IH: McCormick Reaper Works, Revisited

(Update: Lost Illinois Manufacturing posting. He has some pictures that I don't have.)

Illinois Digital Archives

This picture inspired me to look for more information about the McCormick Reaper Works that I had found in a 1915 map. It was a postcard handed out at the International Harvester's exhibit at the Century of Progress, 1933-34. The text indicates:

McCormick Works (red)
Tractor Works (blue)
Combined Area - 147.1 Acres

The water along the right edge would be the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The water in the middle is the original South Branch before it was filled in. If you look at the 1915 map in the above reference, just a little of the Tractor Works existed and some of the Reaper Work buildings have changed. The easiest change to spot is that the building on the south shore the of the South Branch is new. The above link was provided as a comment for the following Facebook posting.

Ken Gidewall commneted on a post
Sharon Clancy Ken Gidewall my mom made airplane parts there during WWII.

Eugene Klichowski commented on a post

Paul Renaud ->  Forgotten Chicago

Paul's comment:

Southeast panorama of the McCormick Reaper Works, rail yard and canal. The factory was owned by the McCormick Harvesting Machine company before 1902. In 1902 it became the McCormick Works of the International Harvester Company. The factory was located at Blue Island and Western Avenues in the Chicago subdivision called "Canalport." It was closed in 1961.

Darla Zailskas in another posting of this picture commented that it was "circa 1900."

I think the stretch of water in the photo is the South Branch rather than the canal. And I think it is after 1915 because the building on the left appears to be the new one mentioned above.

Paul posted three more pictures to Forgotten Chicago. The comments are, respectively:

• Quitting Time at McCormick Reaper Works
• McCormick Reaper Works factory and rail yard as seen across a canal. Workers can be seen unloading wood.
• Twine mill with shipping platform at the McCormick Reaper Works, just after construction.

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For the middle photo, I think the view is across a channalized South Branch rather than the S&S Canal. There was controversy in the comments for the third photo as to its location. I have not been able to determine where it was.

About the only difference between the aerial view above and the aerial photo in my  previous posting is that the South Branch river has been filled in west of the new building on the south shore of the river.

In the upper-right corner of the aerial view you can see part of the Chicago Produce Terminal yard.

References for future research concerning IH:  After the Holidays, I need to remember to check out International Harvester, Mccormick, Navistar : milestones in the company that helped build America (from a library search).

Update:

Trent Blasco posted
Farmall Tractors and Tanks during World War II at the Tractor Works, 2600 West 31st Street.
(Chicago History Museum, ICHi-25512)

Jeff Nichols posted
McCormick Works (Blue Island & Western) photographed from the opposite bank of the Chicago River, 1914. McCormick - International Harvester, Wisconsin Historical Society, Image ID: 45297

Marty Miller posted
 McCormick Works at Western and Blue Island. I don't think the workers used this entrance?Photo dated 1926

Chris La Course posted
The McCormick Reaper Works, 26th and Oakley, 1928, Chicago

MWRD posted
Historical Photo of the Week: Workers prepare to raise a sunken tug boat out of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal on July 12, 1922, viewed looking roughly northwest from an area near Damen Ave. (Robey St. at the time of the photo).
David Daruszka McCormick Reaper Works in the background. All gone today

MWRD posted
Paul Rabenhorst shared

ChicagoHistory has an interactive picture of the works.

A video advertising their complete line of tractors. Unfortunately, I could not find a date.