Ahhhh yes! The Armour. It was a place that I had known about for a couple years and had haunted me ever since. A place that is internationally known for it's awesomeness, yet I hadn't been nor had any idea how to get to. Well, I finally found where it was, not that it was that hard to find, just didn't want to drive 3 hours to not know where I was going. Anyways, imagine a factory built in the late 1800's or early 1900's, closed over 40 years ago, scarcely used much after that, and very abandoned now. Oh, did I mention that most of the machinery is still there? Well, it is...

I have been to many sites of people who had been there. How else would I have known about it? Anyways, one of the things that people will tell you is that it still has it's machinery. That is to say in the power plant. The rest of the facility is quite unintelligible, but the power plant has everything including it's generator.

After 2 years of waiting, it was time to go for a trip. We went in April of 07, but went there again last weekend. It was then that I decided I needed to get off my ass and update the RecTres with photos. They have been tearing the place down, but very slowly. I would recommend you all go and see it before it is gone. GO NOW! I will warn you, I took lots of pictures. I'm not saying they are good pictures, because they aren't, but there are many. You don't like the abundance of pictures? Well, go there and take your own pictures!!!!!!!!!1 Remember, I try to do walkthroughs. I would like to organize things better, but it is easier to list everything by how I take the pictures.

I wish I could explain what every thing was. This building has been abandoned so long with such neglect that it is very difficult. It has also been the victim of attempted murder. They have torn down parts of it, but haven't been able to finish it for some reason. So most of it sits there. Because of this, some of it is, well just unintelligible. However, I will do my best to guess what some of the buildings where.

This history of this particular place isn't well known to me. I'm guessing it was built around 1902, based on some of the large machinery. We are pretty sure it closed in 1959/1960 based on some artifacts we found and the fact that Armour Meat shut down many factories in that year. To find out more, please read this Armour on Wikipeida.

As sits off the road.

We will start off with some exteriors. I'm sure I didn't get everything because the building was covered with overgrowth that I'm sure I missed quite a few.

Exteriors and surrounding buildings

Ok, for the sake of argument we will see 4 buildings here. The main building, the power station, the skeleton, and the power control building. I have given them all these names because I don't necessarily know what they are. The building had a back section where it appeared that a train may of ran under at one point to load/unload. The building behind the tracks, known as the skeleton, could have been a ramp building to get cattle up to the top floor of the main building for slaughter. There is no bridge between the buildings, but there could have been. Beyond that, we found a room up towards the top that reminded us of the Tenn-Tucky Ham building where they had gates for the animals. So we came to some of the conclusions based on that.

Far off.	The complete other side of the building. Like the signs?	Same side as previous just closer.

Approaching the rear of the building. You can see where they started to tear it down. However, they obviously stopped working because there isn't any machinery anywhere	Much closer to reveal debris.	A side building buried with ruble and overgrown foliage.

Passed the torn out side reveals the back of the building, which also appears to have had things torn off it at some point.	Looking more to the left you can see the skeleton of a building. Not entirely sure what it was used for, but I'll guess later.	A closer shot of the skeleton.

The power station.	The space between the space between the power station and the main building. The control room is to the lower left.	Inside the control room.

Power Station

Now, this was the most impressive thing I've yet to see, and that is saying a lot. The power station consisted of 4 main areas. Too confusing to describe, but I will try. The area we walked into was kind of a concourse that led from one area to the other. The first area we went to was the main area. It had a huge kiln which lead to the smokestack. It was all, huge. I that room had lots of machinery, a basement, and an open room which I am still not sure what was in there. The other part of the concourse lead to what seemed to be the "production room." In there was a large room with lots of holes to the basement and a generator used for creating electricity. It still had machine oil. The whole placed still had that machine smell. Anyway's, the other part of the building were rooms with tanks and other machinery. It almost seemed as if they added parts to this building because there really was only one way to get from one to the other. It was just as if they added other wings as they needed them.

I can't say enough about this place. AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!

The huge smokestack room.

Just inside the power plant concourse. This is looking to the generator room.	Looking down towards the kiln area.	Gauges.

A very rusty, very dirty staircase leading up and down.	At last, the huge fiery kiln.	The other part of the room behind the kiln.

A large piece of machinery.	Looking back towards the broken ceiling, the large piece of machinery, and the kiln. A good overall shot of what the room looked like.	Just south of the large machinery, is what appears to be what's left of a loading dock.

Heading back towards the concourse. This could get ugly.	Underneath the Huge Kiln. There are several small kilns in this area.	Again, underneath.

The burner to the kiln. If you look closely you can see the date on the door.	Still stuff in here? Wow!.	Let's go up a level or two.

Up a level or two. The kiln/smokestack is to the right.	Pipes.	This was pretty amazing. Still had coal in it!!!!!!

More of that coal conveyer machine. .	Looking down at the room and smokestack/kiln.	Up many rusty stairs looking out the roof.

The Generator

Deeper inside the power station we find the room with the generator. Simply amazing!!!! There was actually only one way to get to it through the building, two if you wanted to go underneath everything. We had to go to the concourse to get there.

