Knox C: Victoria, IL: Midland Electric Mecco Mine and Marion 5561 & 5760

Wow, that mine was huge. I found three tipples, and the Midland Electric built its own railroad to the Rock Island at La Fayette, IL. Satellite and mine information is below the shovel information.

 

Chuck Edmonson posted

Parts of Knox and Fulton Counties in western Illinois were once home to some extensive strip mining operations for coal. In the late 1960s as technology advanced bigger shovels were created to expedite operations. Midland Coal would bring on-site this massive machine near Farmington. The pickup truck to the right gives a sense of the sheer size of these machines.

 A massive Marion 5561 machine, the bucket could move 40 yards of material in one scoop.

Raymond Ziegler: This shovel was at Mecco mine in Victoria Il. This photo was taken sometime in the 1970's judging by the red square body chevy truck setting next to it.

James Stine posted
This is a photo of the 5761S parked at the Midland Electric Coal Company's MECCO Mine near Victoria, Illinois. This shovel had a 170 Ft. boom and a 75 Cu. yd. dipper. This unit was scrapped in 1988. It had set for several years prior to scrapping.

Joe Lang posted seven photos with the comment: "5760 at Victoria Illinois, first pic with my Dad is circa 1987 I think...."

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The Mountaineer was also a Marion 5760.

Directory

Map
Dennis DeBruler Wow, that was a big mine. In addition to the polygons explicitly labeled 862, I assume the polygon around Snakeden Hollow Lake and all of the polygons north of IL-167 were also part of the Mecco mine. Did they start with the tipple in Section 12N 4E 17 and the land below it? Then build a tipple in Section 12N 4E 23 to mine the land over there? Then work their way North and West finishing with another tipple in Section 13N 3E 10?

MECC built their own railroad (MECX) to connect the two eastern tipples to the Rock Island at La Fayette. I have not figured out how the western tipple got rail service. The Gablesburg & Great Eastern that ran south of IL-167 is shown as abandoned in a 1982 topo map.

Thickness
Dennis DeBruler It is obvious that the thickness of the coal seam determined where they dug.

A tipple was in the lower-left corner of this excerpt. The red line is the "mainline" of the Midland Electric Company Coal Co. (MECX) and and the yellow lines are remnants of the spur to this tipple.

Satellite plus Paint

Another tipple was north of the end of the MECX "mainline."

Abandoned RR Map

The western tipple was east of CO-12 about halfway between IL-167 and Coal Road.
(Satellite, they did a good job of land recovery because I can't find any evidence of this tipple.)


The abandoned railroad that ran south of IL-167 and thus south of this tipple was the Galesburg & Great Eastern Railroad. But I can find no evidence of a spur going up to the Mecca tipple.

Abandoned RR Map

This topo excerpt includes the first two tipples. Unfortunately, the cartographer didn't bother to mark the tipples.

1982 Victoria Quadrangle @ 1:24000

The 1982 topo for the area around the western tipple uses a dotted line for the G&GE, which means it has been abandoned. That makes rail service for this tipple even more puzzling.

1982 Oneida Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Going back to 1961+1962 topos, I see the G&GE railroad, but no mining activity nor the MECX.

Is this part of this mine?

Maria-Art Catino posted
Sharing one of favorite postcards.