Spring 25 OP Newsletter

Each newsletter, we will delve into a different piece of Orland’s past. This season we will be exploring the history of the Chiappetti Slaughterhouse. This small limestone building has played a part in the larger history of Orland. It is connected to the Rust family, an early and influential family in Orland, the Chiappetti family, who rose to prominence in Chicago’s historic Union Stockyards and the Andrew Corporation, a global company that put Orland on the map in the 1950s. In June 1873, Joseph Rust purchased the land that would eventually house the Andrew Corporation. In 1915, the Rust family built a small limestone building to use as a smokehouse. According to legend, the limestone was mined from the stones used for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal; however, since Rust did not come to Orland until the early 1870s, it is more likely that limestone came from the building of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a project that ran from 1887-1922. When Joseph Rust sold the land in 1916, it was sold and resold frequently until a man named Karl D. Stahulak bought it in 1920. The Stahulak family, who were immigrants from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire and most likely of Hungarian descent, farmed the area until 1934, when they sold the land to the Orland State Bank. Later that year, Herman Gee, who was working as a bank clerk in the 1930s, sold the land to Fioremante “Fiore” Chiappetti. CHIAPPETTI SLAUGHTERHOUSE

Fiore played an important role in the story of this building. In 1916, Fiore immigrated from Calabria, Italy to Chicago. He worked for the railroad. After work, he’d occasionally kill a lamb or goat for his family to eat. His co-workers and neighbors asked him if they could purchase meat from him. Word quickly spread about Fiore’s abilities, and he eventually quit his job at the railroad and opened a small butcher shop on Taylor and Jefferson Street in Chicago with his brother, Salvatore.

Joseph Rust, c. 1870-1900

| Spring 2025 | orlandpark.org

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