Thursday, May 09, 2013

Wenks' Chicken Nightmare Warehouse

I just saw this ad on Craigslist for a set of buildings that I run past often south and west of Madison, out past the grain elevators.  It's the old Wenks Chicken Factory, a series of corrugated metal buildings that have been abandoned ever since I've been in Madison.  It always looks to me like the set for some apocalyptic horror movie, like some disaster struck and everyone disappeared suddenly, or maybe an evil scientist set up  an assembly line for building some world-domination gizmos.

I'm struck by some of the pictures that have been uploaded to the Picasa web album the ad links to; it's available here:  https://picasaweb.google.com/109076386369885516606/SD?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKHp5Y7v0afy5gE&feat=directlink

Check out this pic, for example:
Explain to me how this photo makes you want to buy the buildings, despite those nice rafters.  

The Picasa album is identified as being owned by Scott Mahar, who is not listed in the Madison directory.  I found a Scott Mahar in Fargo who's in engineering.  There must be a new factory of some sort coming in here.  Maybe the one from Arlington?  I thought that one was going in at the industrial park.  

Tell me, though, don't some of these pics look like they would be great for a horror movie?  My friend JH says working there was a horror in itself.  I can see it.  Ever been in a chicken coop?  Imagine that times 10,000.  Or more.  Nasty.  

4 comments:

caheidelberger said...

Hm... selling the buildings doesn't mean a new factory is coming in, does it? Is he selling just the buildings and not the land?

John Nelson said...

Selling the buildings, planning a new facility of some kind.

Melody said...

This affirms my decision to not eat chickens :0

John Nelson said...

These buildings are all gone now, including one that I was thinking would make a welcome addition to our back yard. Too bad. They're replaced with nice new shining silver bins for drying. A run by there yesterday revealed some guys out working on the new place, getting it ready for a new crop this fall.