Ahhh yes. The generator. Finally I could see this with my own eyes. Notice all the holes in the floor.	Other angle of the same thing.	A close up of the wheel.

The holes. Watch your step.	Now, I told you there was still machine oil. Here it is. Just off to the site of the generator.

Besides the generator, the rest of the room was pretty cooled and filled with more machinery.

Just passed the generator is this thing. To the right you will see the photo adjacent to this one, to the left the picture on the far right.	Not sure what this was, but someone drew a picture of a robot on it.	Looks like switches and gauges.

One of the artifacts we found.	Another machine.	The back of the room. You can see another smokestack.

Inside the room in the back at the base of the smokestack.	Probably the last calendar ever used in this place. Dated 59/60.	Looking back out towards the front of the room.

	Looking up through the ceiling at the smokestack of that room.

Water tanks/other machine room/basement.

Just as said. There were a few rooms accessible through the generator room. Two of them had huge tanks, one of them was full of machines and had a spiral staircase to the basement. This basement was much different then the other part. It did not have more kilns, it just had machines.

Just to the side of the large smokestack room was this.	Tanks.	Conveying system for the tanks.

Same doorway as above just closer.

Through a doorway led to the other tank room. This room was much, much larger. At the end of all the tanks was more machines. You could still smell machine grease.

The doorway between the two tank rooms.	A close up of the first tank in the room.	One of my favorite pictures I've taken. Just to the left of that same tank revealing a stair case.

The staircase.	An alley between the wall and the tanks. To the right leads back to the generator room.	Just passed the tanks are more machines.

A close up of one of the machines.

The downstairs part....scary

The spiral staircase. Should we go down? Why not!	Some valves and pipes.	Another shot that is pretty cool. See, I can take some decent pictures when I want.

More valves.	A great shot of going back up the stairs.

Time for an intermission. This concludes the power station and the first part of our trip.

Ok, ready for the rest of the complex? I have been to many other websites and people don't tend to show pictures of the rest of the building. That is probably because it is mainly empty and does not have machinery like the power plant. However, I think it is pretty amazing in it's own right. These rooms were very similar to those of Tenn-Tucky . That really isn't a surprise being that they are both meat packaging. I must warn you.........this part of the factory is very unintelligible and in ruin.

The area between the power plant and the rest of the facility.	Inside the main floor. A giant cooler room.	Ceiling of the same room.

Same room looking back towards the door we entered from.	Farther down the room was this creepy elevator.	Looking up through a hole in the roof of the elevator.

A nice artifact on the side of the elevator.	A large cooler room on the other side of the elevator. Very dark, very old, much cold, and much mold.	Same room, different angle.

The room at the end of the cooler room. Maybe another elevator shaft, but I wasn't about to cross it. We'll see more of this room later.

2nd Floor

Well, the elevator did not work. So we had to go back outside and take the stairs. There was a staircase and a busted outdoor concourse that led from the rooms.

The stairs.	The outside concourse thing looking down. Nice hand rail, eh?	I'm not really sure what this room was used for, but it was beautiful.

Same room, different angle.	Again, same room.	Through a door seen on the above picture to another cooler room.

Just to show the condition of the building.	Same room.	That area that could have been a elevator shaft one level up. There did used to a be a building on the other side. That was the building that had been razed.

Up another level.

Ahh yes, up another falling apart staircase. This level was mostly ruble. I was somewhat concerned with structural integrity, but it was ok. The 3rd floor was most likely the slaughter rooms. I say this because we found things similar to that of Tenn-Tucky. We say gates and other things that were used for the animals.

On the 3rd floor concourse looking to the power plant.	Inside. Another room that showed signs of being part of a conveying system to the slaughter room. This must be the beginning of where the action took place.	Some type of machinery.

Sane room, just showing ruble.	A giant hole in the room.	A closer shot of the hole. You can still see lights hanging down. In the distance you can see what's left of the national stockyards.

Looking dead at the roof of the power plant.	Still not sure what this is, but it was on the power plant.	An elevator door.

Sane room, just showing ruble.	A giant hole in the room.	A closer shot of the hole. You can still see lights hanging down.

Now, interstlingly enough beyond this room was not a cooler room. Instead, it was the slaughter room. The cattle gates in one room and the tiled walls in the other make it unmistakable for that purpose. Now, I don't think this was the top floor, but it was the highest floor we could get to. There was also a metal staircase leading out of the side we that probably led to the other building, which was gone. You'll see.

The cattle door. Any ramp that may have lead to this is obviously gone. You can see the skeleton in the background.	Slaughter room.	Same room. Maybe you can see some artifacts.

Same room You can still see some lights hanging down.	Not sure what this is, but it looks animal related.	If you look closely, you can see a meat hook.

Some more hooks.	Looking out the window shown in the above right picture.

In that room, there was a door that lead out to the staircase. There were these concrete polls on the one side. I can only guess that there used to be an adjacent building and those are remnants, but it's just a guess.

Don't go this way!	Going down.

Hope you have enjoyed the excessive amount of pictures. I cannot say enough about this place. It was, simply put, amazing. Easily a find epic enough to tell stories about for the ages.

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