Abandoned Stockyard Left to Nature (PHOTOS)

By: By Camille Mann

Published: November 18,2013

 

 

 

 

 

The Lancaster Stockyards in Pennsylvania, once known as one of the largest stockyards east of the Mississippi, are now nothing but planks of wood and rusted pens overgrown with flora and fauna.
Photographer and urban explorer Matthew Christopher documented the abandoned stockyards’ current conditions in his photo series.
“The pens and chutes had been overcome by vines and wildflowers, and many birds and small animals had reclaimed it after it was abandoned,” Christopher explained to Weather.com.
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The Lancaster stockyards were the first stockyards to be convicted of animal cruelty in 1993.  The conviction, in addition to the changes in livestock industry, caused the stockyards to close in 2006. It has since been left vacant.
Christopher said shooting at the site felt a little eerie, especially when he stumbled upon an area called “Cripple Alley” where they left livestock that was injured.
“In some ways it was very sad. There were quite a few horror stories about the inhumane conditions the animals were subject to,” he said. “It felt like walking through a graveyard — bittersweet, but peaceful and cathartic as well.”
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It was not just the site’s tragic past that made photographing the abandoned stockyards creepy — it was also the weather. During one of Christopher’s many visits to the stockyards he got caught in a severe thunderstorm.
“I went into one of the areas where the pens had a roof overhead but it was already falling apart. I could hear it creaking and in some areas parts of it falling during the storm,” he said. “While this probably sounds pretty terrifying I was in a safe area and was actually grateful for the opportunity to witness something like that occurring there.”
Christopher says it is the weather’s effects on the abandoned stockyards that turned them into something he enjoys photographing. “Weather phenomena are what create the decayed conditions … and make them captivating as ruins.”