Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Union Stock Yards shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Union Stock Yards offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Union Stock Yards at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Union Stock Yards? Wrong! If the Union Stock Yards is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Union Stock Yards then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Union Stock Yards? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Union Stock Yards and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Union Stock Yards wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Union Stock Yards then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Union Stock Yards site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Union Stock Yards, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Union Stock Yards, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

For information about the facilities in South Omaha, Nebraska, see Union Stockyards (Omaha).

The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, operated in the New City, Chicago Community areas of Chicago of Chicago, Illinois for 106 years, helping the city become known as "hog butcher for the world" Chicago, by Carl Sandburg, 1916 and the center of the American meat packing industry for decades. From the American Civil War until the 1920s and peaking in 1924, more meat was processed in Chicago than in any other place in the world.Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Ruff (eds.), Encyclopedia of Chicago, "Meatpacking", pp. 515-7, University of Chicago Press, 2004, ISBN 0-226-31015-9 Designed by architects Burnham and Root and Octave Chanute, construction began in June 1865 with an opening on Christmas Day in 1865. The Yards closed at midnight on Friday, July 30 1971 after several decades of decline during the decentralization of the meat packing industry. The Union Stock Yard Gate was designated a Chicago Landmark on February 24 1972 and a National Historic Landmark on May 29 1981.

History Before construction, tavern owners provided pastures and care for cattle herds waiting to be sold. With the spreading service of Rail transport in the United States, stock yards were created in and around the city.{{cite web |url=http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/stockyard.html|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1865 Chicago Union Stock Yard Completed|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=1997--> In 1848, small stockyards were scattered throughout the city along various rail lines. There was a confluence of reasons necessitating consolidation of the stockyards: westward expansion of railroads, causing great commercial growth in a Chicago that evolved into a major railroad center; the Mississippi River blockade during the Civil War that closed the north-south river trade route; the influx of meat packers and livestock to Chicago. To consolidate operations, the Union Stock Yards were built on swampland south of the city. A wikt:consortium of 9 railroad companies (hence the "Union station" name) acquired a 320-acre swampland area in southwest Chicago for United States dollar100,000 in 1864. The stockyards were connected to the city's main rail lines by 15 miles of track. Eventually, the 375-acre site had 2300 separate livestock pens in addition to hotels, saloons, restaurants, and offices for merchants and brokers.{{cite web ], a founder and the first president of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company, "The Yards" experienced tremendous growth. Processing two million animals yearly by 1870, the number had risen to nine million by 1890. Between 1865 and 1900, approximately 400 million livestock were butchered within the confines of the Yards.Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Ruff (eds.), Encyclopedia of Chicago, "Union Stock Yard & Transit Co.", p. 947, University of Chicago Press, 2004, ISBN 0-226-31015-9. By the turn of the century the stock yards employed 25,000 people and produced 82 percent of the domestic meat consumption. In 1921, the stock yards employed 40,000 people.{{cite web |url=http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,49|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1865 Chicago Stories|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=--> Two thousand of these worked directly for the Union Stock Yard & Transit Co. and the rest worked for companies such as meatpackers who had plants in the stockyards. By 1900, the 475-acre stock yard contained 50 miles of road, and had 130 miles of track along its perimeter. At its largest size, The Yards covered nearly a square mile of land, from Halsted Street to Ashland Avenue and from 39th (now Pershing Rd.) to 47th Streets.{{cite web |url=http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/stockyard.html|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1865 Chicago Union Stock Yard Completed|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=1997-->

At one time, 500,000 gallons a day of Chicago River water was pumped into the stock yards. So much stock yard waste drained into the South Fork of the river that it came to bear the name Bubbly Creek due to the gaseous products of decomposition. The creek bubbles to this day. When the City reversed the flow of the Chicago River in 1900, the intent was to prevent the Stock Yards' waste products from flowing into Lake Michigan.

The meatpacking district was served between 1908 and 1957 by a short "Chicago L" line with several stops, devoted primarily to the daily transport of thousands of workers and even tourists to the site. The line was constructed when the City of Chicago forced the removal of surface trackage on 40th Street.{{cite web|url=http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/stockyards.html|title=Stock Yards branch|publisher=Chicago "L".org|accessdate=2007-03-22-->

Effect on industry The size and scale of the stockyards, along with technological advancements in rail transport and 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. 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.

Numerous meatpacking companies were concentrated near the yards, including Armour and Company, Swift & Company, Morris & Company, and G. H. Hammond. Eventually, meatpacking byproduct manufacturing of leather, soap, fertilizer, glue, imitation ivory, gelatin, shoe polish, buttons, perfume, and violin strings prospered in the neighborhood.

