Alton Junction
My increasingly unreliable memory suggests that this yard was sometimes called the Potato Yard and you might want to search for information about it using that term.
Dave Nelson
richhotrain wrote:Where exactly was the 40th Street yard located in Chicago? Was it south or west of the old CNW downtown station?
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Well, this recent (2007? pdf) rail map of the Chicagoland, courtesy of the Indiana Railroad, indicates the C&NW 40th St yard is alive (now under UP, of course), seeming directly west of the loop (and on the line heading directly west from the lakefront), and (as you stated), east of Proviso yard - indeed, very roughly in the middle of the two.I recommend skipping to google earth and try to get a fix on the current area using the rail map pdf as a guide.
Edit: Well, near as I can figure, this is the 40th St. yard in Chicago:Google Satellite.I won't freak out if I need to be corrected.
Thanks, everyone.
Chutton01, thanks for the satellite link.
The 40th Street yard is west of downtown at Pulaski Road which is 4000 West. That's probably why the reference to 40th Street, although in Chicago 40th Street would normally be a reference to 4000 South.
What is now Pulaski Road was indeed 40th Street, but the north/south 40th street, as can be seen on old enough Chicago maps. The various numbered north/south streets eventually got names. It is understandable how this could be confused with the numbered east/west streets many of which still exist as only numbers today. Well, it confused people in the past, too, according to this from http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1427.html (it is also an example that once something is named on a railroad, that name stays etched in stone forever.):
In 1913, as part of an effort to eliminate duplicate street names, the city council named the West Side 40th Street after Peter Crawford, an early Cicero Township landowner. In 1933, Mayor Edward Kelly sought to consolidate his ties to Polish voters by renaming Crawford Avenue to honor Count Casimir Pulaski, a Polish hero of the American Revolutionary War. Business owners at the intersection of Crawford and Madison, one of the city's major shopping districts, protested. Pulaski's supporters countered that such objections masked anti-Polish prejudice. Crawford's proponents obtained a temporary injunction against the change, but in April 1935, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the city council's right to select street names.
Crawford's backers did not give up. Angry residents tore down “Pulaski Road” signs, and the Postal Service continued to deliver mail addressed to Crawford Avenue. In 1937, Illinois passed a law that the city council must change a street name on the request of owners of 60 percent of its frontage. So in 1938 some property owners submitted petitions for the restoration of the name Crawford Avenue to Pulaski Road, while others asked that Haussen Court, which was less than two blocks long, be renamed for Crawford. Neither petition had enough signatures to require city action. Here is the story from http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1427.html :
"In 1949, owners of businesses along Pulaski Road filed a final round of petitions for Crawford. Although these signatures were valid, the city council refused to act. Property owners sued city officials for dereliction of duty. The second Crawford Avenue lawsuit culminated in 1952, when the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of the name Pulaski.
Amanda Seligman"