Illinois holds 567 documented abandoned places on the Urbex Maps atlas -- the largest count of any Midwestern state, driven by Chicago's vast post-industrial landscape and by the collapse of southern Illinois's agricultural and mining economy. Chicago is one of the great cities of American industry: the Union Stock Yards processed the cattle that fed the country; the Pullman factory built the sleeping cars that rode the railroads; the Brach's candy factory on the West Side ran day and night for decades. When that industry left -- the meat processing moved to Iowa, the railroad car orders dried up, the candy company relocated -- it left behind factory complexes of extraordinary scale in neighborhoods that have struggled ever since.
Outside Chicago, Illinois urbex is shaped by downstate decline: the slow depopulation of agricultural and coal-mining towns in the central and southern parts of the state, the institutional campuses that served 20th-century populations that have since shifted to other care models, and the infrastructure of the Mississippi and Illinois River corridors. Cairo at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers is the most dramatic downstate ghost town -- a city that once had 15,000 residents and now has fewer than 2,000, its 19th-century commercial architecture emptying block by block. The Joliet Correctional Center -- the Old Joliet Prison -- became famous as the filming location for Prison Break, but its history as a working Illinois prison from 1858 to 2002 is at least as significant as its television career.
This guide covers 10 of the most significant abandoned places in Illinois, with free GPS coordinates on the Urbex Maps interactive atlas, verified YouTube embeds, and factual historical context.
Free urbex GPS: how Urbex Maps works
Every spot in this guide has a free GPS pin on the Urbex Maps interactive atlas. No account required -- just coordinates with satellite imagery and access notes. The full Illinois database has 567 documented locations, covering abandoned factories, state institutions, ghost towns, and industrial infrastructure.
1. Joliet Correctional Center (Prison Break Prison), Joliet
The Joliet Correctional Center -- universally known as "the Old Joliet Prison" -- is one of the most architecturally distinctive abandoned prisons in America: a Romanesque Revival fortress of Joliet limestone built in 1858, designed by Illinois State Penitentiary architect William Boyington, whose other major work was the Chicago Water Tower (the only downtown Chicago building to survive the Great Fire of 1871). The prison's limestone walls, round towers, and Gothic arched gateway create an appearance closer to a medieval castle than a 19th-century American correctional institution.
The prison operated from 1858 to 2002 -- 144 years -- housing the full range of Illinois felony offenders across multiple generations of expansion and reform. Its most famous resident was Nathan Leopold, of the Leopold and Loeb murder case, who served 33 years at Joliet before being paroled in 1958. The facility appeared in the Blues Brothers (1980) as the opening prison scene and became most widely known from 2005 as the setting of the Fox TV series Prison Break.
The City of Joliet acquired the Old Joliet Prison after the state closed it in 2002 and has been developing it as a heritage tourism destination, offering guided tours that combine the architectural history with the Prison Break association. Studio tours and paranormal tours are both offered. The facility is one of the more accessible abandoned prison experiences in the Midwest -- the city has invested in stabilization, signage, and tour infrastructure.
2. Cairo Ghost Town, Alexander County
Cairo (pronounced "KAY-ro" by locals) at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers is the most dramatic urban decline story in Illinois -- a city that was once among the most strategically significant in America and is now a near-ghost town with fewer than 2,000 residents in a landscape built for 10 times that number. Cairo sits on a peninsula where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi, a position that made it a critical commercial node in the 19th century: goods moving down the Ohio transferred at Cairo; goods coming up the Mississippi transferred at Cairo; the city was the natural gateway between the Upper Midwest and the South.
At its peak in the 1880s, Cairo had 15,000 residents, a bustling commercial district, and some of the finest Victorian architecture between Chicago and New Orleans. The decline began when railroad routing decisions bypassed Cairo in favor of other crossing points, continued through the 20th century as the river trade was replaced by highway commerce, and accelerated through violent racial conflict in the 1960s and 1970s that drove much of the remaining white population to leave.
Today, Cairo is one of the most haunting urbex destinations in America: block after block of Victorian commercial architecture in various states of abandonment, the skeletal remains of Halliday Hotel, the ghost of a city that the rivers built and then abandoned. Fort Defiance State Park at the confluence point is publicly accessible. Cairo is also featured in our 50 States, 50 Iconic Urbex Spots guide.
3. Old Joliet Arsenal (Midewin Prairie), Wilmington
The Joliet Army Ammunition Plant in Wilmington is one of the largest abandoned military-industrial complexes in the country -- a 24,000-acre former munitions manufacturing facility built in 1940-41 to produce TNT and other explosives for World War II. At its wartime peak, the plant employed 10,000 workers and produced a significant portion of America's artillery shell and bomb fill. The scale of the infrastructure required to produce explosives safely -- enormous earthen blast barriers, dispersed production buildings, miles of internal railway -- created a landscape that reads as an industrial city from the air.
The plant was deactivated after World War II, reactivated for the Korean War, deactivated again, and finally closed permanently in 1976. The Army began environmental remediation of the contaminated soil and groundwater in the 1990s; the site contains significant unexploded ordnance and TNT contamination from 35 years of production. The U.S. Forest Service took over management of a large portion of the property as the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, restoring the landscape to the pre-industrial prairie it had been before the Army built the plant.
The Midewin Prairie is publicly accessible for hiking and wildlife observation; bison have been reintroduced. The production buildings and bunkers from the ammunition plant are distributed across the landscape. The earthen blast barriers (called "igloos") are particularly distinctive: long grass-covered mounds in regular rows. The site contains both the most dramatic industrial ruins in the Chicago metropolitan area and one of the most significant ecological restoration projects in the Midwest.
