Industrial History

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Chicago Produce Terminals

A produce market is one of the few industries that is still close to downtown. But they have also migrated further from the loop as the city grew. Produce markets receive produce from growers and sell it to distributors. The distributors, in turn, sell it to grocery stores, hotels, restaurants, company cafeterias, etc.

Post Civil War: South Water Street Market

Jeff Davies posted

South Water Street Market. Chicago. 1926.

Photo courtesy of Bruce Kelleher.

South Water Street was a road along the south bank of the main branch of the Chicago River. There were buildings between South Water and the river, and the buildings had back-door docks on the river. "As downtown banks and businesses moved south, produce jobbers took over the buildings along South Water from State Street west." The 1871 Chicago Fire did not displace the market. The city tried to move the market out of the loop in 1904, 14, 15, and 16 because it choked the city streets. Finally, in what seems to be a mayoral tradition (e.g. Daily digging up Meigs Field one night), they bulldozed the area and built the two story Wacker Drive. At least they did not do it in secret one night. The new market opened August 31, 1925. (ChicagoReader)

Chicago History Museum from WTTW

Update:

Leon Paa Rios posted
Chicago water market....
Found this framed at my job

Richard Pitchford posted
Water Street Market ran parallel to the river, with buildings that backed up onto the water. Notice the booking office for the South Haven Line – the company that owned the ill-fated steamship Eastland.
Original Chicago posted
Water Street Market ran parallel to the river, with buildings that backed up onto the water. Notice the booking office for the South Haven Line – the company that owned the ill-fated steamship Eastland. The elevated line is the Lake Street Elevated Railroad (later part of the Green Line). It crossed South Water Street (now Wacker Drive) via a terminal stub on Market Street near Madison Street. This structure operated from 1893 until its demolition in 1948. It served as the original eastern terminal before the Loop was completed.
Paul Webb shared

Patrick Stevens posted

George Coy posted
Came across some old pics of Chicago in the Library of Congress, I thought your group might enjoy them
This one is dated April 1915. Hope this is okay with your group
This is the description:
Looking west on South Water Street, Chicago, crowded with horse-drawn wagons and motor trucks filled with produce for market, Apr. 1915

Dragi S. Trajkovski posted
POSTCARD CHICAGO - SOUTH WATER STREET ,looking WEST from STATE STREET -1905

Dominic Rossi posted
South water market 1941?
[Some comments indicated it would be this market.]

Xavier Quintana posted
From Vintage Tribune:
South Water Street Market, circa September 1925. (Vintage Tribune)
Xavier Quintana also posted
David Utech: Wacker Drive under construction at the top of the picture.

GettyImages

1920's: South Water Market

Northwestern University

To quote Northwestern's caption of this picture: "When South Water Street was made over into Wacker Drive there was a wholesale exodus of the scores of commission houses. This shows the new home of the South Water Market between Fourteenth Place and Fifteenth Street from Morgan Street to Racine Avenue." This 1929 photo would be looking West. Of note is that there are still a lot more horse and wagons then trucks. When I see pictures like this, I have to wonder what do they do with all of the "road apples?"

Patrick Stevens posted
SOUTH WATER MARKET 1956

Update: Northwestern seems to have allowed their security certificate to expire. But I came across another copy of the picture on Facebook. Patrick's comment indicating 1956 is a good example of not being able to believe everything you read on the web. There were not that many horse and wagons in 1956!

ILHAP

I could not find rail access in a 1938 aerial photo. Later I found confirmation that it did not have rail car access. (Update: CN&W's 1947 video indicates their Morgan Street Yard was close and dedicated to perishable freight. The video shows blowing snow ice into a car to keep it cold during warm weather and warm during really cold weather. When the merchants were forced to move to South Water Market, the IC and Santa Fe built the Chicago Produce Terminal for them and other railroads to use. The trucks had to travel less than two miles to get to the merchant market.)

Dominic Rossi posted
Original south water market
Dominic Rossi: I worked there 88- till they closed in April 1993, my father was there for 23 years

George Dana commented on Dominic's post
My grandfather owned Jiffy Spuds and then City Wide Produce. This photo might have been before south water market. He’s in the middle with the white shirt.

Jeff Nichols posted
South Water Street Market, 1955.
University of Chicago Library,
Special Collections Research Center, apf2-09929
Paul Jervert shared

The 90-foot wide street that was great for horse and wagons became a nightmare with the advent of semi-trucks. "In the 1960s Mayor Richard J. Daley and the U.S. Department of Agriculture pushed a grandiose scheme to consolidate the city's food-related businesses near Lake Calumet." That plan failed. But market forces are slowly reducing the percentage of the areas produce handled by the market. In 1939 less than 20% of Chicago's produce arrived by truck, by 1993 more than 75% does. Trains are cheaper, but trucks take 3 days and trains take 5 days. Also, markets in Cleveland, Saint Louis, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis are competing with South Water because of lower labor and overhead costs. Moreover, large store chains--Jewel, Dominick's (1993)--can bypass South Water altogether and trucks can deliver directly to their own warehouses. (ChicagoReader) One time when my wife and I were traveling across Central Valley in California, we stopped at a road stand to buy some produce. When we commented that we were surprised that the produce did not look as good as the stuff we see in our Chicago stores, he replied that it was because they had to ship their good stuff or the grocery store chains wouldn't buy it!

