C $2.57. Reference Book on the Union Stockyards (1903). I shot most of it and some others did additional photography and sound recording. This Chicago Daily News photograph shows a … }); Order Online Tickets Tickets See Availability ... Christopher and I stopped here today. Dominic Pacyga, a local historian and former stockyard worker, tells the story in his new book "Slaughterhouse.”. Of the butchers and floorsmen, the beef-boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. ], Chicago Daily News Photos Courtesy of the Chicago History Museum, Mark Mamalakis grew up in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, fascinated by the juxtaposition of an urban cityscape and the Chicago stockyards. While a student at Columbia College, he picked up an Arriflex M 16mm camera to shoot a documentary about the closure of the stockyards featured in Upton Sinclair’s "The Jungle.". Postcard IL Greetings from Chicago Union Stock Yards Cattle in Pens 1911 M22. In 1971, National Wrecking Company cleared approximately 102 acres of the Union Stock Yards which had been the meatpacking district in Chicago since 1865. Dominic Pacyga Shares History of Chicago's Stockyards in 'Slaughterhouse', They closed some 44 years ago, but Chicago's Union Stockyards profoundly shaped the development of the city and the modern world. | Sun-Times files The stockyards occupied a square mile along South Halsted Street … During that time, the Union Stock Yards became an integral part of the popular culture of Chicago's history. Back to School: How You Can Support Students and Teachers During the Pandemic, Ask Geoffrey: Chicago’s Old Passenger Rail Stations, Lightfoot Unveils Plan to Boost Businesses Owned by Black, Latino and Female Chicagoans. Please complete the handout according to the "Stop" that you are at on the Weebly. CT: How does it feel to have this shown for the first time? The Digital Art Making Millions: What Are NFTs? Source: DN-0050344, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum. Part of Chicago's gritty, glorious, and bloody legend. He interviewed workers and filmed them doing their jobs, and then he put the raw footage on a shelf. Today, the Stockyard Industrial Park is one of the most successful industrial sites in the city, to some degree taking up where the old Union Stock Yard left off. When Jurgis had first inspected the packing plants with Szedvilas, he had marveled while he listened to the tale of all the things that were made out of the carcasses of animals, and of all the lesser industries that were maintained there; now he found that each one of these lesser industries was a separate little inferno, in its way as horrible as the killing beds, the source and fountain of them all. nav: true, In high school, I remember reading "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair; it had an impact on me. Previous Next. I did a lot of location managing to support my projects. jQuery(".rslides").responsiveSlides({ Train in front of the Stockyards Exchange Building – South St. Paul (Reinhold O. Werner photograph collection) Urban Renewal. Union Stockyards. Following the end of the Civil War, Chicago’s scattered livestock markets consolidated into one large market, the Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., on the South Side of the city. Some of them were in their 70s and 80s. The Union Stock Yards closed on August 1, 1971, after operating for over a century. But you can imagine the trainloads of people that got off here everyday to heard cattle on the way to their bloody slaughter. Project Details. 6 reviews of Union Stockyards "What put Chicago's South Side on the map. Discover Union Stock Yard Gate in Chicago, Illinois: One of the few remaining relics of the meatpacking hub that made Chicago the "hog butcher to the world. Dec 31, 2014 - Explore edward's board "Chicago Union Stockyards" on Pinterest. I still haven’t completed the whole film as far as editing it, but a short piece is awesome. I remember interviewing two young kids, talking about how their grandfather came down to say good-bye to his old friends and he was crying. This perspective print of Chicago’s Union Stock Yards and Packing Houses was drawn and published by Charles Rascher in 1890. A few months ago, the Smithsonian Haitian Art Recovery Project contributed to the digitizing of the Haiti film so they could use it as a reference to restore art that had been destroyed in Haiti’s earthquake. The Chicago stock yards were created on swampland southwest of the city in the 1860's to consolidate the scattered independent yards that were strewn about the growing city. They ran along upon a rafter, peering down through the damp and the steam; and as old Durham's architects had not built the killing room for the convenience of the hoisters, at every few feet they would have to stoop under a beam, say four feet above the one they ran on; which got them into the habit of stooping, so that in a few years they would be walking like chimpanzees. Sie sorgte zwischen 1865 und 1971 dafür, dass Chicago als hog butcher for the world[2] (Schweineschlächter für die Welt) bekannt wurde und jahrzehntelang das Zentrum der amerikanischen Fleischverarbeitungsindustrie war. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1981. They would have no nails, – they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. Please check out our Sale Dates page for an up-to-date list of our upcoming sales, Click Here for more info : Please check out our BIG I SPECIALS. I needed additional material. Unused Divided-Back THE STOCKYARDS Chicago Illinois IL E8634. CT: The 40th anniversary is this year. So I went there the last few days and did it. Get our daily newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. Pre-Owned. The Farm and Ranch Market Journal—which was originally associated with the Los Angeles Union Stockyards in California—and publications like it, were daily papers that served as an important resource for price discovery and the news, particularly as it related to agriculture and the livestock industry.However, before the Los Angeles Stockyards would be opened and the Farm and Ranch … The gate was probably designed by John Wellborn Root of Burnham and Root around 1875, and is the only significant structural element of the stock yards to survive. Advertisement (via Site Design) Cutting up hogs in Swift & Co.'s Packing House, c. 1905. New specials weekly. ". When the Stockyards Exchange Building was constructed in 1887, it was located adjacent to railroad tracks that ran north-south along what is today Concord Avenue on the building’s east side. There were men who worked in the cooking rooms, in the midst of steam and sickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. The old Union Stockyards in Chicago, early 1900s. Mark Mamalakis: I grew up on the South Side, in the South Shore neighborhood, and I was aware of the stockyards. Advertisement (via Library of Congress) On July 31, 1971, the Union Stock Yards closed, unable to compete with the interstate trucking industry and automation. The slaughterhouses got their livestock from Chicago's Union Stockyards: 475 acres of cattle, hogs and other animals shipped here from all over the country. 1940s The stockyards flourish, with only Chicago’s Union Stock Yards surpassing them in size.. 1948 Jay B. Dillingham becomes President of the Stockyards.. 1974 The City of Kansas City and the American Royal build Kemper Arena on the former stockyards land. But one of their main concerns was that they would be losing their friends. 1971. There were the men in the pickle rooms, for instance, where old Antanas had gotten his death; scarce a one of these that had not some spot of horror on his person. C $18.75. But the key thing they said is that they would miss their friends. The stockyards … Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. There were the "hoisters," as they were called, whose task it was to press the lever which lifted the dead cattle off the floor. Entrance to Chicago’s Union Stockyards MM: I think the people in the Back of the Yards area, or people with relatives who worked there would love to see this. speed: 800, I made a film about artwork in Haiti, and did about 12 years of freelance and odd jobs to make that film. Unidentified group of men walking away from the Union Stock Yards Gate. CT: And you did this all for a film class at Columbia College? Visitors to the Union Stock Yard entered through the Stone Gate on Exchange Avenue, the main thoroughfare of the stockyard. There were those who made the tins for the canned meat; and their hands, too, were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood poisoning. There was another interesting set of statistics that a person might have gathered in Packingtown – those of the various afflictions of the workers. There were the wool-pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off. I feel like they deserve to be seen, these people that have this story to tell. Worst of any, however, were the fertilizer men, and those who served in the cooking rooms. Tourists watched masses of animals move through kill floors, a sight hailed as a miracle of modernity. At the time, a young film student, Mark Mamalakis, went to the yards to capture the end of an era. The Congress Plaza Hotel at 520 S. Michigan Avenue is one of Chicago’s oldest and largest hotels.