Armour Meatpacking was an anchor tenant of the St. Louis National Stockyards Company, a corporation that operated the company town of National City, Illinois from 1873 to 1997. Due to structural changes in the meatpacking industry, it became uneconomic to run this abattoir, and it closed in 1959. The factory buildings have been crumbing in disuse since then.
It is not difficult to imagine the causes of the decline of the industry: unionization drove up wages, and ancient equipment kept operating costs high. One refrigeration unit still in place here at Armour has a faceplate dated 1902. Today, most of the industry not unionized, and situated in rural locales like Tar Heel, NC.
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