When I studied the aerial photo of the 16th Street Corridor for the St. Charles Air Line Railroad posting, I wondered what the long, horizontal buildings in the middle of the photo were used for. Now I know --- South Water Street Market.

ILHAP

Satellite

These buildings still stand, but they are now condos. (See WBEZ photo above also.)

Fulton Street Market

Patrick Stevens posted
FULTON STREET MARKET - FULTON & GREEN LOOKING WEST

I have not figured out where the Fulton Street Market fits into the history of the markets. I saw a comment for a railroad picture that said Madison Avenue was skid row from the South Branch to Ogden. So the gentrification of the near-west has been a significant change. This would explain why the Union Station is now interested in developing it unused rooms as event, retail and office spaces. It also explains why a report on the Fulton-Randolph Market District wants avoid a "slum clearance" to build more condos. The report has a couple of historic pictures showing a street full of horse and wagons on Page 6.

21st Century

In 2001 the market did move southwest to the north side of the Sanitary and Ship Canal just east of Damen---The Chicago International Produce Market (CIPM).

Satellite

Trucks from the growers (receiving) use the west side and the trucks for the distributors (loading) use the east side. Looking at the map, I noticed that this area has become a grocery wholesale district. Up the road is Cermak Fresh Market and across the parking lot from that building is ALDI. And a little further towards downtown is Dalmares Produce.

Satellite

I checked with a 1938 aerial map to confirm that they filled in a couple of slips originally created in the 1800s by the South Branch Dock Company to create land for this new market building. Even though it is built in the 75-acre industrial park that CB&Q created with the dock company when it built its access into Chicago in 1862-4, the market building does not have rail access.

The hours are from 3:30-4:00am to noon. "CIPM merchants offer the widest possible selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, dried fruits, herbs, spices, and specialty dry goods." (Agrilicious) The warehouse contains "ripening rooms" that control temperature, humidity, gassing, and ventilation, which controls ripening rates. Estimates are that produce in Chicago is a billion dollar business. This terminal supports not just the Chicago land area, but a tri-state area. (WBEZ) And they are trying to expand their reach to Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and additional Midwestern states. There are other competitors such as Central Grocers in Joliet.(ThePacker)

FourSquare

The loading doc is full of fast electric forklifts called power jacks moving produce to the correct receiving truck.

If you skip to 1:00 in the video you can see about 20 seconds of loading doc activity. Timestamp 6:04 was also interesting because it shows an order picker filling an order from a selection of 300 products and a view of the size of the cooled warehouse rooms. Note that the video was made in 2009, so the market was viable even during the recession.

Updates

Glen Miller posted
[I have heard of this, but I don't know where it is. I don't have time to research it now.]

Monday, February 23, 2015

Beartrap Dam (Bear Trap Gate)

Jan 3, 2023 Update: This video is a lot easier to understand than the text below.

15:15 video @ 9:51

The gates of a Bear Trap Dam raise up from the riverbed to increase the level of the upper pool and the flow of water is over the gates. This allows floating debris such as trees and ice to continue flowing downstream. Other gate designs such as sluice and traditional Tainter gates release the flow under the gate and thus obstruct floating debris.

Diagram from US Government
Bear trap gates consist of two leaves. When in the lowered position, the upstream leaf overlaps the downstream leaf. The gate is raised by applying upper pool pressure to a chamber under the leaves. This pressure, sometimes supplemented with air or hydraulic cylinders, raises the dam gate. These gates generally retain a pool differential of 20 ft or less and are normally about 90 ft wide. They are ingeniously conceived but can prove difficult to maintain. Silt or sand deposits in or under the gates are particularly likely and may make it impossible to fully lower or raise the gates.

Ohio River, search for bear. This is one of those neat sites where I could spend soooo much time browsing.

Cincinnati Views: Fernbank Engineering Article

Cincinnati Views: Fernbank Dam

Cincinnati Views: Fernbank Dam with heavy water flow

USACE, p201
Louisville and Portland Canal

USACE, p230
This was part of the 1920s McAlpine Dam

The Croton Dam uses a bear trap gate for its center spillway.

Nevers Dam 80' (24.4m) bear trap gate was the longest when built.

All nine spillway gates for the Morris Sheppard Dam are bear trap gates. Those notes contain a video that explains how the gates work.

