Just to the left (as you’re driving north) of Interstate 55 in Illinois, near the intersection with Reed Rd., north of the town of Dwight, is this big pile of rocks that’s been there for as long as I can remember (I can remember seeing it as a small child, so it’s been there for at least 30 years). This might be it, if I can get MSN Live Maps to work.
It looks like a slag heap, but I’m not aware of any mining going on in the immediate area, and a short survey of the area on Live Maps reveals no evidence of mining that I can see.
Any idea what this is about? Why would there be a 50-foot-high (by my estimation) mound of what looks like gravel in the middle of flat prairie, and how and why would it stand for 30 years?
The southern one appears to be associated with a concrete contractor. It seems plausible that the northern one is too. If you’re really curious, you could give them a call and find out.
I don’t know how that pile of slag got to that specific location, but are you serious about no evidence of mining in that area? That area that is immediately S of Coal City? Do those lakes immediately E and N of the slag heap look like natural formations to you? Continue up 55 and you’ll pass right by the golf course Cinder Ridge.
In short - big history of strip mining throughout that area. Plenty of sources of plenty of slag. But, tho I have often noticed this particular heap, I do not know why it exists in that specific location. My WAG would be some type of planned processing center that never came to pass.
I just want to thank Mike for pointing out the pile. No disrespect to neither HeyHomie or MSN Live Maps, but was so frustrating searching for the mthrfcking pile I got existiential problems, wondering what the heck I was doing with my life turning forty and everything.
I see at least two others in the same general area, including one just up the road. Seems pretty clear that, at some time, something was processed in the area.
And for whatever reasons, apparently the cost of hauling this crap away or otherwise reclaiming the land exceeds the lost opportunity cost of just allowing the land to lie fallow - for decades!
The golf course I mentioned above - Cinder Ridge - has actually been an interesting place to watch slow reclamation over the years. When it opened, the land immediately abutting the course was a lunar landscape. You would look just offthe course and expect to see Mad Max rocketing towards you. Pretty soon cottonwoods and other opportunistic early colonists took foot. Over the years they have been levelling mounds, and hauling in truckloads of compost and sludge. Still not exactly edenic, but a far cry from what it was only a decade or so ago.