Peru, IL: Not a CB&Q Freight House

20150807,08 3793, looking southwest

According to a little sign I saw on the building, this GO/DAN Industries building is currently unoccupied. A Google search indicates that GDI did (does?) make automobile radiators. Because of the two story office building attached to a larger one-story building, it has the signature of a railroad freight house. The windows alternating with blank walls along the street side also indicate that there used to be freight doors all along that side.

Looking southeast

But the one-story part is wider than normal, and the building is currently rather far from the IR/.../CB&Q/IV&N tracks. Also, it is very big for a small town. Normally the freight depot for a small town shares a building with the passenger depot. For example, the Rock Island depot in Marseilles.

Since it was very possible that CB&Q had a yard in this area and that tracks extended all the way over to here, I found a 1939 aerial photo of the area to check my theory that this building was a freight house. As the title implies, my theory does not look good. In 1939, just the two-story part of the building existed. (Top building on the left in the photo.)

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

To confirm my theory was wrong, I hauled out the heavy gun of industrial history study --- Sanborn Fire Maps. It labeled this building as the "Peru Radiator Mgf. Co." That confirms it was not a freight house. In fact, the current building is a significant expansion of its original purpose --- radiator manufacturing.

When I saw the aerial photo, I wondered if the long building with lots of boxcars just to the north was a freight house. Multiple tracks of boxcars next to a long building is a signature of an outbound freight house. The Sanborn Maps indicates that building is the zinc sheet rolling mill of the Illinois Zinc Co.