IC's CH&W: Champaign, Havana, and Western Railroad Overview

pre-1967 plus paint

(Some sources have the C in CH&W standing for Chicago instead of Champaign. I changed the title to Champaign because that makes more sense.) Since the Havana, Rantoul and Eastern Railroad never made it to Havana, IL, I was curious which IC acquisition did make it to Havana. This railroad is also of interest because one of today's remnants is used by the Monticello Railway Museum. Please read tdf23 or the last 3 paragraphs of the museum's history for the corporate history. To summarize, it was built in the 1870s, screwed up by Jay Gould's Wabash in the 1880s, and leased to the IC in 1888.

Download .jpg File via Dennis DeBruler
The key indicates it was built 1872-73, and it was admitted in 1888 with 131.63 miles of track.

The "built" date on the above map is more of a corporate consolidation date. The branch to Decatur was built by the Monticello Railroad (MMR) after the civil war. The other branch started with a charter in 1867 of the Havana, Lincoln & Champaign Railroad (HL&C). [chwrhs]

Satellite: Seymour

Most of this railroad is now gone. The segment west of Champaign to Seymour is still operated by because of a grain elevator. A remnant of the southwest branch out of Champaign between White Heath and Monticello was purchased by Monticello Railway Museum in 1987. A video of their steam locomotive.

Satellite: Cisco

Another remnant of the southwest branch is owned by Topflight Grain to connect their elevator in Cisco, IL, with Decatur. It is operated by Decatur Junction. A video indicates this Class III railroad hauls plastic pellets as well as grain. They have a GP20 and a couple of GP16s and also haul some tank cars.

The Topflight Grain web site is interesting because it has historic rainfall data and historic grain prices.

Newberry Library, p114-115

Morning Glory Spillways for Dams

Fogonazos

In case you were wondering if I had lost interest in dams, I came across this link when I was Googling the Monticello Railway Museum. The 72-foot opening narrows to a 28-foot spillway.

Fogonazos

Most of the comments are noise, and some are rather objectionable, so I summarize. Many comments were speculating that you would die because of the water pressure of a 200-foot column of water. But "Anónimo dijo... " explains that since the water spillway is designed to accommodate the flow of water, the pressure remains around one atmosphere. But the water turbulence will rather quickly kill you.

Speaking as an ex Civil Engineer, here's the science bit:

When traversing this thing while it's active, the issue really isn't pressure.

Hydrodynamically, there are three components to the fluid's "head" at any given point ("head" is a way of expressing the total energy potential of a dynamic fluid at any point, and is expressed in metres).

1. Potential energy (height above datum). All the energy is potential at the entrance, and by the time it exits most of it is converted to...

2. Kinetic (speed). As there is negligible difference in atmospheric pressure at the entrance and exit, ignoring friction, we can assume all of the potential energy becomes kinetic as the water falls. The only way to get significant pressure on the way down would be to steal some kinetic energy by constricting or kinking the pipe, and since that would slow the water (defeating the hole's purpose) it will be a smooth ride. So there is very little head converted into...

3. Pressure. This will be pretty much 1 atmosphere throughout the system. It is designed this way precisely because this water needs to flow as fast as possible.

So no, the pressure won't kill you. What WILL kill you is turbulence and friction. Unless the water is verrrry slow, you get turbulent flow, which will buffet you around and basically bash your brains and bones all over the pipe, especially at such speeds. Given how smooth cement isn't, you'll probably also be flayed alive as you go. If the turbulence is particularly bad (although they try to avoid this so not too much speed is lost to friction), then localized pressure from vortices may burst your ear-drums.

Personally, for survival purposes, I'd wear scuba gear and go in a Zorb (a big inflatable hamster-ball) coated in kevlar. And set up a big, BIG net at the bottom to catch me :-)

By the way, the turbulence will probably still kill you, so PLEASE don't try this.

PyroTyger

Fogonazos

MC: Joliet Cutoff: NYC's Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroad

I was surprised when I was studying a 1960 map of Chicago railroads because I spotted a NYC line going across the south just north of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern.

1960

Newberry, 1888

This 1888 map shows that it has already been absorbed by Michigan Central. From a photo album, I learned it was built by Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroad. So the linage of this route would be J&NI > MC > NYC > Penn Central > Conrail > Abandoned.

The photo album claims it was abandoned in 2012. That would be the final segment between Chicago Heights and west of Griffith. From a Facebook comment, I learned it was OOS (Out of Service), not abandoned. I think that means that no part of the right-of-way will be used for another purpose. But I assume NS doesn't have to pay property taxes after they tear up the rails. I wonder if there are coax and/or fiber cables plowed along the tracks. The segment between Joliet and Chicago Heights has been developed as a 22-mile paved trail --- Old Plank Road Trail. To complicate matters, the remaining MC track in Indiana is now owned by CSX.

