Joliet, IL: Quarries and Strip Coal Mines

(Update: List of quarries in Illinois)

Evie Bob Bruns posted
A May 1966 photo by Bob McCoy. Overhead view of Joliet looking northeast. On the bottom one can see the new bridge going up over the tracks that would be Interstate 80. The Milw yard starts near this bridge it is to the left next to the EJ&E. Zooming in to where the freight house is one can see a few cars plus the jobs engine a SW in the 600 numbering also the jobs cab to the left. You can see to the far left tracks that the EJE used to reach those industries.
Evie Bob Bruns a quarry but they fixed up the nw corner and made it a swimming place. You can see the sand and the depth in the water. Doubt thats being used anymore?.Martin O'Connor Mom emailed me back that the lake was known as Michigan Beach. She almost drowned there once, and was rescued by the lifeguard.
Martin O'Connor 1915 - Rotary wanted to turn a quarry on Rowell Avenue into a safe place to swim. Art Montzheimer, Chief Engineer of the E.J. & E., chaired the Michigan Beach Committee. A land lease was secured and a minstrel show was put on for three nights at the high school to raise money to construct a beach and build a bath house. As a result, thirty carloads of Lake Michigan sand were added to the quarry to make the beach. - See more at: http://jolietrotary.com/SitePage/club-history

Paul Krueger posted a couple of 1957 Flickr photos of this area: 1 and 2.

I'm glad to see that some of the industrial buildings in Evie's photo still exist according to a satellite image.

David Belden and the Local History via TheHerald-News

3D Satellite

Now the limestone quarrying for construction materials is done underground. A Tribune article said this quarry was owned by LafargeHolcim, and it produces about 12,000 tons a day. Google Maps labels it as just Lafarge. That road tunnel (image of portal below) with the conveyor at the top now descends 300' underground. I was talking to a pushboat crew member at Lemon during shift change, and he told me about a huge underground limestone mine under the Des Plaines River where I-355 crosses it. I wonder if this is the same mine. The Tribune article says the rock is crushed to 6" chunks before it is put on the conveyor. Then equipment on the surface prepares "different sizes of material, from sand to stone and everything between." If the customer is Ozinga's downtown Chicago mixing plants, the material is trucked to Ozinga's barge loading facility in Joliet and hauled by its own barge subsidiary. Mining underground allows companies to tap the vast seams of limestone in the Des Plaines Valley without disturbing the wetlands and rare species in the valley.

3D Satellite

(Hanson's Federal Quarry in McCook has also switched to underground mining: rblandmark, NBC.)


I've seen several references to buildings built with "Joliet Limestone." Now I understand that "lakes" with some straight sides are abandoned quarries.

Is this one now used as a materials storage facility?

Does the depth of the quarry determine the color of the water?

Again, lots of big piles of material still remain.

On the northern side

Southwest side

Northwest side

While looking for lakes whose edges followed property lines, I found a big area of land scars that indicate strip coal mining was done long before the laws were passed that require the land to be restored to its original condition or better.