Fire The Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire started on December 22 1910, destroying $400,000 of property and killing twenty-one firemen, including the Fire Marshal James J. Horan. Fifty engine companies and seven hook and ladder companies fought the fire until it was declared extinguished by Chief Seyferlich on December 23.{{cite web |url=http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/stockyards_fire.html|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1910, December 22-23: Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=1996--> 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.

Decline and current use The prosperity of the stockyards was due to both the concentration of railroads and the evolution of Refrigerator cars. Its decline was due to further advances in post-World War II transportation and distribution. Direct sales of livestock from breeders to packers, facilitated by advancement in interstate trucking, made it cheaper to slaughter animals where they were raised and excluded the intermediary stockyards. At first, the major meatpacking companies resisted change, but Swift and Armour both surrendered and vacated their plants in the Yards in the 1950s.

In 1971, the area bounded by Pershing Road, Ashland, Halsted, and 47th Street became The Stockyards Industrial Park. 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.

Gate A remnant of the Union Stock Yard Gate still arches over Exchange Avenue, next to the firefighters' memorial, and can be seen by those driving along Halsted Street. This limestone gate, marking the entrance to the stockyards, survives as one of the few relics of Chicago's cultural heritage of livestock and meatpacking. The steer head over the central arch is thought to represent "Sherman," a prize-winning bull named after John B. Sherman, a founder of the Union Stock Yard and Transit Company.

In popular culture

• The Yards were a major tourist stop, with visitors such as Rudyard Kipling, Paul Bourget and Sarah Bernhardt.
• In 1906 Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, uncovering the horrid conditions in the stock yards at the turn of the 20th century.
• The stockyards are referred to in Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago (poem): "proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation."
• Frank Sinatra mentioned the yards in his 1964 song "My Kind of Town (Sinatra song)."
• The stockyards receive a mention in the opening chapter of Thomas Pynchon's novel Against the Day.
• On January 9 2007, a 3-alarm fire destroyed a large warehouse owned by the Rosebud Display and Packaging Company, on the north side of the Stockyards less than a mile from the memorial. One firefighter suffered a twisted ankle while extinguishing the blaze.
• The Skip James song "Hard Times Killing floor blues" refers to the nickname of the slaughter part of the stockyards during the great depression in the 1930's.

Bibliography

• John Anderson. "'Hog butcher for the world' opens shop." Chicago Tribune, 30 January 1997, Chicago ed.: sec. 2, p. 2.
• Barrett, James R. Work and . 3rd ed. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1982.
• Grant, W. Jos. Illustrated History of the Union Stockyards. Chicago, 1901.
• Halpern, Rick. Down on the Killing Floor: Black and White Workers in Chicago's Packinghouses, 1904-54. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
• Hirsch, Susan, and Robert I. Goler. A City Comes of Age: Chicago in the 1890s. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1990.
• Holt, Glen E., and Dominic A. Pacyga. Chicago: A Historical Guide to the Neighborhoods: the Loop and South Side. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1979.
• Jablonsky, Thomas J. Pride in the Jungle: Community and Everyday Life in Back of the Yards Chicago. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
• Liste, J. G., and George Schoettle. Union Stockyards Fire Photo Album. CHS: 1934.
• Mahoney, Olivia. Go West! Chicago and American Expansion. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1999.
• Pacyga, Dominic. Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the South Side, 1880-1922. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991.
• Pacyga, Dominic, and Ellen Skerrett. Chicago: City of Neighborhoods. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986.
• Parkhurst, William. History of the Yards, 1865-1953. Chicago, 1953.
• Rice, William. "City creates nation's livestock center." Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1997, Chicago ed.: sec. 7, p. 7b.
• Skaggs, Jimmy. Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the U.S. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1986.
• Slayton, Robert A. Back of the Yards: The Making of a Local Democracy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.
• Street, Paul. "Packinghouse Blues." Chicago History 18, no. 3 (1989): 68-85.
• Chicago (Ill.). Fire Dept. Report of the Fire Marshal. 1910. pp.23-24.

Notes See also

• Chicago Board of Trade
• Chicago Mercantile Exchange

External links

• Chicago Historical Society's "History Files"
• History of the Yards in A Biography of America

For information about the facilities in South Omaha, Nebraska, see Union Stockyards (Omaha).

The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, operated in the New City, Chicago Community areas of Chicago of Chicago, Illinois for 106 years, helping the city become known as "hog butcher for the world" Chicago, by Carl Sandburg, 1916 and the center of the American meat packing industry for decades. From the American Civil War until the 1920s and peaking in 1924, more meat was processed in Chicago than in any other place in the world.Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Ruff (eds.), Encyclopedia of Chicago, "Meatpacking", pp. 515-7, University of Chicago Press, 2004, ISBN 0-226-31015-9 Designed by architects Burnham and Root and Octave Chanute, construction began in June 1865 with an opening on Christmas Day in 1865. The Yards closed at midnight on Friday, July 30 1971 after several decades of decline during the decentralization of the meat packing industry. The Union Stock Yard Gate was designated a Chicago Landmark on February 24 1972 and a National Historic Landmark on May 29 1981.

