Abandoned Dearborn Street Bridge (Grand Boulevard)

In 1865, the Union Stock Yard and Transit Company built a large stock yard south of Pershing Road between Ashland Avenue and Halsted Street.  Nine railroads operating in Chicago decided to finance a terminal railroad, opposed to building their own property to reach the stock yards.  The Chicago & Indiana State Line Railroad (C&ISL) was incorporated to construct lines connecting various railroads with the stock yards.  The principal line consisted of a line extending from the Illinois Central Railroad line near 41st Street, crossing the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway/Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway at 40th Street, and crossing the Chicago & Western Indiana Railway/Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway line at 40th Street.  The line then continued west along the northern edge of the stock yards, ending near 39th Street and Archer Avenue.  The railroad was reorganized as the Chicago Junction Railway in 1898, which was owned by a holding company which also owned the stock yards.  In 1922, the New York Central Railroad bought and leased the CJ to the Chicago River and Indiana Railroad (CR&I), a subsidiary.  In 1958, the CR&I purchased the CJ tracks.  In 1968, NYC merged with rival Pennsylvania Railroad to form Penn Central Railroad.  The Penn Central Railroad was short lived, as it was plagued by operations issues stemming from the merger of the two systems.  The railroad filed for bankruptcy in 1974, and many of the lines were reorganized into Conrail.  Conrail was formed by the Federal Government to take over profitable lines of multiple bankrupt railroad companies in the eastern United States..  During the late 1960s, the section east of Prairie Avenue was abandoned.  The segment between the Dan Ryan Expressway and Prairie Avenue was abandoned in approximately 1980.  In 1997, Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation agreed to purchase the bankrupt Conrail System.  Currently, the remaining section between the Norfolk Southern Railway main line and Western Avenue is also owned by Norfolk Southern, and the segment between the NS main line and La Salle Street is owned by Chicago Rail Link.