48 JOLIET IRON WORKS HIKE

KEY AT-A-GLANCE INFORMATION

LENGTH: 1.3 miles

CONFIGURATION: Loop

DIFFICULTY: Easy

SCENERY: Concrete and brick remnants of the historic Joliet Iron Works, wooded surroundings

EXPOSURE: Nearly all exposed

SURFACE: Paved

HIKING TIME: 1 hour

DRIVING DISTANCE: 47.5 miles from Millennium Park, downtown Chicago

ACCESS: Summer, 8 a.m.–8 p.m.; winter, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Yes

FACILITIES: Bike racks, mapboard, benches, interpretive signs

MAPS: Mapboards are posted at the south and north ends of the site. Download a map from reconnectwithnature.org; USGS topo Joliet, IL

SPECIAL COMMENTS: Beware of crumbling walls and foundations. Adults should keep a close eye on children during this hike.

At the hike’s halfway point you have the option of following the Joliet Iron Works Heritage Trail to the left. This segment of the 11.4-mile Heritage Trail takes you to a lock in the historic I&M Canal.

GPS TRAILHEAD COORDINATES

Latitude 409860

Longitude 4598737

Directions

From Chicago take I-90/I-94 south. Continue on I-94 until reaching I-57. Take I-57 south for 13.5 miles to I-80 west. After 18.5 miles on I-80, take Exit 132 and follow US 53 north for 1.7 miles. Follow IL 53 through downtown Joliet, and then look for the Joliet Iron Works Historic Site sign as IL 53 follows East Columbia Street to the left.

Public transportation: Take either the Rock Island District Metra Line or the Heritage Corridor Metra Line. Both lines end in downtown Joliet. From the Joliet station, follow West Jefferson Street west for half a block, and then proceed north on North Scott Street 0.7 mile.

IN BRIEF

The Joliet Iron Works Historic Site provides a snapshot of how a large-scale iron-making operation worked in the late 19th century. Through reading the interpretive signs and wandering among the crumbling remains of buildings, you can trace the practice of iron-making from raw materials to the casting bed.

DESCRIPTION

In the 19th century, Joliet was known as the City of Steel and Stone. The stone was quarried from the nearby banks of the Des Plaines River, while the steel was produced at the Iron Works. Constructed in the 1870s, the Joliet Iron Works employed some 2,000 workers when production reached its peak at the turn of the century. Much of the steel made in Joliet went toward barbed wire and train-rail production.

For decades after the factory’s closing in the 1930s, the Iron Works lay forgotten. In the early 1990s, the Will County Forest Preserve bought the property and then opened the 51-acre site to the public in 1998. While much of the immediate area around the Iron Works is wooded, you’ll see the general location has maintained its industrial character; the railroad tracks on the right that once served the steel mill are still used today.

About 50 yards north of the parking lot, the first stop on the tour is the stock house, where the raw materials—iron ore, limestone, and coke—were stored. A sign along the path explains that the raw materials were transported via elevator nearly 100 feet up to be dropped in the top of the furnace. Next stop is the site of a blast furnace where the iron was made by heating raw materials to 3,500ºF for eight hours. After passing the casting bed where the iron was molded for transporting, you’ll see foundations of four more blast stoves.

Many of the explanatory signs along the path describe the often-dangerous jobs laborers performed at the mill. There are also plenty of photos of men who served in jobs such as stove tenders, claybusters, ladle liners, and cinder snappers. A few of the signs describe the laborers’ lives outside of work. One sign offers a map of where the different ethnic groups lived in relation to the mill, and explains that the western Europeans often lived farther away from the grime and noise of the mill, while the eastern and southern Europeans lived closer to the mill and tended to have the lower-paying jobs.

Continuing ahead, a series of octagonal and rectangular foundations are remnants of the gas-washing plant, where gases were cleaned before they were burned in the gas engines. Next are four pass stoves that heated the air for furnace 4. After passing the doghouse, which is where workers monitored the stoves and the iron flow, the path heads up a set of stairs to blast furnace 3, a big bowl-shaped depression on the left. After blast furnace 4, follow the ramp down as you pass a large tunnel that penetrates layers of brick and concrete.

Across the railroad tracks, you won’t miss the Illinois State Penitentiary, built with locally quarried limestone in 1858 and codesigned by the same architect who designed the famous Water Tower in Chicago. The 25-foot walls of the penitentiary are five feet thick at the base. The next stop on the Iron Works tour looks more like the ruins of a lost city than part of a former factory. The large concrete footings at this site served as mounts for the enormous gas engines that powered the plant.

At 0.7 mile into the hike, turn right and follow the gravel-surfaced Joliet Iron Works Heritage Trail back to the parking lot. You can also add some extra mileage to your hike by taking the Heritage Trail to the left. This multiuse, crushed-limestone trail runs north along the I&M Canal for 11 miles to the town of Lockport. A half mile north of the Iron Works, the Heritage Trail crosses a couple of bridges that span two former locks, which were used to raise and lower boats in the canal. Also along this section of trail you’ll see another one of the state penitentiary’s imposing guard towers.

Following the Heritage Trail to the right toward the parking lot leads you across a gravel road and close to the train tracks until it reaches the skull house. The skull house is where workers known as ladle liners would remove molten iron residue from the ladle cars. After removing the hardened residue, the ladle liner would re-line ladle cars with fire bricks and clay so that these cars could be used again for transporting molten iron around the plant for processing. From the skull house, the parking lot is 0.3 mile ahead.

NEARBY ACTIVITIES

For a thorough introduction to the Joliet area, visit the Joliet Area Historical Museum downtown at 204 North Ottawa Street. The museum’s main gallery covers seven distinct thematic areas: River City, the Canal, City of Steel and Stone, Metropolitan City, World War II, and the All-American City. Call (815) 723-5201 or visit jolietmuseum.org.