Thornton Quarry

The first people moved into Thorton Illinois in 1834. The first quarry open two years later but what shut down due to the poor quality of the rock and how deep it actually was. Fred Gardner opened one in 1846 and then Stephen Cray opened another one in 1850. Then in 1920 Colonial Hodgkins bought the quarries. Four years later the part north of Ridge Road opened and then in 1926 a tunnel was constructed to connect the two. Hodgkins died in 1929 which led to Brownell Improvement Company re-buying the quarry, they originally owned it in the early 1900's.  Last in 1938, Material Service Corporation bought the quarry and have owned it ever since.
The quarry was originally made out of limestone and a lot of old dead coral that once consumed the area. They have found fossils and a meteorite there.They use the quarry for many different types of building materials. The quarry is part of the Chicago Deep Tunnel project, which is a  resivour for sewage and water runoff to be used the city. The capacity was 3.1 billion gallons of runoff but by 2014 it should have the capacity of 4.8 billion gallons.
http://www.lib.niu.edu/2002/ihy020232.html
                               A View Into The Thornton Quarry

 http://achicagosojourn.blogspot.com/2009/06/quarry-town.html