Racine (4100S/1200W)
Racine Avenue and Exchange Avenue, Union Stock Yards (New City)

Service Notes:

Stock Yards Line

Quick Facts:

Address: TBD
Established: April 8, 1908
Original Line: South Side Elevated Railroad, Stock Yards branch
Previous Names: Morris
Skip-Stop Type: n/a
Rebuilt: n/a
Status: Demolished

History:

Many of the stations on the Stock Yards branch -- and three of the four in the yard itself -- were named not for streets but for the meat packing companies whose plants they were near and served. Morris was no exception, serving its namesake Morris meatpacking company, whose cattle often grazed below the platforms.

Since trains operated in a one-way loop around the yards, all that was required at each station was one side platform. Morris's wood-decked side platform was covered by a peaked-roof canopy of steel supports down the middle of the platform with a gently-curved bracket and intricate latticework supporting a hipped corrugated metal roof. This was supplemented by a small, simple station house, as was the case at Morris.

By the late 1930s, Morris station was renamed Racine, for the north-south thoroughfare it was adjacent to.

By the mid-1950s, it was becoming apparent that falling ridership and increasing deterioration of the Stock Yards line and its cousin, the Kenwood line, would require some sort of immediate action. Plans were formulated for how to continue service, but no agreement could be reached with the lessor Chicago Junction Railway (from whom CTA rented some of the property on which the Stock Yards and Kenwood lines were located). Other factors also sealed the Stock Yards branch's fate: Due to changes in the meat packing industry, the Union Stock Yards became redundant and outdated. Now with its main purpose waning, the Stock Yards branch, and Racine station, closed October 7, 1957 and was demolished thereafter.