Coal Fly Ash Box Traditional Cache
oldbikes: this geocache is now archived.
oldbikes
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Size: 
(small)
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The “Coal Fly Ash Box” is located in Coal Miner’s Park, Pekin, IL. Free public parking is located inside the northwest entrance off of S. Parkway Drive. The 37-acre park has a very nice, extensive walking trail. Please help carry out trash near the cache!! Thanks to the staff of Pekin Park District for approving this cache site. As a precaution, signs have been posted advising the use of DEET because West Nile Virus has been detected.
Coal was extensively mined in the Pekin, IL area, as well as many other parts of Illinois in the first quarter of the 20th century. The mining company here was Tazewell County Coal Company, and the shaft-type mine’s name was also “Tazewell.” The narrow tree-lined boundary between Coal Miner’s Park and Parkview Golf course was formerly a railroad used to ship the mined coal. A nice stone bridge across Parkway Drive at the northwest park entrance may have been the staging area for loading the coal onto railroad cars. The coal seam mined in this area is named “Springfield #5” and was approximately 160 ft. deep and 3 ½ to 5 ½ ft thick. The coal formed 300 million years ago during the Pennsylvanian Period when the Pekin area was located along the shores of a shallow tropical ocean. Extensive room and pillar underground mining occurred north of Broadway Road and south and east of Route 9 (Court St.). Surprisingly, no mining occurred under Parkview Golf Course or even under the main portion of Coal Miner’s Park!! The park was named in a grade school contest in 1988. For more information and Illinois State Geological Survey maps, copy and paste the website directly after the usual ht..ww., because a direct link does not work.(isgs.uiuc.edu/coalsec/coal/counties/tazewell.htm)
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