Right next to the Fort Worth Stockyards is a large abandoned industrial complex that used to be the Swift Meat Packing Plant. It was part of Gustavus Swift’s family of companies and was in operation from about 1902 to 1971.  It soon fell into disrepair due to numerous fires from trespassing vagrants, gang activity and graffiti taggers.

View Swift Meat Packing Plant in a larger map

There are still several large buildings on the property that are open to some urban exploring though care should be taken, it’s quite apparent that numerous homeless have taken up residence here.  I didn’t do this excursion alone. I had a friend with me as a second set of eyes. It’s funny but one of the creepiest things we encountered was this lost child’s toy:

Lost Toy

It really puts some nightmarish Freddy Kruger/Halloween thoughts in your head.  The first building we entered, Processing 1, was the smallest at the complex and had some of the freshest graffiti:

Processing 1

The names I’m giving these buildings are for reference and based on the order we entered them or from what they looked like.  Processing 1 was two stories and except for the graffiti, it was rather unremarkable.  Next door was Processing 2:

Processing 2

It had a lot of internal damage from fires and the second level wasn’t accessible. The stairs were missing and we didn’t want to chance climbing up the outside ladder. Behind Processing 2 was the Garage.  It was a large open metal structure adjacent some storage areas. It had one of the more interesting homeless shelter setups:

A bed and chair!

Most of the doors were free to swing in the breeze so as we wandered around we could hear various banging and squeaking which really plays with your mind. Fires and the passage of time have really done a number to the place.  Interestingly though, in around 2008 the site was used as a set piece for the TV show Prison Break.  They converted one of the structures into a South American Prison and added several guard towers:

Penitenciaria Federal de Sona

The grey stucco facade and windows are complete fakes but its interesting how your mind is fooled by the movie magic.  The three guard stations that were built also have paint that mimics age but upon closer inspection you can see the timbers are new.  Its a sharp contrast to the wood that’s been around since about 1902 making up the roofs of the warehouse structures:

Don’t be scared little tiger

The remains of the roof looked like it could come down at any moment but that doesn’t scare the tiger guarding the place.  He wasn’t the last toy we came across, parked outside of Processing 4 was this little tike:

Little Tike’s last ride

If you will notice, the fourth floor of Processing 4 has no windows.  Winding up the interior stairwell lead us to a room that was behind a large heavy refrigeration door:

The Black Room

It was dark, but the sky lights let in enough light to see that the walls had been painted black causing the graffiti to also glow as if under black light. That room kind of creeped us out so we didn’t stick around there.  The last structure we entered was the largest and had extensive damage to it’s northern face.  The wall had completely fallen exposing the interior to the elements:

Exposed

This building is different from the others in that each large room is accessed from the stairwell through large refrigeration type doors. It kind of implies that every floor was heavily cooled for what ever processing that went on.  It also has a large service elevator that would have serviced all five floors. We were about out of time so we headed out to meet back up with Virginia and get some much deserved beers.  In total we spent about 3 hours there and the complete Flickr set can be viewed here: Swift Meat Processing Plant

I was needing to get out of the office for a bit so I jumped in the Jeep and went to check out a drainage culvert off of Mesa Hills. I had seen it in my previous excursion to the area when I almost get trapped on the other side of the Sunland Park Dam.

After parking in the Westside Recreation center, I headed down a path that paralleled the arroyo till I could find a spot down.

Run for your Lives!

Now I have lived in El Paso all my life and I think this is the first time I’ve seen a sign warning about snakes.  Come on! We are smack in the middle of a desert next to a mountain, snakes should be expected.

The Wetlands

The arroyo empties into a large wetland area, that despite the recent Hotter-Than-Hades heat wave, was quite green. I moved on to the concrete spillway hoping to find some interesting graffiti.

Concrete steps

Not so much, just a bunch of lazy tagging.  From here I walked back up to another feeder where I found the youth of El Paso’s favorite passtime: shopping cart stealing and dumping!

No more shopping for you!

“Who” ever did this was long gone but left their mark.  There had to be a skunk near by because this place smelled pretty foul.  Time to head out before I get sprayed. The full set of photos can be found here: Mesa Hills Wash

Down by the southern end of Doniphan, there are several old industrial, mixed use lots. A few have buildings and equipment left that are worth checking out:

View Larger Map

I have been next door in the past and shot some pics of graffiti covering a large grey wall. (Flickr set here:Graffiti) For those shots I used my Holga and now that I have my Rebel T3i I wanted to go back and take them again.  They have since been painted over so I focused my attention on the empty terminal lot:

The BNSF train line that runs along Doniphan splits off and travels up to this site so there must have been some loading and unloading going on here in the past.  If a train happened to travel up the tracks now he would meet an old Olds:

The last resident looks to have been a construction company, and they liked Dr Pepper:

For 35¢ who wouldn’t? I wished it was full and running, the 100 degree heat was pretty unbearable, every surface radiated the high temps right back at you. The Pepper machine has been dragged out into the elements and cracked open but it looks to be intact. Other objects have been exposed for far longer as evident in this electrical panel:

There are other industrial artifacts scattered around the site in the same states of disrepair.  I was short on time to begin with so I exited and headed back to the cool confines of my office. Full Flicker set here: Abandoned Terminal

I saw Alexandre Farto’s work on Gizmodo today.  For some of his works he uses a subtractive process, removing material to create his imagery on walls and billboards:

These works add an interesting wrinkle to the graffiti art debate.  “Normal” graffiti art done with paint or markers is removable, this is a bit more destructive.  Judging by the care and detail I’m sure permission has been granted to do these but what of copycats who might try to emulate his art in a more clandestine fashion somewhere else? Cool stuff nonetheless and worth a visit to his site:

http://alexandrefarto.com/