Skip to main content

Brand Your Initials onto a Steak at the Stock Yard Inn


The Stock Yard Inn, located near the Union Stock Yards. Postcard published by Max Rigot Selling Co., Chicago. 

In the Sirloin Room at the Stock Yard Inn, customers could pick their own steaks and brand their initials onto the meat with a hot iron. The restaurant offered this option so that diners could verify that the cooked steak on their plate was the piece of meat they had selected.

The sprawling, Tudor-style hotel and restaurant was located at 42nd Street and Halsted Street, next to the International Amphitheatre and the Union Stock Yards. Cattlemen would stay at the hotel to conduct business, often after dropping off livestock at the yards.

The Sirloin Room at the Stock Yard Inn. Postcard from the Chicago in History Postcards website. 


The Stock Yard Inn was also popular among tourists. Several U.S. presidents stayed at the inn and held events at the adjacent amphitheater. A 1955 advertisement that appeared in the Chicago Tribune indicates that the banquet rooms at the inn could hold 20 to 5,000 people. The advertisement also states that “Our good neighbors in ‘The Yards’ reserve the very best for the Stock Yard Inn. Our chef carefully cuts and properly ages all steaks for true enjoyment.”


The International Amphitheatre near the Stock Yard Inn. Postcard image provided by the Chicago History in Postcards website. 

The Stock Yard Inn is credited with helping Chicago become known as a “steak town.” Many meat connoisseurs preferred the taste of Midwest grain-fed animals compared to cows that ate grass, according to some past articles from the dining section of the newspaper.

The restaurant and inn stood for 65 years before facing the wrecking ball in 1976. The closing of the stock yards in 1971 made it difficult for the inn to stay open. Many events were also moved to McCormick Place instead of the amphitheater, enticing visitors to stay closer to the downtown area.

The International Amphitheatre was built in 1934 for $1.5 million by the Stock Yard Company. It was mainly used to host livestock exhibitions. In later years, popular music acts played at the amphitheater, but many started to shift their venues to the McCormick Place.

There are only a few postcards of the Stock Yard Inn but more of the International Amphitheatre. There are so many postcards of the stock yards in general that some people just exclusively collect them. Most stock yard postcards are also worth more than postcards with other images of Chicago.

The International Amphitheatre near the Union Stock Yards. Postcard image provided by the Chicago History in Postcards website. 

The Stock Yards in Chicago. Postcard produced by the Gerson Bros., Chicago. 

The Stock Yards in Chicago. Postcard produced by Colorpicture, Boston.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marshall Field's at Christmas

  The aisle on the first floor of the State Street store is 358 feet long. Postcard publisher is unknown.  Many Chicagoans continue to miss visiting Marshall Field’s during the holiday season. Just talking about the famed Christmas windows and holiday decorations brings about memories of the department store’s glory days. Many of us can recall the strong smell of perfume that would greet visitors upon entering the flagship State Street store, along with the huge white Romanesque columns decorated with Christmas fare on the first floor. The real fun, however, was taking the elevator to the 7 th floor to get a glimpse of the giant Christmas tree inside the Walnut Room restaurant. The best place to view the tree was one floor up on a balcony area. Christmas decorations on the first floor. Postcard publisher is unknown.  Frango mint chocolates were piled high in various areas throughout the store, and many visitors couldn’t resist buying a box. Frango chocolates were once made in a kitc
2 comments
Read more

Sleeping and Bathing in Douglas Park

Young Bathers in Douglas Park. Postcard published by Acmegraph Co. of Chicago. Trying to sleep on hot and humid summer nights in the 1920s and 1930s was unbearable at times for my grandfather and his eight siblings who resided in a tenement house in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood. While some nights the family would sleep on the floor to cool down, other nights they would head to Douglas Park to sleep under the stars.  This wasn’t an uncommon practice at the time, as many other people would gather in the park on hot nights. It also offered an opportunity to have a little fun and play games outdoors before going to sleep.  My grandfather would also talk about a bathhouse at the park. At the time, I really didn’t understand what a bathhouse was, nor was I interested in learning more about it. I did, however, recently find some beautiful postcards of a Roman-style bathing area in the park. The first postcard here shows the bath and people bathing in the water. 
1 comment
Read more

Burlesque Dancer Sally Rand Took the Chicago World's Fair by Storm

Sally Rand danced at the Streets of Paris exhibit. Postcard printed by Curt Teich & Co, Chicago. Sally Rand was never supposed to perform her iconic “fan dance” at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago. The dancer’s requests to perform inside the Streets of Paris exhibit had been turned down several times. But Rand decided to take matters into her own hands by riding into a pre-opening party on the fairgrounds, uninvited, on a white horse wearing nothing but a velvet cape. The crowd loved it. Rand was arrested but released the next day, when she promptly accepted an offer to perform as the headliner in the Café de la Paix’s floor show for $90 per week. While her dancing broke boundaries and city decency ordinances at the time, her legacy was born and Rand made her cultural mark on the world. According to The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair by Cheryl Ganz, 29-year-old Sally Rand had previously worked as an acrobatic circus performer and film stuntwoman. She had also alread
Post a Comment
Read more