History of the Back of the Yards

The Back of the Yards neighborhood is located on the southwest side of Chicago and is part of the New City community area, which also includes the bordering neighborhood of Canaryville. The neighborhood was home to the former Union Stock Yard and adjacent packing plants, a giant sprawl that was until the 1950s the largest livestock yards and meatpacking center in the country. The concentration of railroads in the mid-nineteenth century, the establishment of the Union Stock Yard in 1865, and the perfection of the refrigerated boxcar by 1880 led to a giant expansion of meatpacking in the neighborhood.

The meatpacking industry provided thousands of jobs and attracted numerous immigrant populations including Irish, German, Polish, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Czech, and later Mexican communities, whose shared impact you can see in the surrounding neighborhoods today. Union Stock Yard officially closed in 1971, drawing a close to the meatpacking industry in Chicago. Remnants of its meatpacking past can still be seen at the now historic Union Stock Yard Gate. Since the stockyards closed in the early 1970s, the neighborhood has seen significant residential and commercial development.

Be sure to visit the historic Union Stockyard Gate, located on Exchange Avenue at Peoria Street. The Gate was the entrance to the famous Union Stock Yards in Chicago. The gate was likely designed by John Wellborn Root of Burnham and Root around 1875 and is the only significant structural element of the stockyards to survive.