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Posts tagged ‘history’
Found Objects for a Friday Afternoon: Green Jobs in the Fox Valley
by n0madic, posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Found Objects for a Friday Afternoon: If Aurora Is Bombed
by n0madic, posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
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History of Earthquakes In Northern Illinois
by Downtowner, posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 11:38 amSo I just got done reassuring a friend that this was no doubt a freak incident and then I found this on the USGS website.
1909 Jun 26 14:42 5.1M Intensity VII
Aurora, Illinois ( 41.6N 88.1W )
This earthquake has been related to the La Salle anticline in the Illinois Basin. Many chimneys fell, a stove overturned, and gas line connections broke at Aurora, west of Chicago. Several chimneys were downed at Forreston, Naperville, Streator, Triumph, and Troy Grove, and one fell at Waukegan. Brick walls cracked at Bloomington, and sidewalks cracked and many chimneys were damaged at Freeport. At Platteville, Wis., about 130 km northwest of Chicago, an old building was cracked; houses were jostled out of plumb at Beloit, Wis., about 240 km northwest of Chicago. Felt from Missouri to Michigan and Minnesota to Indiana.
and this
1912 Jan 2 16:21 4.5M Intensity VI
Near Aurora, Freeport, Morris, and Yorkville, Illinois? ( 41.5N 88.5W )
The highest intensity was reported at those towns in Kane, Stephenson, Grundy, and Kendall Counties, respectively. Slight damage to chimneys was reported at Batavia and Geneva, Ill., north of Aurora, in Kane County. Two distinct shocks were observed at some places. The stronger shock also was felt in parts of Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky (Fulton County), and Wisconsin.
Thos are both pretty damned close right here. The USGS calls the 1909 quake perhaps the strongest to ever occur in Illinois. Leaving me to wonder why I know quite a bit about the New Madrid fault, but have never heard of the LaSalle anticline in the Illinois Basin.
The Cherry Mine Disaster, 1909
by n0madic, posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 10:19 pmCherry, Illinois was a company town. Named after James Cherry, the superintendent of the St. Paul Coal Company, mining operations had begun at Cherry, in the Illinois River Valley of north central Illinois, in 1904 in order to produce coal for the steam engines of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad.
The Cherry operation was considered a safe, modern mine by the day’s standards, but on November 13, 1909, a fire started in the mine when torches used to light the mine after it’s state-of-the-art electrical lighting system had broken down set fire to a coal car full of hay that was being taken to feed the mules living down in the mine. There were 481 miners in the Cherry mine that day; 259 died. At the time it was the most deadly mining disaster the country had ever seen.
What follows is a description of what happened in the mine that day, based on first-hand testimony, excerpted from The Report on the Cherry Mine Disaster, published by the State of Illinois’ Board of Commissioners of Labor in 1910.
Denny’s Double Dealing: Hastert and the Gaming Industry. Part 1 of 3
by n0madic, posted on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 at 10:15 pmOriginally posted at Fireside 14 and Daily Kos.
Lost in the media frenzy surrounding the breaking news of the Mark Foley scandal was the story that internet gambling prohibition, a piece of the so-called “American Values Agenda” that Dennis Hastert and the House Republicans have been promoting this election season, had been signed into law that same day. Along with the bills included in their “suburban agenda” (you remember, that’s the one where they stressed their commitment to protecting kids from internet predators) the measures incorporated into the American Values Agenda were designed to rally the Republican base by billboarding the party’s allegiance to conservative values. Regarding the internet gambling legislation in particular, Hastert said, “It seeks to protect our children from gambling sites at home, keep our hard-earned money in the bank, and put the criminals that seek to take advantage of our family earnings in jail.” But if, by chance, any of that rhetoric gave you the impression that Dennis Hastert was seriously concerned about such things, or that he was in any fundamental way an opponent of the gaming industry, I’ve got a tip for you. Don’t bet on it.