpiece.
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
Thanks… I always heard about the book and never read it …great quote
I've never been to Chicago but your channel almost makes me feel like a local. cheers from Canada.
My dad has talked about his father or grandfather taking hogs to Chicago on a train out of eastern Iowa.
Grew up there, "Back of The Yards". I remember that stench in the air to this day. Worse: My family finally moved but, near the Argo Cornstartch factory (now CPC), which had it's own stench. Traded one stink for the other, lol.
I attended Illinois Institute of Technology, which was founded by meatpacker Phillip Armour. The stockyards were an engineering marvel of their time, and the assembly line techniques developed there were later adopted by many other industries, including automobile manufacturing.
I love this channel because of the amount of people sharing their memories of loved ones and their childhood. Beautiful wonderful people
when i was little. on a warm summer night blowing from the south, you could still smell the stockyards. Now it's lofts...
There are no lofts in the Stockyards. It’s an industrial park. Only a handful of the old support buildings are left, everything else dates from the 79’s or later.
Great video. I love all the ones about Chicago since that's where I grew up. Thanks so much.
Gives new meaning to the phrase "want to be seen at the stockyards"..
My hometown (Wichita, KS) had a stockyards back in the day. I never saw the building, I can imagine that it was similar to the feed lots of western Kansas. That was a stinky industry....lol
Wichita, Fargo, and St Paul also had stockyards. My father worked in St Paul and two of my uncles worked for Swift.
If it was anything like it was passing through Dodge City, KS, US-50… the smell /gag reflex was too much.. I could never live near that!
@@rosaamarillo2110 exactly. From Dodge City to Garden City on us 50 is the worst!!! I used even smell it all they way in Deerfield where my grandparents lived. There's also a meat processing plant west of Holcomb.
These videos are so awesome, I've had a delivery route in the city for years and I've become a bit obsessed with it's history.
Have you considered a topic about some forgotten Chicago bridges? Damen from pershing to 47th, western and Belmont, pershing and Ashland. Throop over the river in Bridgeport...
Great stuff!
Hello Ryan, great video as always. Please consider doing a video on the Ogden Ave extension all the way to Lincoln Park and Clark and Armitage. Hence the name “Old Town Triangle”. Thanks!
We touched in that in the Goose Island episode, but it’s seriously hard to find images of the lost Ogden Avenue viaduct so I’m not sure how to approach that one.
I have some interesting articles and pictures that I’ve accumulated through the years. Wondering if there’s a way I can email them to you?
i hope you mention bubbly creek lol
I grew up in Clovis New Mexico. It is a rail town and had a fair size stockyard itself. I had a paper route and one day the front page had an article about the last packing house and the last of the stockyards in Chi town was closing. I couldn't understand why this would be on any front page. Especially in a far away place such as Chicago.
My mother explained how important the yards there were. I knew they were big but, not that big! Anyway, a slaughter house down the road from Clovis, in Texas slaughters 5000 head a day and that is just one.
Clovis has the largest cheese factory in the United States. Yeah, a lot of cows.
Thanks for the interesting summary of the complicated history of England of this time. A toast with gin and tonic!
(Sorry, comment is for a different video)
I may have never visited nor lived in Chicago but, if there’s one industry it was known for it was the stockyards.
I love this channel! You have great info and a great listen for us! Keep it up esp the Chicago content
I’m five minutes from the stockyards!
Shaht Aht to Bubbly Creek!
My friend has an old picture of our town square where a farmer is driving cattle to the train station to be loaded onto the train heading for Chicago. I don't remember what year the photo was taken.
My grandma told me that her dad used to work at a place in Chicago that made hot dogs.
I wish someone from Toronto did videos like this, except we knocked down most of our history but we still have a few gems
i work 2 minutes for the old gate there on Exchange
💛💛💛
50 Sq miles big.... That's a lot of Big Macks......
Misleading headline, the stockyards didn’t “End in flames”. The fire was in 1934, and they closed in 1971.
The st Paul stockyards closed in the 90's.
I grew up a few blocks away in canaryville .. have you ever done a video on bubbly creek
Caranaryville ... isn't that the neighborhood in Shameless?
They say it is on the show but the house is actually in Lawndale . The show is actually base off the British version shamless.
@@swannoir7949 The house in real life is in Lawndale. In the show they say they're in Back of the Yards. Though the show isn't that great at location references, so realistly they could be anywhere in that near southwest side region, (Canaryville, Back of the Yards, Bridgeport, etc.). These are also neighborhoods that a lot of the Irish, Polish, and Italian immigrant stockyard workers once lived. Alot of their descendants are now in the suburbs, but a decent amount of them remain in that area.
@@commanderalpaca960 This good to know. There's a lot of things about Old Chicago that I miss. Shameless was great in the beginning, but after the fourth season, it was all over the place.
Great video but you missed out about all the arson to the facility. So now you have the burnt district and the roof has caved in on the administration building
THE STOCKYARDS!!!
8000 livestock die in a fire mere days before they were due to reach their grisly ends anyway.
Don't put all your eggs, sorry, all your cows, in the same basket
When your advertisement is a third of your video it's too much.
After watching this, do you think maybe I want to be a vegetarian
Also The Jungle can give you a lot of insights of the workings of the packing houses and their treatment of immigrants. Unfortunately, Upton Sinclair is a much worse writer than Erik Larson.