Yes, and I had a cousin who worked there. (I grew up about 30 miles from Peoria.) It was the “World’s Largest Bourbon Distellery”. They had to get the bourbon out - and the way to do it before the Interstates was in a carbox.
She told me that they kept track of their production based on the bottle lables. If it didn’t get into a labled bottle they didn’t put it on the books and didn’t pay the Federal taxes. In those days this meant that too many people working at the distillery were drunk They’d grab an unlabled bottle when they arrived in the morning and sip through the day.
Unless this was a recent occurrance, ADM still makes beverage alcohol at its Peoria plant and ships it out in bulk (barge, rail and truck). ADM tank cars that have the number “3065” on their haz-mat placard handle beverage aclohol. Perhaps they have suspended production of that type of alcohol to concentrate on making fuel-grade alcohol.
Hiram Walker & Sons operated its Peoria distillery (now ADM) through the end of 1981 per labor contracts. Demand for hard liquors took a nosedive in the early 1970’s, so much so that Hiram Walker shutdown its Peoria distillery from late 1974 to early 1976. When it reopened, it operated at half-capacity. The final closure of the plant was announced in April 1979 and one year later was purchased by ADM. Hiram Walker operated the plant for ADM (alcohol made at the plant was at first shipped to Decatur for refining) from that time. The plant was then shut down in February 1981 so ethanol processing equipment could be installed. ADM ethanol operations commenced on June 1, 1981. ADM’s Tabor Grain Co. subsidiary purchased the formerly Hiram Walker-owned Riverside Elevator Co. and also set up a major rail-to-barge transload operation. Hiram Walker continued to bottle liquors until October and shipping of product continued into December. By early 1982, the new plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas, built to replace the one in Peoria, opened. ADM went on to purchase the rest of the HW property (rackhouses and shipping warehouse) in 1983. Several capacity expansions since then have increased daily grain alcohol capacity from 125,000 gallons per day to more than five times that figure today.
The TZPR currently serves this plant, switching the alcohol loadout on the west side and having access to the ADM-owned “River Track” (ex-Rock Island Belt Line) on east side. TZPR delivers corn screenings (coming from ADM in Decatur via CN) probably for mixing with feed, corn (mostly from IAIS, occasionally from BNSF), corn gluten meal and distillers feed coming off the BNSF and/or IAIS for barge-to-rail transfer. Outbound business is alcohol and distillers dry and wet feed.
TP&W and UP access ADM directly via the River Track. TP&W delive
The Peoria Gateway was promoted by certain railroads as an alternative to congestion in Chicago and to some extent, St. Louis. The promotion of Peoria as a major interchange point began around the beginning of the 20th century and remained strong well into the 1960’s. With fifteen railroads (13 line-hual and two terminal) serving Peoria as late as 1960, one can see the potential and why certain railroads (more so than others) exploited it.
Every railroad interchange with the other, some directly and some via either of the area’s two terminal railroads - P&PU and the Rock Island’s Peoria Terminal. The P&PU had the facilities to handle large quantities of traffic each day and so it far overshadowed PT in handling “intermediate” switching. Most traffic routed via Peoria was of an east-west orientation, although there much flowing north-south as well.
Postwar, the Peoria Gateway, tonnage-wise, probably peaked in the early 1950’s when P&PU handled an average of about 2,000 cars a day, but generally declined steadily after that (spikes in traffic did occur in 1955-1956, 1961, 1970-1973 and finally 1979-1980 before the Staggers Rail Act, mergers and the liquidation of the Rock Island ended the last of the heavy traffic). Much traffic was being shifted to trucks after World War Two - the result of rising freight tariffs. Also, livestock traffic declined rapidly during the 1950’s. The Peoria Union Stock Yards was once the seventh-largest in the nation so you can figure the impact. The Peoria Gateway was largely dimantled by Class 1 railroads, largely the result of mergers or the introduction of more efficient interchange at Chicago. The construction of interstate highways from the 1950’s through the 1970’s gave motor carriers a considerable advantage.
The first blow to the Peoria Gateway came after the Chicago & North Western absorbed the Minneapolis & St. Louis into its system on November 1, 1960, after which the heavy ea
Hiram Walker & Sons had what was the largest grain distillery in the world at Peoria. It opened in July 1934, and at the time it was sold to ADM, had 1,000 employees (850 of 'em worked in the rackhouses and shipping warehouse). The Rock Island served the riverfront side and P&PU served the west side. At one time, there was a connection between the Riverside Elevator Co. (adjacent to the distillery) and the Pabst Brewing Co. malthouse. It probably allowed Rock Island to serve Riverside Elevator, since access was from the P&PU side.
HW received coal for its power plant, probably from CB&Q-served mines in Fulton County until natural gas beame standard in the 1960’s.
Oak whiskey barrels were manufactured at Hiram Walker’s cooperage plant, located several blocks south on the CB&Q (wood staves were shipped from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin). Boxcars loaded with the barrels at the plant were switched out and delivered to P&PU on the other side of the tracks! Then P&PU would pull them and deliver to HW’s bottling plant and warehouse (tracks that now serve the alcohol loadout).
HW probably used malted barley to convert corn starch to sugar so that it could be fermented. Perhaps the adjacent Pabst malthouse supplied them or perhaps malt was purchased from suppliers in the Upper Midwest, or both.
Grains such as corn, wheat, milo, rye and barley were delivered to the Riverside Elevator Co. (terminal elevator owned by HW) and HW had first right of inspection. The elevator was also used by the Peoria Board of Trade so grain other than for the distillery arrived here by rail (and some probably left by rail as well).
Both P&PU and Rock Island had spurs into the feedhouse, which was located on the riverfront side. Distillers grains were a by-product shipped from here, probably nationwide.
Hiram Walker shipped bulk liquors in tank cars to a packaging plant at Burlingame, California while most liquors were packaged and shipped to warehouses in b
I would go back to 1954 when Heineman rescued the M&StL from bankruptcy. He then tried to add the Toledo, Peoria and Western and the Monon to create a route around Chicago. The PRR and the ATSF found out and bought the TP&W before he did. That caused Heineman to move on to the C&NW and save it from being absorbed by the Milwaukee Road.
