After a ground breaking in 1989, construction crews worked throughout 1990 and most of 1991 building the largest commercial development in the history of Marion, Illinois. Continue reading
Category Archives: All Marion Content
In August 1972, a newly formed corporation called American Train Heritage, Inc. purchased their first piece of a projected steam railroad tour train dream for the Crab Orchard and Egyptian Railroad. Continue reading
Williamson County, Illinois 1945 map
Before there was a Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, nearly the entire refuge was a heavily secured ordnance plant for the production of bombs and ammunition to supply the needs of World War II. A number of roads and railroad spurs used to weave in and out of various bunker storage locations with security checkpoints. This 1945 map shows the magnitude of the impact of WW II on the area.
(Map from 1995 History Edition of the Marion Daily Republican)
Slot Machine Raid ca 1953 shown are Jack Stephens and Yabe Edwards
A raid into unspecified establishments in the city around 1958 yielded this large pile of scrap when the Marion Police Department was done with it. Shown are OfficerJack Stephens and Chief of Police Charles Edwards, both Marion residents.
(Photo courtesy of Williamson County Historical Society)
1922 crowd awaiting Herrin Mine Grand Jury on Public Square, Marion, Illinois
In 1922, a crowd on the public square in Marion, Illinois anxiously awaits the outcome of a Grand Jury to hand down verdicts related to the Herrin Mine massacres which occured earlier in the year. Scab mine workers who had been called in to work the mines during strikes at a mine just outside Herrin, Illinois had been brutally murdered and tortured.
(Photo from the Williamson County Historical Society)