B&O, B&OCT, CGW and Pere Marquette freight houses along the south branch

(no Satellite because these railroad facilities are long gone. These facilities were on the east side of the South Branch between Harrison and Roosevelt.)

The straightening of the river in the 1930s had a big impact on the B&O facilities in downtown Chicago.

I start with after the straightening because I have just one photo of that. And because this material was moved from the Roosevelt Road Bridge post.

I used the bridge in the background of this photo to determine where this B&OCT locomotive was running. Once I identified the bascule bridge as the Roosevelt Road Bridge, I remembered that the B&OCT was the terminal railroad for the Grand Central Station, and B&OCT had tracks on the east side of the South Branch from their bridge to the station. This freight house was built after the river was straightened and did not yet exist in the 1938 aerial photo. B&OCT had several small freight houses that fed LCL freight to B&OCT's main classification freight house. It has the classical design for a freight house --- a multi-story building with lots of windows at one end for the office workers that is attached to a one-story freight handling building. In the days of LCL freight, there were no computers, so it took a lot of office workers to help process the paper work. Each boxcar had a folder that contained the waybills of the containers that were in that boxcar. After the LCL freight was sorted in Chicago to a destination train, the conductor on that road train would get these folders along with the waybills for the carload traffic. They would have to determine from the waybills in the folders which containers were to be dropped at which depot along the route. These containers could range from a refrigerator sent by a mail-order house such as Sears to a plow. Remember, in the 1800s everything came to town on the railroad. That is why depots had a passenger weighting room on one side and a freight handling room on the other side. The depot was the life blood of the town.

Scott Griffith posted
Les Wuollett Waiting at dwarf signal for line up to GCS. Probably to pull passenger train to Lincoln St coach yard.

Now back to the early 1900s.

MWRD posted
The South Branch of the Chicago River looking north from an area near Taylor Street in Chicago, Illinois, on November 8, 1908.
MWRD posted
The South Branch of the Chicago River looking north from an area near Taylor Street on November 8, 1908.
Ralph Leoni: Polk / Dearborn station noted in background right!

This is another example of a big boat making it this far south on the branch.

Original Chicago posted
The view is from the area of Polk Street looking toward the north in 1928. A crane is dredging a new channel in the last part of a river straightening project. The white billboard is an announcement of the project. In 1928 the final major engineering project on the river system straightened the channel of the South Branch between 18th and Polk by digging a new channel 850 feet west of Clark Street and filling the old river channel. This project improved rail access to the Loop and was part of the 1909 Burnham Plan.
Paul Webb shared
Dennis DeBruler shared with the comment: "This view shows some of the freight houses that used to be between Grand Central Station (note the clock tower on the right) and the river. It also shows that some big boats came down the South Branch and the Harrison Street Bridge in the raised position because of that big boat."

Thomas Karsten: The white building behind the clock tower is 175 w. Jackson and the faint outline behind is 208 s. La Salle. Looks like it’s after this section of the river was straightened.

Dennis DeBruler commented on MWRD's first post
The building along the right was one of the B&O freight houses.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4104cm.g01790190601S/?sp=80

Jeff Nichols posted
Chicago River, view from Taylor, 1909. Pitt.
Victor StLawrence: Looking north. The warehouse on the left is where the newer post office is.
Marshall Field warehouse on the left.
Paul Jevert shared
[Note the trainshed and tower of Grand Central Station on the right side of this photo. And of course the freight houses along the river.]

 Note the freight house between the Grand Central Station and the river in the right background.

Raymond Kunst posted via Dennis DeBruler

Since I'm learning how to use the LoC's collection of Sanborn Maps, I checked out the map to the north, 71. The GTW freight house is along the river and Pere Marquette has one sandwiched between the GTW freight house and the train shed of Grand Central Station.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4104cm.g01790190601S/?sp=72

I shared the MWRD post with another group, but Facebook won't give me a link to it. :-(

North is to the right.

Alice Niu posted

History's Mirror posted
[I'm not copying the description because it is an example of AI gone wrong. Basically, if a statement is not a platitude, it is wrong. The dredge is in the old channel, not the new one. And "Polk and Taylor Streets" implies an intersection, but they are parallel streets. The photo below shows that the photo was taken from Taylor and we are looking at Polk Street Bridge.
But it is a great photo of the freight houses and Polk Street Bridge.]
Franklin Campbell shared

Dennis DeBruler: The dredge is digging in the old channel, not creating the new one. But this is a terrific photo of Polk Street Bridge.

This photo confirms that the train shed that we see in the above photo was for the Grand Central Terminal. And because it includes the Pennsy freight house, I could confirm the streets as Taylor looking at Polk.

B&O C&O Grand Central, Chicago Terminal 1890-1971. posted via Dennis DeBruler

B&O Chicago Terminal, (Grand Central Station).

Lower left, old Pennsylvania Freight House - (1918-1974). 

323 Polk Street, Chgo.

Center of photo, Grand central and Train shed - (1890-1972) 

201 W. Harrison St. Chgo.

To the right was LaSalle Street Headhouse - (1903-1981). 

414 So. LaSalle St. Chgo.

[The date was probably c1924 because the new CUS is still being built. The tall building in the northwest quadrant of Polk Street and the river was the Marshal Field River Warehouse.]

Andrew Roth shared with the comment: "Forwarding this photo of Grand Central station and LaSalle Street Station when both station had large multi- track canopy roofs."

Thomas Manz commented on Andrew's share
Rand McNally view looking W from1893