Forgotten Lands, Places and Transit

Block 61 at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie has a rare quality that I'm always seemingly chasing: the feeling that something important used to be here… and that the land is still deciding what to do with it. Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is a federally protected prairie reserve near Wilmington, Illinois, managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Established in 1996, it is the first national tallgrass prairie in the United States and serves as a major ecological restoration project on former Joliet Army Ammunition Plant land, which served the war efforts of both World War II and the Vietnam War. The name chosen was “Midewin,” derived from the Potawatomi word referring to a traditional society or gathering of healers. Today's blog focuses on the Block 61 trail to the east; which in many spots feels less like a nature hike and more like an archaeological survey of the Cold War. Men only want one thing. The thing: Step inside and the temperature drops. Sound flattens. The curved...

If you ever find yourself on a drive down Addison Road between North Avenue and Lake Street, you pass a strangely wide strip of land on the west side of the road - too broad for a sidewalk, too linear for a park, too empty to be accidental. That strip once carried a railroad. There were two Addison Railroads that operated in the United States, one in Illinois and one in Vermont, and each had no relation to the other. The Vermont Addison Railroad became part of the Rutland Railroad, and is discussed in another blog. The Addison Railroad (in Illinois) once occupied the large easement on the west side of Addison Rd between IL-64 (North Av) to just north of US-20 (Lake St) in Addison, IL, about two miles in length. Built in 1890, it was incorporated into the Chicago Madison & Northern Railroad , which itself became part of the Illinois Central by 1892. Under the IC, the short spur was simply known as the Addison Branch. Addison Railroad, 1892 . "Illinois Central Train in Addiso...

Just as Video Killed the Radio Star , so too did the highway kill the railroad, or at least some of them.  Now without trying to shoehorn some early 80's pop culture into my blogs, the more nuanced take is that highways built upon existing railroad networks and certainly disrupted the rail industry, but that doesn't mean railroads aren't highly profitable even today. Still, if one takes a look at the abandoned railroads map  in the Houston, TX area, you'll see rights of way used to exist where three freeways exist today, and that's the subject of today's blog.  At least in one case, the freeway did not come until over a decade after the railway was abandoned. Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway The Katy Freeway is one of the widest freeways in the world in spots. It is signed as Interstate 10 between Houston and Katy, TX. I-10 continues east to Jacksonville, FL and west to Santa Monica, CA. Image: Gary Morris, 1978 While the freeway has existed since the 1960's, ...

The accessibility of satellite imagery has opened up a treasure trove of interesting things that might otherwise remain hidden in plain sight. I've past mentioned scarchitecture in this blog before, where the historic tracks of railroads, canals, roads, and other transportation systems can result in oddly-angled buildings which offer clues of the past. Others have noticed geography playing a role in other arenas of history as well, as geologist Steven Dutch noted that the more Democratic Black Belt in Alabama matched up nearly perfectly with a 100 Million year old rock formation. (Wired) Similarly, I noticed something interesting in regards to my abandoned and out-of-service railroad lines map , with regard to the proximity of three railroad lines that had significant portions of their routes that were never built. These were three related branches of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad that never reached their full extent in central Nebraska. Today we explore why th...