When Montgomery Counted (On) Sheep

When our little village became known throughout the Chicago area for its beautiful amusement park, it was already playing an important supporting role to the flourishing meat packing industry and the Chicago Stockyards. Montgomery was once the home of the largest sheep barns in the U.S. with a capacity of 75,000 animals. In it’s heyday, 50 men were employed there.  

In the late 1800s, the Burlington Railroad built the last layover station for feeding, watering, and resting cattle and sheep on the way from the Western Grasslands to the Chicago Stockyards.

It was located West of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy tracks, north of Webster Street, on both sides of Route 31, and the yards were located between Aucutt and Jericho roads, west from Route 31 to Blackberry Creek. 

After blocking Lake Street (Route 31), sheep were moved across and driven through pastureland behind several farmhouses along Aucutt Road. There was 1000 acres of pasture, divided by fences and gates. Over one million animals were handled and sheared each year.

Although no slaughtering was done at the facility, on a humid day, the unmistakable barnyard odor hung over the area. It was a minor downside, and easily ignored when weighed against the benefits to the town, especially during the depression years when the yard was the one constant. Good reliable jobs were a town’s lifeblood.

There was a strict law in effect that every 36 hours the animals had to be taken off the train to be fed, watered and rested. The animals might be pastured to regain any weight lost while being transported. To get the best price they had to be in prime condition before they went on to the Chicago slaughterhouse. And, as it sometimes happened, if there was a surplus of sheep already at the market, they were held a while in Montgomery to ensure top price.

A large hotel was built on the property for handlers who rode with the animals, and a special car was reserved for the ranchers who blew into town with pockets full of silver. Local taverns and shopkeepers looked forward to the day when silver dollars began to show up in their cash registers. Because so many of them came year after year, they made good friends among the locals.

One of the early superintendents at the sheep yards was a Mr. Erickson, a rancher from Nebraska. His home was on the sheep yards property, and his daughter became a teacher at Montgomery School. He commissioned a set of stairs built for her on the embankment on either side of the railroad tracks so she could walk across the tracks to the big brick school on Main Street.

Many times sheep would escape and wander into the village, frightening the residents. The police would be called and a couple of boys who worked there would come and pick them up. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus also pastured their animals to graze at Montgomery, before a performance in Chicago.  No reports of them escaping to wander around the village have turned up, but it is an interesting speculation.

The late Jake Mall, former commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Montgomery, recalled working at the yards during the depression. He was paid 19 cents an hour. He said the work was really hard, as he had to lift 120 lb. bales of hay, but he was happy to have the job. Over the years, many young men from Montgomery found jobs there, mainly consisting of picking up the sheared wool and catching stray livestock. 

If they were good workers, some of the older boys were taught to shear sheep. It was a good profession, but one of the most back-breaking jobs at the yard. The men traveled from one job to another, and the best were in demand. In the early days a man would make 15 to 20 cents a head shearing sheep, and by 1985 the pay had increased to $1.25 each. At that time they were able to make about $750 a week. 

Henry Albright, Sr., who sheared sheep at the yards, won the World’s Sheep Shearing Contest at the International Amphitheater in Chicago in December of 1941.

Wayne Rogers, who is a grandson of Gus Albright, worked there as a young teenager. He remembers picking up the wool and stuffing it into sacks for shipping. 

It was then shipped to the mills. Many generations of the Albright family followed in their father’s footsteps working at the sheep yards. Gus Albright was a brother to Henry. He was well known for operating the Paddleboat on the Fox River during the Riverview Park era. Several of his married daughters lived in the area and many of their sons—the Rogers, Neupert, Sartor and Mason boys—all were on the payroll at one time or another, as well. These early families were the backbone of the village.

The Burlington Railroad owned several farms on the north side of Aucutt Road, all the way to Blackberry Creek. The farmers who lived on them tended the animals in exchange for rent. If a lamb was born while the sheep were penned there, it was impossible to tell which mother it belonged to, so when the sheep were moved to Chicago, the lamb was left behind for the farmer’s wife and children to bottle feed and raise.

A small pen was fashioned behind the big iron cook stove in the kitchen to hold the baby lamb until it was ready to go outdoors. Of course these little lambs made wonderful pets, especially a little colorful Navajo lamb. Parting with one was heart wrenching when butchering time came.

Several times over the years, major fires occurred, in spite of having a water works for fire protection, four fire hose stations and a reservoir holding a half-million gallons. The old newspaper accounts of these fires are very graphic. Hundreds of animals were lost. 

When the Chicago stockyards closed down, animals were still processed in Montgomery, on a much smaller scale. Some were sold to local buyers, or shipped by truck. Sheep were vaccinated and sheared until the operation was shut down completely in 1981.

Aucutt Road is now a major business area. The old farms have long since been torn down, and the little lane at the end of the road, leading to Blackberry Creek is fenced off. Most traces of the once thriving enterprise are gone, including the heavy barnyard aroma that once wafted throughout the area, but the big grain elevator still stands.

At present, next to the site of the old sheep pens, you can see a beautifully restored deep red engine with the Burlington Junction logo painted on the side in sparkling white letters. Train buffs come to the area to take pictures of the train resting on a track that once brought in loads of hungry, thirsty, and weary cargo from out west.