Thanks to @railwayhistorical who shared his earlier post about the rail yards of Decatur and the landmark Staley Building that stands adjacent (see pic 2). The building was yet another sight I missed during my stay in Decatur--a stay that actually was in the sanitized suburban corridor south of the city and Lake Decatur.
As for Staley, they were a agricultural processing powerhouse strategically located in the Illinois heartland and next to the largest flat switch rail yard in North America. Decatur has a significant railroad history, as one might expect from a city known not only for corn processing but also as the Soybean Capital of the World--another major part of Staley's empire.
The Staley name is all over Decatur. In fact, in 1919-20 the city's professional football team was the Decatur Staleys--who then went off to Chicago to become the Chicago Bears. They played at the unsurprisingly named Staley Field which also served as a baseball park (see postcard image above.) Maybe some of you even remember Staley Syrup, as seen above in a screen grab from a 1976 episode of a game show (source.)
The building also stood adjacent to a catastrophic rail explosion in 1974. And after Staley was acquired by a company named Tate & Lyle a labor confrontation in the mid-1990s developed into one of the most contentious and important of the century. Photos above show Decatur cops pepper spraying striking Staley workers, followed by a demonstration against the company and its enforcers. The pepper spray photo is seen on the cover of Staley: the fight for a new American labor movement, a book that can be read here.
Decatur has a wealth of history which can be enjoyably browsed at a blog called Picture Decatur from which the images above were sourced.
