George Armour (24 April 1812 – 13 June 1881) was a Scottish American businessman and philanthropist known for his contributions to the global distribution process for commodities.

[6] In 1834, Armour with his brother John and cousin James a shoemaker, left Campbeltown and made a voyage to Ottawa, Illinois.

[citation needed] Prior to Armour's efforts there had been a small number of what may be termed "grain elevators" constructed in the United States.

[32][33] The Convention proceedings called for laws and budgets to widen and deepen the Illinois and Michigan Canal and thus make it possible for ships to sail between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.

[34] In order to succeed with a vision of moving of very numerous bushels of grain, Armour needed more than steam powered conveyor belts.

By the 1840s, a certain amount of bulk transport was taking place and grain was stored in individual bins according to source in warehouses and the heavy lifting was done by block and tackle pulled by horses.

[26][44] In 1859, the CBT received a state charter that enabled it to enforce grading standards and inspections with a legally binding basis.

In 1857, along with Cyrus McCormick, who invented the reaper, and Chicago's first mayor, William B. Ogden, Armour was a founder and, later, elected director of the Merchants' Loan and Trust Company.

The technology for moving grain had to improve and he development or trains, vessels and conveyors continued its rapid progress in typical nineteenth century fashion.

The railroads needed to reach tens of thousands of farms to the west as well to the major consumer cities on the East coast.

The fire killed up to 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km2) of Chicago, Illinois, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless."

The story of how the MLTC was able to move the bank's funds at the height of the fire is well-described in The Advancement of Chicago as a Financial Center up to the Close of the Nineteenth Century.

[60] Also during the year, for the first time, memberships could be bought and sold[61] and a committee was instituted to report of the recommendation of situating a US mint in Chicago.

There is no provision in the fundamental law standing between the unrestricted avarice of monopoly and the common rights of the people; but the great, laborious, patient ox, the farmer, is bitten and bled, harassed and tortured, by these rapacious, blood sucking insects.

[67] When a reporter from The Tribune interviewed him on the subject, Armour declined to say anything in reference to it, but requested as a special favor that no noise be made about it in the paper.

There continued to be fraudulent behaviors and attempts were made to corner markets but these appear to have been more the actions of rogue individuals and not due to underlying structural flaws in the warehousing system.

[69] While on a voyage to Europe – made with the hope of improving his health – Armour died of rheumatism of the heart in Brighton, England on 13 June 1881.

[80] A darker side of the takeover of assets is covered by Joel S. Dryer in a presentation titled The Story You Don't Know About A Place We All Love delivered to The Chicago Literary Club 14 May 2001.

[81] Further investigations has been carried out by Kirsten M. Jensen in her book: The American Salon: The Art Gallery at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, 1873—1890.

[89] Widespread "rioting and knockdowns" were reported in the predominantly Irish-Democratic 7th Ward in the final days of the 2 March 1857 mayoral election.

[90] The Illinois Police & Sheriff's News described the event as follows: A Republican businessman named George Armour challenged the votes of some Irishmen who did not reside within ward boundaries.

Armour was set upon by a crowd of poll-watching ruffians, kicked, beaten about the head, and dragged through the streets by the hair until his friends came to the rescue.

He was attacked, stabbed, and chased clear down to La Salle Street where he jumped onto a dangerously thin sheet of river ice to escape his pursuers.

Michael Pollan, American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley wrote in his best-seller The Omnivore's Dilemma: Commodity corn, which is as much an economic abstraction as it is a biological fact, was invented in Chicago in the 1850s....

Having taken part building some of the first railroads and canals in the US, Armour understood the need for systems that would enable the movement of bulk materials around the world.

Just at the beginning of the Civil War, a meeting was called by CBT with the express purpose of funding the establishment of a brigade to support the Union side.

[94] The legacy is that today we call this the military-industrial complex – "an informal alliance between a nation's military and the arms industry which supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy.

Today the YMCA of Metro Chicago has 23 centers, five camps and hundreds of extension sites to meet the changing needs of the more than 200,000 members served every year.

He was a significant contributor to the construction of the Willow Creek Church in Argyle IL where he had spent the summer of 1836 building he 14' x 14' log cabin.

In helping the Greenlees escape the avaricious tax collector, in making good Munn & Scott's bogus receipts so farmers would not get hurt and banging his gavel hard when there's a racist incident occurring in the trading pit, we have a glimpse of a man living the American way.