City - Chicago IL- Drink Schlitz

Colorized photo from 1900 Sept 1 Original title: Chicago river elevators Photographer: Detroit publishing Location: On the river around 14th st, across from Roosevelt park This is the Iowa grain elevator, built in 1880, and served the C&W railroad. The way it works goes like this, a boxcar full of grain would be moved inside the building. They would dump the cars into floor hoppers, and then that would be moved to the top of the building using automation. From there it would then fill ships outside. There was a lot of dust in the air, bad for the lungs, worse for the building, as explosions were a real threat. And was a threat for a long time after. On the right, the ship there is the Commodore. Named after "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, as it as one of their ships. It was considered the largest cargo ship on the great lakes. The sign is actually pretty interesting, its huge. They don't allow that now. in 1906 they passed a new rule that said you can't have building sized signs. They had to be smaller, though they didn't say why (probably because it wasn't fair to others). This building was built before then, so it didn't have to follow the rule. The schlitz beer company was founded in 1849, but went defunct in 1999. It's not known if the grain in that building became beer. If you look very carefully just next to the yellow boat, there is a pointy reddish building. That's Dearborn station with its iconic roof. This will help you centre yourself on the map.