Wildflowers take over the landscape where the old great steel mill in the South Works steel mills once stood. South Works reads as a microcosm of the rust belt. First opened in 1882 as the North Chicago Railway Mill Company, the mill went through several name changes before becoming the U.S. Steel South Works. The placement of the steel mill at the mouth of the Calumet River at Lake Michigan made for easy transport of goods and raw materials. The neighborhood that developed around the mill, South Chicago, was filled with immigrants of all types who came to the area for the well-paying jobs at the mill. However, the prosperity did not last forever, and due mainly to market forces affecting the entire United States steel industry, the South Works began a long period of downsizing beginning in the 1970s. Finally, on April 10, 1992, the doors closed for good. The mill that once produced steel beams for most of Chicago’s skyscrapers and jobs for thousands of area residents was now gone, and with it went the prosperity of South Chicago. With each round of job cuts at the mill, the neighborhood had become more and more economically depressed. Once the South Works closed, South Chicago spiraled into major decay, a trend that has yet to be reversed.

Carlos Javier Ortiz