Re: [CBQ] Photo: Structure At The Oswego Stockyards Montgomery, IL

["cbqbill1x" <kybillhusb@gmail.com>]

Thanks Fred

I grew up in nearby Oswego on a farm, and one of my classmates father worked at the Sheep Yards.

At one time, the Montgomery Stockyards were the largest sheep barns in the world. [2] The Montgomery stockyards were constructed by the CB&Q in 1880. The yards became an important source of employment for people in this area. The stockyard facility included the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's 20 track yard for loading, unloading, cleaning, and holding sheep for ultimate transfer to the Chicago Stockyards. A hotel was provided for the sheepherders and other in transit workers, Several farms located adjacent to the stockyards were owned by the Burlington Railroad, and were used for resting, grazing, and feeding in transit sheep. Sheepherders and other workers travelled with the train, and may have occupied a bunk in the stockcar, or rode in a Drover's caboose (a "Cowboy Pullman") or similar "basic accommodation" car. [2] 

The Montgomery stockyards were close to the final destination for sheep: the Chicago Stockyards, where the sheep would be slaughtered. In some cases, the shipper would want to have the sheep turned out to pasture for a few days to "fatten the sheep up" before being weighed at the Chicago stockyards. During transit, cattle and sheep lose weight because of lack of water and exercise; since the shipper was paid by weight at the Chicago stockyards, the shipper would take every opportunity to feed, and water the animals before they arrived at the Chicago stockyards.

The "The 28-hour law of 1873" provided that cattle, sheep, etc., must not be confined in railroad cars for a longer period than 28 consecutive hours (or upon written request of the owner 36 consecutive hours) without unloading the same in a humane manner into properly equipped pens for rest, water, and feeding for a period of at least 5 consecutive hours. Animals can also be kept confined for longer than 28 hours if unloading the animals is not possible because of "accidental or unavoidable causes." 

Adapted from [2]

The Montgomery Stock Yards were build on the original grade with the two mainlines elevated to join the mains thru Aurora.  The first track in from the elevated mains was "The Old North Main"  This had an electric unlock at the west end into Main 2.  There were two or three yard tracks with the west most track having a wood platform about18 (40 ft) Car lengths.  There were moveable gates for each of the 18 pens.  The gates would swing out to the car side as there were moveable ends in the gates that would extend out to the car.  A plank walkway was dropped between the platform and the car.  For Double Decks we had a Piece of Plywood to put inside of the movable gates to reach the top deck.  Often sheep would come flying out.  There was one moveable plywood ramp for double deck calves that took two men to move.  Once the livestock were in the receiving pens they would be let out one at a time into the alley ways which had gates along the way and herded into the scale( All movements were by Weight)  Scale tickets were used to record the weight.  Then they were let out of the scale and counted to match up with the way bill count.  and run into pens which had feed bunkers and water troughs.  In '67-69 the water tank was a huge ground tank.  With underground piping to each pen where there was an valve either on or off with a pipe in the trough that took the overflow back under ground to waste. All fencing, gates Etc was 2 X 6 with often ties for posts.  From the north there was two barns with the west barn had an auction area in the south end of the building the other was all  pens.  The west and half the middle barn were leased by Weitheheimer Cattle Co.  They unloaded there own calves.  Those not sold would be fed until sold for feeding and or slaughter.  The east barn was shared with the Railroad for calves.  

Montgomery II

From: Steven Holding

Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2022 20:20:57 PST

There were drives out the north end of the cattle barns on to Ill 31  The Waste Piles were along a siding that lead over to Armor Dial and the other industry that was built on the old farm grounds.

   The next barn to the south(west) was the sheep barn and most sheep came in for Monier Sheep Co.  They would feed them with corn and alfalfa pellets that was stored in the elevator.  Corn from local with pellets from out west came in in C-6's The Railroad unloaded the pellets and had a feed truck with scales to weight out the needed pellets/corn mix.(Calves and cattle were fed baled hay from the haybarn next to the elevator)  Next to the Sheep barn between that and the tracks was a sheep shearing barn area.  The middle drive came in between the Sheep barn and the Supt. House (old hotel)a wooden three story building heated by hot water from a coal fired boiler in basement.  (the laborers would keep the fire going) with the office a brick building close to the tracks.  The building had a truck shop in the east end with two rooms to the west the Office and the locker room(both heated with potbelly stoves) The truck shop was unheated.  The drive looped around the Supt's House and to the west was a field that had been another Huge barn the B&B tore down in winter of '67.  The west(south)most barn was for cattle and leased to Henry Steele who sold fair quality cattle.  So cattle would come to either the main unloading area or south if for Henry Steele.  Sheep always came to the main platform.  Sheep were just DUM.  Often you had to go in and throw out half the car load to get them to leave the car.  Once in the pens they moved ok.  Once you got the livestock unloaded. Weighted. counted and penned. they you when into the office and had to glue a copy of the scale ticket and write the count on the waybills.  This gave the inbound weight to figure the weight lost in transit. and the count listing any dead animals  which also had to be removed to an area for the rendering truck.  We used an old dump truck to move hay from the storage barn to the storage area above the hay racks in the pens for cattle.   Calves mostly moved in fall for sale to farmers to feed out on stalk fields with sheep moving year round as Monier feed them out for truck movement into Chicago to the packing house. 

Often the inbound cars were either the old wood NP red cars or Gray steel "Pig Palace" cars but never any  thing bigger then 50 Ft with most 40 Footers. NP and GN as well as Q from the north with Q, DRGW and UP from the west.  We had an old ford 8N with loader to move deads and clean out pens loading the dump truck to the storeage area then used to load the gons which when to the strip mines in Southern Ill.

{5]

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