Opened in 1865, the Union Stock Yard was the center of the nation’s meat industry until the mid-twentieth century. The demand for meat grew rapidly throughout the nineteenth century as Yankees and immigrants flooded the Midwest, and Chicago's slaughter and meat packing operations grew to be the largest in the world. Midwestern farmers sent their cattle by train to Chicago, where they were slaughtered, processed, and distributed.

The rapid growth of Chicago's meat (and grain) industries was a direct result of the Civil War. Cincinnati and St. Louis dominated these markets before 1861, but proximity to the fighting and war stoppages along key transportation routes hurt their ability to meet demand. Chicago's relative distance from the front lines and placement along major railways positioned it to take over and the city quickly became the Midwest's hub for meat and grain manufacturing. 

The Union Stock Yard was a major employer in Chicago and the dominant force in the industry for several decades. Consequently, it was also the location of many of the meatpacking industry's labor struggles. Organizers demanding change met with minimal success until the 1930s, when the New Deal's more labor-friendly climate allowed the Congress of Industrial Organizations to establish a union for meatpacking workers.

Chicago’s meatpacking monopoly began to fall apart in the mid twentieth century, when the rise of the highway system allowed the industry to become more decentralized. Meat companies could now use refrigerated trucks to distribute meat across relatively long distances, reducing the need to concentrate the industry in a population center like Chicago.

The gate at the stock yard entrance was installed in the 1870s. It is a designated Chicago Landmark, a National Historic Landmark, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Chicago History Museum. "Slaughter House to the World."https://www.chicagohs.org/history/stockyard/stock2.html. Accessed July 2016.

Chicago Landmarks. "Union Stock Yard Gate."http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/landmarksweb/web/landmarkdetails.htm?lanId=1441. Accessed July 2016.

National Park Service. "National Register of History Places Inventory—Nomination Form: Old Stone Gate of Chicago Union Stock Yards."http://focus.nps.gov/GetAsset?assetID=ff5b8d8e-fbcd-4718-9977-d992f22ed0d9. Accessed July 2016.

Pacyga, Dominic. "Union Stock Yard."Encyclopedia of Chicago Online.http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2218.html. Accessed July 2016.

Image courtesy of the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Text by Hope Shannon, Loyola University Chicago