History Before construction, tavern owners provided pastures and care for cattle herds waiting to be sold. With the spreading service of Rail transport in the United States, stock yards were created in and around the city.{{cite web |url=http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/stockyard.html|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1865 Chicago Union Stock Yard Completed|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=1997--> In 1848, small stockyards were scattered throughout the city along various rail lines. There was a confluence of reasons necessitating consolidation of the stockyards: westward expansion of railroads, causing great commercial growth in a Chicago that evolved into a major railroad center; the Mississippi River blockade during the Civil War that closed the north-south river trade route; the influx of meat packers and livestock to Chicago. To consolidate operations, the Union Stock Yards were built on swampland south of the city. A wikt:consortium of 9 railroad companies (hence the "Union station" name) acquired a 320-acre swampland area in southwest Chicago for United States dollar100,000 in 1864. The stockyards were connected to the city's main rail lines by 15 miles of track. Eventually, the 375-acre site had 2300 separate livestock pens in addition to hotels, saloons, restaurants, and offices for merchants and brokers.{{cite web ], a founder and the first president of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company, "The Yards" experienced tremendous growth. Processing two million animals yearly by 1870, the number had risen to nine million by 1890. Between 1865 and 1900, approximately 400 million livestock were butchered within the confines of the Yards.Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Ruff (eds.), Encyclopedia of Chicago, "Union Stock Yard & Transit Co.", p. 947, University of Chicago Press, 2004, ISBN 0-226-31015-9. By the turn of the century the stock yards employed 25,000 people and produced 82 percent of the domestic meat consumption. In 1921, the stock yards employed 40,000 people.{{cite web |url=http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,49|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1865 Chicago Stories|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=--> Two thousand of these worked directly for the Union Stock Yard & Transit Co. and the rest worked for companies such as meatpackers who had plants in the stockyards. By 1900, the 475-acre stock yard contained 50 miles of road, and had 130 miles of track along its perimeter. At its largest size, The Yards covered nearly a square mile of land, from Halsted Street to Ashland Avenue and from 39th (now Pershing Rd.) to 47th Streets.{{cite web |url=http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/stockyard.html|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1865 Chicago Union Stock Yard Completed|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=1997-->

At one time, 500,000 gallons a day of Chicago River water was pumped into the stock yards. So much stock yard waste drained into the South Fork of the river that it came to bear the name Bubbly Creek due to the gaseous products of decomposition. The creek bubbles to this day. When the City reversed the flow of the Chicago River in 1900, the intent was to prevent the Stock Yards' waste products from flowing into Lake Michigan.

The meatpacking district was served between 1908 and 1957 by a short "Chicago L" line with several stops, devoted primarily to the daily transport of thousands of workers and even tourists to the site. The line was constructed when the City of Chicago forced the removal of surface trackage on 40th Street.{{cite web|url=http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/stockyards.html|title=Stock Yards branch|publisher=Chicago "L".org|accessdate=2007-03-22-->

Effect on industry The size and scale of the stockyards, along with technological advancements in rail transport and 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. 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.

Numerous meatpacking companies were concentrated near the yards, including Armour and Company, Swift & Company, Morris & Company, and G. H. Hammond. Eventually, meatpacking byproduct manufacturing of leather, soap, fertilizer, glue, imitation ivory, gelatin, shoe polish, buttons, perfume, and violin strings prospered in the neighborhood.

Fire The Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire started on December 22 1910, destroying $400,000 of property and killing twenty-one firemen, including the Fire Marshal James J. Horan. Fifty engine companies and seven hook and ladder companies fought the fire until it was declared extinguished by Chief Seyferlich on December 23.{{cite web |url=http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/stockyards_fire.html|accessdate=March 6|accessyear=2007|title=1910, December 22-23: Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire|publisher=Chicago Public Library|year=1996--> 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.

Decline and current use The prosperity of the stockyards was due to both the concentration of railroads and the evolution of Refrigerator cars. Its decline was due to further advances in post-World War II transportation and distribution. Direct sales of livestock from breeders to packers, facilitated by advancement in interstate trucking, made it cheaper to slaughter animals where they were raised and excluded the intermediary stockyards. At first, the major meatpacking companies resisted change, but Swift and Armour both surrendered and vacated their plants in the Yards in the 1950s.

In 1971, the area bounded by Pershing Road, Ashland, Halsted, and 47th Street became The Stockyards Industrial Park. 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.

Gate A remnant of the Union Stock Yard Gate still arches over Exchange Avenue, next to the firefighters' memorial, and can be seen by those driving along Halsted Street. This limestone gate, marking the entrance to the stockyards, survives as one of the few relics of Chicago's cultural heritage of livestock and meatpacking. The steer head over the central arch is thought to represent "Sherman," a prize-winning bull named after John B. Sherman, a founder of the Union Stock Yard and Transit Company.

