I headed back over by Amour on Saturday, and not much has changed on the slaughterhouse, but a tons of rubble have been removed from the site of the refrigeration plant. Giant husks of metal, some recognizable as refrigeration tanks, and others as the pipes that once snaked around the building, lay about, probably about…

Update: Demolished in the summer of 2016. It dawned us finally one time that this was the final alleyway that cattle were forced down, with the hose on the left used to wash the path down. Look at the worn-down bricks where millions of cattle once walked. Around the corner, I am certain this passageway…

Update: Demolished in the summer of 2016. I used to think this massive elevator took carcasses up into the building, but that is incorrect. Like beer brewing, slaughterhouses brought the cattle up to the top of Armour, and then lowered them down floor by floor. It’s an interesting machine.

Update: Demolished in the summer of 2016. The slaughterhouse at Armour was collapsing, not dramatically, but inexorably. It was going to be a pile of rubble in a decade, probably, even without the demolition that came in the summer of 2016. Probably because it didn’t have the technical problems of two smokestacks like the refrigeration…

Update: Demolished in the summer of 2016. I don’t know why I didn’t post this long ago, but for those who’ve never been, this is what was left of most of Armour in the last decade. Amazing, there were huge refrigerated warehouses right in front of the surviving buildings. The refrigeration plant is at bottom…

Update: Demolished in the summer of 2016. We were never really sure what this structure was for; old Sanborns label this as condensers, but if they were ever there, they are long gone, and were left open to the elements for decades. There was a certain abstract beauty to the structure.

Update: Demolished in the summer of 2016. That quiet spot in between the slaughter house and the refrigeration plant always seemed to boast the most lush flora around Armour. It’s weird seeing the site stripped of vegetation now, as it was always so heavily concealed by nature.

Update: Demolished by implosion in the summer of 2016. Climbing the rickety stairs, we emerged up above the boilers, which you can above, with the coal hoppers on the right. There were a whole forest of pipes up here, probably covered in asbestos insulation, and their use is a mystery to me. I assume all…