After leaving Madison, I wandered over into Granite City, where I soon found myself on East 23rd Street, and lo and behold, there was TMS Services. I went to their website, and after reading their “About Us” section I still have absolutely no idea what they do. I guess it looks like they probably scrap…
Tag: Factories
Railroad Machine Shops, Oelwein, Fayette County, Iowa, Revisited Again
We were able to get closer to the massive railroad machine shops that I examined back in July of 2021. I had first observed them from a distance back in the fall of 2018 (ninth photo down). They’re massive, impressive buildings, but what is even more massive, and you can see that in the fire…
Former Bridge, Beach & Co., Revisited
I’ve looked at the massive Bridge, Beach & Co. factory on North Union Boulevard twice before, once in August of 2014 and then again in November of 2018. It seems to stretch onto blocks on both sides of Brown Avenue and terminates on the west side of Geraldine Avenue. The Sanborn Map from 1920 shows…
Richard Pryor and Peoria
I had known for awhile that Richard Pryor was from Peoria, but I had always assumed it was one of those situations where he was born there and had moved away when he was a small child. That is far from the case; his childhood is inextricably linked to his upbringing in the city. Weirdly,…
In Search of LeTourneau, Peoria
It is amazing how quickly we lose the memory of the huge old factories that once powered America through peacetime, and then when war came, helped defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Few people probably know the LeTourneau name anymore, despite it once being one of the largest producers of machinery in the world. Located…
The Kaletta Statuary Company
The Kaletta Statuary Company once dominated the religious sculpture and furnishings business in St. Louis from their shop on a stretch of the 3700 block of California Avenue in Gravois Park. In fact, if you go into any Roman Catholic church in St. Louis built before the 1950s, you’ll probably see some of their work….
Suspicious Fires Week: The Old Bowling Ball Factory, Jennings
“Fire at an old bowling ball factory on Xograph Avenue in Jennings?” I knew when I heard about this strange occurrence, and how the St. Louis Fire Department had to join their colleagues in the County to help extinguish the flames on Thursday (which later reignited on Friday), I had to go check out this…
Northeast Side of Crunden-Martin, October 2021
I photographed the east side of Crunden-Martin back in the summer of 2020, and not much had changed. The hulking buildings are still vacant, and are built of a sort of pale red brick. A portion of the terracotta cornice, which may have been white or cream-colored when it was originally installed but has turned…
Packers By-Products, National City
More land clearance is happening over by the old National Stockyards, where Armour, Swift and Hunter once slaughtered livestock by the millions for over a century. They’re all demolished now, but one business and its buildings is still standing, at least for now. That was the Packers’ By-Products building, with its infamous doors labeled “Blood”…
Liggett-Meyers Tobacco Company, North Side
The Liggett and Meyers Tobacco Factory stretches between Folsom and Park Avenues, and the north side of the building is perhaps not as often photographed. There are large rounded arch windows of what was originally the power plant, with ten boilers that were served by the massive octagonal smokestack. It’s one of the most popular…