The Armour Meat Packing Plant is certainly a sight to behold. Rising out of the thick underbrush of the northern edge of East St. Louis, it is hard to believe that such a centrally located site could have remained abandoned for the last fifty years. The smokestacks punctuate the northern reached of the old National Stockyards, which are now completely closed.
The ruins of Armour are massive, decrepit and treacherous, with holes in the floor scattered throughout the site. The steam plant, anchored by the two massive smokestacks, is still outfitted with much of its machinery. Looking up, there are large skylights which have lost their glass perhaps decades ago.
Here is the base of one of the smokestacks, still in remarkably good shape despite some evidence of spalling high up on the stack.
The exterior is likewise in various stages of repair, ranging from completely collapsed to well preserved. Read
here about the guy who climbed the smokestack, with hilarious results.
The machine room is amazing; the various implements, some over one hundred years old, are mostly lying in the same place as the day the complex was abandoned.
These tanks are stunning, showing how massive the operation was at Armour.
And finally, the killing floor, where if you look very carefully, you can see the metal apparatus that carried the carcasses from room to room.
Here is an
aerial view; it normally is shrouded in vegetation and largely obscured from view.
Here is the second installment of my finding a sunnyside-up egg on the ground. See the first one here.
Light filtering down through a hole in the floor into the basement of Armour Meatpacking Plant.
Imagine hundreds or perhaps thousands of cattle carcasses dangling from the ceilings of the massive refrigerator rooms at Armour.
Built of thick concrete and foam insulation, the room was still cold on a sunny day in March.
Remarkably large stalactites and stalagmites have begun to form on the ceilings and floors.
It's tempting to look at the giant hulking smokestacks or coal hoppers, the giant boilers or the huge tanks at Armour Meatpacking Plant, but if you look closely, strange and fascinating little details begin to appear. A discarded table, a wooden table or a strange round hole can capture the attention in the diminutive as much as the sublime.
Symbolizing industrial might, the twin smokestacks of Armour tower over the plant.
Don't try to climb them, though.
The Armour Meat Packing Plant is certainly a sight to behold. Rising out of the thick underbrush of the northern edge of East St. Louis, it is hard to believe that such a centrally located site could have remained abandoned for the last fifty years. The smokestacks punctuate the northern reached of the old National Stockyards, which are now completely closed.
The ruins of Armour are massive, decrepit and treacherous, with holes in the floor scattered throughout the site. The steam plant, anchored by the two massive smokestacks, is still outfitted with much of its machinery. Looking up, there are large skylights which have lost their glass perhaps decades ago.
Here is the base of one of the smokestacks, still in remarkably good shape despite some evidence of spalling high up on the stack.
The exterior is likewise in various stages of repair, ranging from completely collapsed to well preserved. Read here about the guy who climbed the smokestack, with hilarious results.
The machine room is amazing; the various implements, some over one hundred years old, are mostly lying in the same place as the day the complex was abandoned.
These tanks are stunning, showing how massive the operation was at Armour.
And finally, the killing floor, where if you look very carefully, you can see the metal apparatus that carried the carcasses from room to room.
Here is an aerial view; it normally is shrouded in vegetation and largely obscured from view.
