134 Comments for Armour Meat Packing Plant

What remains of what was called a spreader stoker for the boiler. Looks like the boilers were also retrofitted with oil burners that have been scrapped from the round holes in the boiler fronts.

It is a 3 cylinder steam engine driving a electrical generator. The smaller unit is indeed an exciter. Looks like copper scavengers had quite a haul with this one.

The tank is called a suction accumulator. Its purpose was to prevent liquid ammonia from carrying over to the ammonia compressor. As these compressors are piston types any liquid entering them would severely damage them beyond repair and cause a massive ammonia leak.

The square holes in the flywheel were for inserting a square steel pry bar into in order to turn the machine by hand during maintenance or repairs. The term for that was barring over the machine.

What a glorious BUSY photo full of most interesting things.

An overgrown path is the best kind of path i this business! :)

Were there square pegs in the wheel well? I'm wondering if the holes were there to keep the wheel from vibrating or shaking. ...if the pegs were there, that is.

looks like a coffee grinder on steroids

That tubing is probably steel.
Sumac might be the most common and fertile tree in America. Every open space in the right climate seems to get one within a couple years or becoming open.

Remember the old commercial?
Hot dogs, Armour Hot Dogs
What kinds of kids eat Armour Hot Dogs?
Big kids, little kids, kids who climb on rocks
fat kids, skinny kids, even kids with chicken pox
love hot dogs, Armour Dot Dogs
The dogs kids love to bite!

The conditions in meat packing plants of Chicago and the midwest in the early 20th Century are the reason for Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" his intent being to expose the harsh conditions the workers were subjected to but the public focused on the sanitary practices or lack thereof "Upton Sinclair intended to expose "the inferno of exploitation [of the typical American factory worker at the turn of the 20th Century]", but the reading public fixed on food safety as the novel's most pressing issue. Sinclair admitted his celebrity arose "not because the public cared anything about the workers, but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef" https://en.wikipedia.o..._Jungle#Plot_summary
It lead to the creation of the agency which is now called the FDA and still much was covered up.

WOw! what a great close-up! Reminds me of the old Singer Sewing machines and the detailing you would always see on them. :)

This IS one Lovely piece of Machinery...As well as an awesome photo!

can you imagine getting your shirt sleeve caught on one of these machines?

They really put a lot of class in things that were built back then.

I love machinery, I'd like to have seen this in action!