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 Cheez--it
    
Location: Right here
Gender: Male
If I could say it in words, I wouldn't need to photograph.
 |  | Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
< on 10/9/2009 1:59 AM >
|  | | | Doing some research and stumbled upon an article about Swift that was written this summer.
http://www.nbcdfw....lant-53222442.html
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Liquorhead
Location: Sherman,Tx
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 1 on 10/10/2009 2:31 AM >
| | | | I don't really understand why this place closed. I thought the fire caused Swift to shut down, but the fires happened right after it closed. The article makes it sound like the company went practically bankrupt back in the 70s, but in 2002 Swift had over 21,000 employees and did 7.73 billion in sales.
Edit: And by that, I mean I understand the meat packing industry was hurting at that point and no longer relied on railroads for transportation, or a centralized point to purchase cattle, but still the property alone was worth quite a bit. Seems like they could have turned things around and salvaged something.
[last edit 10/10/2009 2:39 AM by Liquorhead - edited 1 times]
My Flickr Page |
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corbenator
 
Location: Cowtown, TX
Gender: Male
peek-a-boo, bitches
| |  |  | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 2 on 10/14/2009 2:47 PM >
|  | | | Posted by Liquorhead
Edit: And by that, I mean I understand the meat packing industry was hurting at that point and no longer relied on railroads for transportation, or a centralized point to purchase cattle, but still the property alone was worth quite a bit. Seems like they could have turned things around and salvaged something.
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Exactly right. It became much cheaper and efficient for the meat packing industry to rely on truckers around the time both plants closed. In the 60s and 70s, the national highways were still a pretty new thing and they were constantly expanding. I think it also had to do with the location of Armour & Swift. The Stockyards no longer performed the same duties as it did in its heyday and became much more of a tourist attraction as it is today. So all in all, when you lose support of your transportation system and your supply of goods, things go downhill. I learned that in economics. I am proud of myself.
"You can't think seriously about thinking without thinking about thinking about something." |
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bdgr
Location: Chicago Adjacent
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 3 on 1/28/2010 1:11 PM >
| | | | sorry to bump this, but I just got done doing an article on the swift ruins (got paid to explore and write about it...nice work if you can get it)....
Originally it was Armour on one side, and swift on the other...the stockyards and those to plants were incorporated as Niles city....not part of of Fort Worth at all, but an entire city that with it's own school system, fire and police, and a whole bunch of animals. Eventually Fort Worth forcibly annexed it....
So in the 60's, Armour shut down their plant, and the buildings were torn down. Bricks were sold off...the house I grew up in is built from those bricks in fact. Swift shut down in 1973, and then burned for several weeks in some massive fire storms.
There were two reasons it shut down...
1: the plant was very old and very outdated. Compared to modern facilities it was expensive to run, especially with a reduced amount of beef going through it. Swift was big enough it had it's own fire department...so just scaling back workers still met a ton of overhead....
2: the reason that they had a reduced work load is the decentralization of beef processing. The industry, due to refrigerated trucking etc...had gone back to a model of more feed lots scattered across the country where they butchered the cattle, rather than doing it all in a couple of central locations. The end was near.
So, In 1975 the old Niles city hall was demolished to make a parking lot. This woke people up to the fact that the historic stockyards area was at risk of being destroyed, and the North Fort Worth historical society was established. Their first move was to get the entire stockyards area...that used to be Niles city, declared an historic district, the eastern boundary being the railroad tracks on the other side of the swift ruins.
Well, at that time, a company called Hearne Wrecking and Lumber was in the process of trying to tear down the old swift plant buildings. They nocked down a few, but on the big buildings they broke three wrecking balls and decided that if those buildings were going to come down they would need to use explosives. In steps the historical society saying that they cant do that, and Hearne moved on down the road. It's been pretty much un-altered ever since, except for the Prison break guys dumping a ton of dirt over the brick streets,, putting up a few signs, and the fence around the "prison yard" which someone stole a few months back.
BTW, the cops are getting quite serious about arresting people for exploring the swift.
Stockyard Station, which owns the property now, is going to turn it into a mixed use development within the next 10-15 years. They plan on using the buildings that are still standing. should be interesting.
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cdevon
 
Location: west county
Gender: Male
| | | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 4 on 1/28/2010 3:16 PM >
| | | | thanks for the history lesson. i never got to go see swift while i lived there.
cdevon1200
When I say I'm 'clean and sober', it means I've showered and I'm headed to the liquor store. |
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Explorer Zero
 
| | | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 5 on 1/28/2010 11:42 PM >
| | | | somebody should go check it out
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KingJalopy
Location: Tulsa, OK
Gender: Male
I love manholes
| |  | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 6 on 1/29/2010 1:26 AM >
| | | | Posted by 2Xplorations
somebody should go check it out
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Was there last week, there were kids playing in there, and we walked right in with no problems. I didn't see anything that showed signs of development, then again, I was looking for quite the opposite.
Lot of talk about all of our prized abandonments being renovated, kinda sad to see us potentially losing these places we've all made memories in...
Stuck in Tulsa, OK in a freaking ice storm, can't wait to get back home to good ol DFW!!
Drains, drains, drains, drains, drains. |
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Explorer Zero
| | | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 7 on 1/29/2010 4:32 AM >
| | | | cant wait for some pics
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bdgr
Location: Chicago Adjacent
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 8 on 1/29/2010 5:33 AM >
| | | | Development of the swift is still about a decade away. It's gonna be expensive, and the economy isn't where it needs to be. When I interviewed the owners they didn't have any plans available...but it's the same company that renovated most of the stockyard stuff so they have a history.
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bdgr
Location: Chicago Adjacent
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 9 on 1/29/2010 6:37 AM >
| | | | a few photos from the last couple of times I was there.
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Happiedaze
Location: Galveston Area, TX
Gender: Female
| |  | | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 10 on 1/31/2010 12:56 AM >
| | | | Nice pictures and history on the place. It's weird, I heard on the news over a year ago that they were going to demolish those remaining buildings. I guess maybe they changed their mind after the news story aired.
'Our plans are all laid out,
take all these unmarked roads,
we blaze the trails to places no one goes, yeah!' -Rise Against |
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hardcoregirl
Location: Dallas
Gender: Female
So many places, so little time.....
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 11 on 1/31/2010 6:26 AM >
| | | | When I've been there, I always thought it make an awesome skate park without a ton of money...lol!
I am the shadow at your side...... |
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bdgr
Location: Chicago Adjacent
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 12 on 1/31/2010 11:46 AM >
| | | | Posted by Happiedaze
Nice pictures and history on the place. It's weird, I heard on the news over a year ago that they were going to demolish those remaining buildings. I guess maybe they changed their mind after the news story aired.
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Thanks.
Well, It's actually federally protected so they can't demolish it without a lot of legal work. I did my story before the one mentioned in the OP, but it didn't go to press until fairly recently. I'm not going to mention the publication but you can find it online pretty easily.
From what the owners told me, they've been playing on renovating it for years now, just waiting for the right time economically. It was wierd going through the place legally..lol
If you look in the photos you can see the prison break sinage on the "prison" (actually it was a cattle barn to house sick cattle until they could be cleared by a vet for slaughter) And of course the towers were added for the prison break set.
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Happiedaze
Location: Galveston Area, TX
Gender: Female
| | | | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 13 on 1/31/2010 5:30 PM >
| | | | Posted by bdgr
Thanks.
Well, It's actually federally protected so they can't demolish it without a lot of legal work. I did my story before the one mentioned in the OP, but it didn't go to press until fairly recently. I'm not going to mention the publication but you can find it online pretty easily.
From what the owners told me, they've been playing on renovating it for years now, just waiting for the right time economically. It was wierd going through the place legally..lol
If you look in the photos you can see the prison break sinage on the "prison" (actually it was a cattle barn to house sick cattle until they could be cleared by a vet for slaughter) And of course the towers were added for the prison break set.
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So they had to make the cows well just to kill them? Sounds so ironic.. but I'm sure it makes sense because of illness and stuff. Wouldn't want to eat a sick cow.
'Our plans are all laid out,
take all these unmarked roads,
we blaze the trails to places no one goes, yeah!' -Rise Against |
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bdgr
Location: Chicago Adjacent
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 14 on 1/31/2010 8:50 PM >
| | | | Posted by Happiedaze
So they had to make the cows well just to kill them? Sounds so ironic.. but I'm sure it makes sense because of illness and stuff. Wouldn't want to eat a sick cow.
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Yep. It does sound wierd, but it was an safety thing for the beef. The guy they had lead me around out there actually worked there just before they closed the place down, so i got to find out what some of the stuff was for. The tallest building out there still was used to grind up the bones to be used as dog food or something. The very top level room has these gears coming out of the floor, then below that, these big hoppers for the bone meal.
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SilentSearch
Location: Cowtown
Gender: Male
My rebellion against the santa cursor! HoHoHo
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 15 on 2/1/2010 12:34 AM >
| | | | Posted by bdgr
Yep. It does sound wierd, but it was an safety thing for the beef. The guy they had lead me around out there actually worked there just before they closed the place down, so i got to find out what some of the stuff was for. The tallest building out there still was used to grind up the bones to be used as dog food or something. The very top level room has these gears coming out of the floor, then below that, these big hoppers for the bone meal.
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We always refered to that structure as the "salt house" because of the big wooden salt bin in the bottom. Or was that not salt? LOL
Official UE Safety officer and rescue specialist. |
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bdgr
Location: Chicago Adjacent
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 16 on 2/1/2010 2:45 AM >
| | | | Posted by SilentSearch
We always refered to that structure as the "salt house" because of the big wooden salt bin in the bottom. Or was that not salt? LOL
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I imagine it was bone meal. But I didn't taste it. lol
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Happiedaze
Location: Galveston Area, TX
Gender: Female
| | | | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 17 on 2/1/2010 3:39 AM >
| | | | I always wondered what those things were for... That is really cool history. 
'Our plans are all laid out,
take all these unmarked roads,
we blaze the trails to places no one goes, yeah!' -Rise Against |
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SilentSearch
Location: Cowtown
Gender: Male
My rebellion against the santa cursor! HoHoHo
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 18 on 2/4/2010 11:21 PM >
| | | | Posted by bdgr
I imagine it was bone meal. But I didn't taste it. lol
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Oh come on! Real Explorers ALWAYS taste unknown substances!
Why do you think 2X and I are so well preserved? ROFL
That's also why we don't need flashlights... we glow in the dark.
[last edit 2/4/2010 11:22 PM by SilentSearch - edited 1 times]
Official UE Safety officer and rescue specialist. |
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bdgr
Location: Chicago Adjacent
Gender: Male
| | Re: Shells of Our City: Swift and Company Packing Plant
<Reply # 19 on 2/5/2010 12:50 AM >
| | | | Posted by SilentSearch
Oh come on! Real Explorers ALWAYS taste unknown substances!
Why do you think 2X and I are so well preserved? ROFL
That's also why we don't need flashlights... we glow in the dark.
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damnit...I knew I was missing something in the whole experience.
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