I don’t think anyone has every really figured out what the story is about this towering power plant buried in the thick undergrowth on the south side of East St. Louis.
It looks to be made out of reinforced concrete, placing its construction in my opinion between the World Wars.
If you know anything, please let me know!
It is not safe to go down this street to the power plant, but one can see that some of its lower floors are in red brick.
I believe that it is the power plant for the over Nestor glass plant number 2 that was located in East Saint Louis Illinois the company had a total of three glass factories in East Saint Louis Illinois my father worked one of them after World War II I believe the plant closed in the late sixties early seventies due to the introduction of plastic bottles for commercial use
Thanks, Dale! I poked around a little bit and that is a likely candidate.
Why is it unsafe to go down that road?
It is extremely isolated, blocked from view by thick underbrush, and there is a large amount of broken glass and debris on the road. Google Street View, however, was more brave than me:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6145368,-90.1535165,3a,60y,304.59h,87.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAcFhH9sQFTS4qeU0tJEmJA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
I have been inside this structure within the last few months. It’s currently pretty open; but contains pieces of old scrap rubber in large gaylord boxes. The rubber looks similar to strips of large, commercial, vehicle tires. I don’t recall where I found the name I have associated with the structure; but somehow I labeled the property with a company called “East Saint Louis Casting Company”. This company currently has a different address, within this community; but perhaps it’s their original structure. This building has inverted pyramid hoppers in the upper portions of the structure. The lower slung building, next to it, is in use by another company.
Brian, thanks for the information. I spoke with my father, who is a chemist, and he said that hoppers would be consistent with a glass manufacturing operation. Also, the intense heat required to melt sand into silicon for glass would require huge amounts of electricity to produce, thus the need for the large power plant adjacent to the factory. I suspect that the factory was later used by the Casting Company you referred to.
I found a 1936 buisness map on historicmapworks.com that has the site listed as american mfg co.
Hey! I love seeing these places do you think you could do a post about any of the abandoned schools?
Maddie,
In East St. Louis, or in the entire area? Here is the tag for all schools, open and abandoned:
http://stlouispatina.com/tag/historic-schools/
I think this is near old Lincoln Sr. High. My Papa Reb said it was a glass factory at one time and they provided some asbestos =-type product for American Brake Co.
Here’s the map that Bill had mentioned in an earlier post. After zooming in on the incredibly small text, it appears to be number 173 Inter Coastal Paint Corporation. If you look SUPER closely at the map, it has squiggly arrows pointing to three structures. Only two of them are still there today.
http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/26615/
Wow, thank you so much!