In popular culture

• The Yards were a major tourist stop, with visitors such as Rudyard Kipling, Paul Bourget and Sarah Bernhardt.
• In 1906 Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, uncovering the horrid conditions in the stock yards at the turn of the 20th century.
• The stockyards are referred to in Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago (poem): "proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation."
• Frank Sinatra mentioned the yards in his 1964 song "My Kind of Town (Sinatra song)."
• The stockyards receive a mention in the opening chapter of Thomas Pynchon's novel Against the Day.
• On January 9 2007, a 3-alarm fire destroyed a large warehouse owned by the Rosebud Display and Packaging Company, on the north side of the Stockyards less than a mile from the memorial. One firefighter suffered a twisted ankle while extinguishing the blaze.
• The Skip James song "Hard Times Killing floor blues" refers to the nickname of the slaughter part of the stockyards during the great depression in the 1930's.

Bibliography

• John Anderson. "'Hog butcher for the world' opens shop." Chicago Tribune, 30 January 1997, Chicago ed.: sec. 2, p. 2.
• Barrett, James R. Work and . 3rd ed. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1982.
• Grant, W. Jos. Illustrated History of the Union Stockyards. Chicago, 1901.
• Halpern, Rick. Down on the Killing Floor: Black and White Workers in Chicago's Packinghouses, 1904-54. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
• Hirsch, Susan, and Robert I. Goler. A City Comes of Age: Chicago in the 1890s. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1990.
• Holt, Glen E., and Dominic A. Pacyga. Chicago: A Historical Guide to the Neighborhoods: the Loop and South Side. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1979.
• Jablonsky, Thomas J. Pride in the Jungle: Community and Everyday Life in Back of the Yards Chicago. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
• Liste, J. G., and George Schoettle. Union Stockyards Fire Photo Album. CHS: 1934.
• Mahoney, Olivia. Go West! Chicago and American Expansion. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1999.
• Pacyga, Dominic. Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the South Side, 1880-1922. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991.
• Pacyga, Dominic, and Ellen Skerrett. Chicago: City of Neighborhoods. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986.
• Parkhurst, William. History of the Yards, 1865-1953. Chicago, 1953.
• Rice, William. "City creates nation's livestock center." Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1997, Chicago ed.: sec. 7, p. 7b.
• Skaggs, Jimmy. Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the U.S. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1986.
• Slayton, Robert A. Back of the Yards: The Making of a Local Democracy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.
• Street, Paul. "Packinghouse Blues." Chicago History 18, no. 3 (1989): 68-85.
• Chicago (Ill.). Fire Dept. Report of the Fire Marshal. 1910. pp.23-24.

Notes See also

• Chicago Board of Trade
• Chicago Mercantile Exchange

External links

• Chicago Historical Society's "History Files"
• History of the Yards in A Biography of America

Union Stock Yards - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, operated in the New City community area of Chicago, Illinois for 106 years, [1] helping the city become known as "hog butcher for ...

Union Stockyards Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Union Stockyards Company was a 90-year-old company first founded in South Omaha, Nebraska in 1876 by John A. Smiley. After being moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa and dissolved ...

History Files - The Stockyards
The Birth of the Chicago Union Stock Yards. The rise and dominance of Chicago's Union Stock Yards marks a significant period in the city's economic and social history.

History Files - The Stockyards
The Birth of the Chicago Union Stock Yards. In order to build the new centralized stockyard, a consortium of nine railroad companies purchased a 320-acre area of swampy land in ...

The Union Stock Yards History
Union Stock Yards Company History..... The corporation name changed from the Washington CH Union Stock Yards Company (that facility sold in 1969) to the Union Stock Yards Co Inc.

Chicago Union Stock Yards
Chicago Union Stock Yards, undated. The central stock yard created in 1865 covered 345 swampy acres on the South Side, and included 2300 separate livestock pens ...

Union Stockyards
Few industries say “Omaha” like the Stockyards. This image of the Livestock Exchange Building and the Stockyards National Bank was taken about 1900.

Chicago Landmarks | Union Stock Yard Gate
Address: Exchange Ave. at Peoria St. Year Built: circa 1875 Architect: Burnham and Root Date Designated a Chicago Landmark: February 24, 1972

Miller Union Stockyards
Miller Union Stock Yards. National Register listed: King Plow/ Railroad Historic District. Humane treatment of meat producing livestock today

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History:CLEVELAND UNION STOCKYARDS CO.
The CLEVELAND UNION STOCKYARDS CO. was organized as the Cleveland Union Stockyards in 1881 and incorporated as the Cleveland Union Stockyards Co. in 1892.