Union Stock Yards

Uncommon card · No. 192257

The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was formed by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a vast centralized processing area. By the 1890s, the railroad capital behind the Union Stockyards was Vanderbilt money. The Union Stockyards operated in the South Side's New City community area for 106 years, helping Chicago become known as the "hog butcher for the world", the center of the American meatpacking industry for decades. The Yards, its workers, and its systems became inspiration for both literature and social reform, as well as study of industrial practice. The stockyards became the focal point of the rise of some of the earliest international companies, whose ability to get product moved across the world became crucial. These companies and corporations refined industrial innovations and influenced financial markets. The Yards functioned as an integrated...

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