Joliet & Northern Indiana Railroad was incorporated in Indiana and Illinois on Aug. 23, 1854. This consolidated incorporation across state lines was made possible by recent laws passed in both state legislators (PlankRoad4). So the games played by the Michigan Central and Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana to gain access to Chicago were no longer needed (CrossingWar). The incorporation included the assets of the Joliet and Northern Indiana Rail Road, which was incorporated on Jan. 9, 1854. Actually, most of the millage (43.849 of 45.179) was built by the "Rail Road" rather than the "Railroad," but since the abbreviation J&NI works for both, I'm going with the popular name. (Wikipeda) The line was leased to Michigan Central before it was completed and service commenced July, 1855. It was built by Joliet businessmen so that they could get a connection to the east without having to deal with the Rock Island or the I&M Canal. (TrainOrders) The J&NI was known as the Joliet Cutoff because it removed 30 miles from the trip between Michigan and Joliet and points West (Rock Island) and Southwest (e.g. Chicago and Alton). The railroad created the towns of Spencer and Frankfort. (PlankRoad5) (But I can't find Spencer in Google Map.)

Satellite

This line branched from the Michigan Central mainline in Lake Station, IN, (between 1906 and 1977 the town was named East Gary) and the route went in a rather straight line to Griffith. This segment was abandoned in 1976 (AbandonedRails).

Update:

Bill Molony posted, note that North is to the right
The J&NI was acquired by the Michigan Central Railroad in 1855, before it was even completed. In 1930, the New York Central leased the Michigan Central and began operating it as a part of the New York Central System. This particular line was known as The Joliet Cut-Off.
Bill Molony posted again
This 1956 map of the Joliet Cutoff shows all of their connections with other railroad companies.
Bill Molony posted
The 45-mile long Joliet & Indiana Railway was completed in 1855, under the ownership of the Michigan Central Railroad. The MC came under the control of the Yew York Central & Hudson River Railroad in 1890, but continued to operate as a separate railroad. In February, 1930, the New York Central leased the Michigan Central, and began operating it as part of the New York Central System. The lease of the J&NI was transferred from the MC to the NYC at that time. The NYC merged with the PRR in 1968, forming the ill-fated Penn Central Railroad. Business and traffic on the J&NI declined under PC management, and by the end of 1972, it was embargoed from Chicago Heights to Joliet. When Conrail took over in 1976, the Chicago Heights to Joliet right-of-way was retained by the Penn Central Corporation and was never owned or operated by Conrail. Today, that portion of the R-O-W is the recreational trail known as the Old Plank Trail.
Denis Johnston: Parallel the EJ&E.
Bill Molony: The J&NI was completed between Joliet and East Gary in 1855. The EJ&E was not completed between Joliet and Hobart until 1899.
Bill Molony posted

Bill Molony posted
This map of Joliet from the 1876 Atlas of Illinois shows the locations of the tracks of the Chicago & Rock Island, the Joliet &Northern Indiana, and the Chicago & Alton.
Keep in mind that all of these railroads in downtown Joliet were still at grade, and that the AT&SF and the EJ&E had not arrived yet.
The track elevation in Joliet was done in 1908-1010, and Joliet Union Station opened in 1912. Prior to that time, each of the railroads serving Joliet had its own stations.
[More info]

1959 Gary and 1960 Portage Quadrangles @ 1:24,000
Mike Kasrich commented on a post
Having lived in Lake Station/East Gary from 1963 until 1995 this is what I recall. The branch left the main line just west of IN. Rt. 51. There were about 4 tracks in the yard of lighter rail. One of the yard tracks I believe abutted a couple of coal/fuel oil places. Square Deal was one can't remember the other name. There was a spur that went across Ripley to what eventually was a small chemical plant. That might have been a lumber yard before that came into existence. The track behind/near the library was the Joliet branch. The switch to access the yard would have been close to what was the Central Center shopping center or a bit east of the shopping center. The yard was stub ended at that time. I don't recall any tracks being in Pike St. except for the branch and the twp MC mainlines. There was a short stretch of the track pans in place on the MC mainline around/west of Pike St and they ended long before Grand Blvd.

More Coaling Towers and Roundhouse Footprints

Peru, IN

Wabash Yards roundhouse footprint.

Mike Mohrmann -> >> Vintage Rails

Mike didn't have any details but Michael Moran commented: "Peru, In. C&O/ Chessie yard, all of which is gone today."

Danville, IL

Lyons Yard, -14 degrees in 1949, posted

I don't know for sure that the following was Lyons Yard, but it was the only yard-looking thing I could find in Danville.

ILHAP

Today, it has been rebuilt as a small yard and more modern service facilities. This line was Big Four. If I'm reading the 2014 Illinois State Road Map correctly, it is now VVRR. But I could not find VVRR in a list of reporting marks.