Chicago’s Union Stockyards & Transit Company was one of the world’s largest centers of industry. The 450-acre site contained thousands of wooden animal pens, barns, haylofts, slaughterhouses, packing plants, and warehouses owned and operated by more than 100 separate meatpacking businesses.
The site would also home to the worst fire service disaster in Illinois history.......
At 4 AM on December 22, 1910 Pat's Great Grandfather, Fire Marshal James Horan, had just arrived and was directing operations from the building’s loading dock when an explosion occurred. An entire six-story wall collapsed on the loading dock, killing Horan, 2nd Assistant Chief Fire Marshal William Burroughs, three captains, four lieutenants, twelve other city firefighters, and two private firefighters.
The City saved the original arch-entrance and built a wonderful Monument to the "Fallen 21" which we visited on Christmas Eve .. very moving...
The statue depicts the pose of Fire Marshal James Horan and Firefighters as the wall collapsed ...
At the end of the memorial was a wreath ...and some fresh flowers.
At this very site as the City commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the great Stockyard Fire, fire radio's crackled with the first all city "May-Day" alert called since the stockyard fires....
....21 Firefighters were trapped in a collapsed building on the City's South Side - 2 Firefighters lost their lives on this day.
