Went to Armour packing plant in East St. Louis!

[Chris]

Guys, this place is a urban explorer's wet dream. If you like industrial finds, you won't be dissapointed. It's huge, takes up several buildings and is fairly remote but you drive right up to it. I would visit soon if you plan to though, as they're already palletizing bricks for resale. I don't know if they plan to tear the place down sometime soon, but they are salvaging bricks, probably from the roads that run around it. Some places in here are really dilapidated, so watch yourselves. There's really almost no vandalism, but there has been some component slavage. Most of the damage seems to have been caused by weather and time.

You can see the equimpent in the elevator penthouse, the boilers, coal hoppers that feed it, the sprinker system, some air compressors, a couple of steam engines, and some sprinkler pumps. You could crawl into the bottom of one of the smoke stacks, but you'd get filthy.

This place is just REALLY cool. I'm going to post pics, but I must be a horrible camera man as a lot of them turned out fuzzy as hell. I took around 100 pics so it may be awile before I get them up.

[White Rabbit]

Sounds pretty cool. Post a few pictures if you get the chance.

[Chris]

Ok, here's a sampling of the pics we got. I took over 200 pictures, but many were fuzzy. There is a lot to this place, and what I've posted here dosen't do it justice at all. Apparently I'm a horrible photographer. There's almost no vandalism here, most of the damage has been caused by time, the elements, and lack of maintenance.

Here's a veiw of one of the larger building as you're walking up to the place. My truck is right behind us. You just drive down the road (Exchange Ave.) and turn down this gravel road with the usual U.E. welcome sign (no tresspassing) and it leads to this spot right in the middle of the place. You can just hide your car there and no one knows any better.



This was taken from near the top of this open area. At first we thought it was an elevator shaft, but it was actually an area where the roof had collapsed, and the weight made the floor below it collapse, which caused the next one to collapse.


There were several areas in that building where the roof had collapsed. Judging by the construction, consisting of large wooden beams and wooden ceilings covered in brick, I'd bet this building is over 100 years old.


Here's the bathroom on the top floor. It's remarkably intact, but the toilet is gone. There's still paper towels in the dispenser.


In the elevator penthouse. Close to this was an old fashoned ball governer.


This was the room where the livestock was brought in and probably killed. We were up on the catwalks.


Some winch-like things to the right of where that picture was taken.


Ok, now we're in the powerhouse. At some point in the last few years, the ceiling collapsed, but the skylights remained. The scale of this room is absolutely immense.


A weird oven-like thing to the left and straight ahead, the base of one of the two smokestacks.


Here's a veiw looking more to the right. The iron u-shaped structure to the right is a large coal hopper for feeding the boilers.


From the catwalks next to the coal hoppers, looking down the smoke stack. Again, the scale of the building is revealed. Wonder what the goofy bend in that pipe is all about?


Filthy smoot....
(on an electrical box on the side of the boiler)


The other half of the powerhouse has some big, heavy machinery. There's a two cylinder steam engine, what appear to be compressors, and several other peices of large equipment. There's a room with about 6 big 20 foot long tanks in it, and some sprinkler pumps in the end. Here's a smaller steam engine in that room that had belt running to some of the equipment.


Something with 'Worthington' cast into it. Worthington was a major manufacturer of steam appliances. It's probably another steam engine connected to a generator, but it could be a compessor or pump connected to a motor.


In the restrooms in the end of the room, this little toilet peaked around the corner at me.
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[White Rabbit]

Badass! We need to meet up with you and have you show us some places sometime. You keep finding some really cool shit.

[Chris]

East St. Louis is a disaster. There's a Hunter packing plant just down the street, and there's an old railroad roundhouse only a couple blocks from that. None of these are too far from an abandoned grain elevator.
Downtown is half abandoned, but I don't like driving around there, much less walking around unarmed!

There's several other places in and around St. Louis we have in our plans. There's an old ammo factory in North St. Louis, a cement plant along the Mississippi (already been there, need to go back), an old building called St. Mary's Infirmary, and many more.

There's a park we went to just today, and we found some more old mines of some type (like the ones in Pacific, but smaller) they're fenced off, but nothing some determination couldn't fix. We are also thinking about Stupp Bros. Bridge and Iron Company in Lemay. Stupp Bros. built bridges all throughout the state. They were almost like pre-made kits. Around the turn of the century and into the 1920's, when the state's road system was being developed, the engineers would simply give Stupp the desired specs of the bridge and Stupp would ship them the 'kit', which a more local erection company would assemble. The Stupp building is HUGE. It was bought out to build a Wal Mart, but they couldn't buy out the surrounding residences and the plan was scrapped. There are still people who park there and the building is in great shape, so it may not be abandoned, but I don't think it's in use anything like it was in it's heyday, we'll have to scout it out and see.

We also went out to Rockwoods Reservation. This was a limestone mining area in the 1850s to the early 1900s. Now it's all woods, but there are some signs of mining activity. The holes blasted in the cliffs are fenced off, but we just stacked logs agaist the fence and walked right over! We found the frames of some ancient mining carts in one of them, and there's an intact lime kiln there.

[tunajive]

Sounds like you have done some serious research there. I like the pics a lot and you have a lot of places that I haven't even heard of before.

Rockwood Reservation is cool, there are old walls and other such oddities throughout the entire park. I still need to go to the mining area you talked about with the fence but there is also a small natural cave there as well. I used to have a map of it, but it might take some looking to find. Keep up the good work.


-Matt

[bluecookies]

East St. Louis is a disaster.

Go to Detroit sometime. There's gotta be more abandon buildings from back in its hey day then there are buildings in use right now. I'm telling you it would take you a lifetime just to get through all of them.

Try www.detroityes.com and take the "classic tour" it has abandon buildings ranging from the old model t plant to the old tiger stadium.

I'm telling you Detroit is a UE's dream.

[Willard]

Man... I had to stop half way through the downtown tour... I'm feeling sad for Detroit...

[bluecookies]

Man... I had to stop half way through the downtown tour... I'm feeling sad for Detroit...

Detroit used to be on the same lines as Chicago or NYC or at least on the right path getting there. But the riots in the 60's just brought it downhill.

There is so many old buildings there with some incredible architecture and rich history its unbelievable.

[Willard]

What I'm wondering is why LA didn't go the path of Detroit after the riots of the 1990's? LA just needs to die a slow painful death...