4. Manteno State Hospital, Manteno
Manteno State Hospital in Kankakee County opened in 1930 as one of Illinois's larger psychiatric facilities, following the cottage plan institutional design: a central administration building surrounded by residential "cottages" where patients lived in smaller groups. Manteno's campus was designed to house 4,000 patients and eventually exceeded that capacity significantly.
Manteno's most notorious chapter came in 1939, when an outbreak of typhoid fever sickened 400 patients and staff and killed 48 -- one of the largest typhoid outbreaks in American institutional history. The source was traced to contaminated well water serving the hospital; the outbreak exposed the inadequate infrastructure of the facility and the chronic underfunding that characterized Illinois state psychiatric care.
The hospital closed in 1985 as part of Illinois's deinstitutionalization program and the campus was subsequently converted for reuse: portions of the property now house the Illinois Veterans Home (which began operating in a section of the campus in 1986) and other state uses, while other sections of the original campus are vacant. The industrial scale of the remaining vacant buildings -- brick cottage-plan structures designed for institutional living -- is visible from roads crossing the Manteno campus.
5. Brach's Candy Factory, Chicago
E.J. Brach and Sons operated one of the largest candy manufacturing complexes in the world on Chicago's West Side -- a 1.5-million-square-foot factory complex occupying multiple city blocks that, at its peak in the 1960s, employed 3,000 workers producing candy corn, conversation hearts, and the full range of bulk candy that defined American confectionery for most of the 20th century. The factory was built incrementally from 1923 through mid-century expansions, with industrial brick buildings of varying vintages filling the blocks between Cicero Avenue and Pulaski Road.
Brach's moved its manufacturing operations out of Chicago beginning in the 1970s as labor costs and urban operating costs made the West Side location increasingly uncompetitive. The Chicago plant closed fully in 1994, and the company subsequently went through bankruptcy and ownership changes. The factory complex sat largely vacant for years before demolition began. Most of the original buildings have now been demolished or redeveloped, but in the period from the mid-1990s through the mid-2010s, the vacant Brach's factory was one of the most significant abandoned industrial complexes in Chicago.
The Brach's factory represents a category of Chicago industrial abandonment -- the West Side manufacturing complex that collapsed when Chicago's manufacturing economy collapsed in the 1970s and 1980s -- that is central to understanding modern Chicago.
6. Bartonville State Hospital, Bartonville
Bartonville State Hospital -- officially the Peoria State Hospital -- is most famous for its Bowen Building and for the legend of "Old Book," a gravedigger named Manuel Bookbinder who worked at the asylum for 30 years and reportedly wept at each patient's funeral. The hospital was developed under Dr. George Zeller, a reform-minded superintendent who transformed Illinois psychiatric care in the early 20th century through the introduction of the colony system -- farming and workshop activities as therapeutic occupation.
The hospital opened in 1902 and Zeller ran it until 1935, during which period the Peoria State Hospital was regarded as one of the model facilities in American psychiatry. The campus included the Bowen Building (a distinctive domed brick structure), a farm colony, and cottages for approximately 2,000 patients.
The hospital closed in 2012 and the campus has been largely vacant since. The Bowen Building was partially damaged by arson in 2013 and subsequent deterioration has been significant. The Bartonville Village has acquired portions of the campus and the community has been working on plans for adaptive reuse and preservation of the most significant structures.
7. Pullman Factory Complex, Chicago
The Pullman Factory complex on Chicago's Far South Side is one of the most significant industrial heritage sites in America -- the manufacturing plant where George Pullman produced his famous sleeping cars and the center of the Pullman Company Town, an experiment in planned industrial community that shaped American labor history. Pullman built his factory beginning in 1880 and simultaneously built an entire residential community for his workers: row houses, churches, a market arcade, a hotel, and a library all designed as a unified planned environment.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 -- one of the most significant labor actions in American history -- began when Pullman cut wages while maintaining rents in the company town, and the American Railway Union under Eugene V. Debs called a national boycott that paralyzed rail traffic across the country. President Grover Cleveland deployed federal troops to break the strike, establishing a precedent for federal intervention in labor disputes that shaped American labor law for decades.
The factory buildings are now part of the Pullman National Monument, designated in 2015 and managed by the National Park Service. The Clock Tower Building and adjacent factory structures have been partially stabilized and are open for limited tours. The Pullman Company Town neighborhood is a national historic landmark district and much of it is still inhabited.
8. Stephen A. Forbes State Recreation Area (CCC Ruins), Kinmundy
Stephen A. Forbes State Recreation Area in Marion County contains the ruins of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) infrastructure built in the 1930s as part of Roosevelt's New Deal public works program. The CCC camp at Forbes constructed stone and timber structures -- a lodge, picnic shelters, stone stairways, and erosion control infrastructure -- across the landscape of what was then a degraded agricultural and cutover timber area. The CCC's work at Forbes exemplifies the organization's characteristic approach: conservation-era construction using stone and heavy timber intended to look as if it had always been part of the landscape.
Some of the original CCC structures at Forbes are intact and in use as park infrastructure; others have been abandoned and are deteriorating in the woods around the reservoir. The stone lodge foundations, the rock stairways descending to the water, and the shelter ruins bypassed by subsequent park development create a mid-20th century archaeological layer in a landscape substantially changed by the construction of the reservoir and modern recreation facilities.
Forbes State Recreation Area is publicly accessible as a standard Illinois state park. The CCC ruins are encountered on hiking trails through the park rather than being formally interpreted.
9. LaSalle Hotel Ruins, Peru
The LaSalle Hotel in Peru represents the hollowing-out of Illinois Valley commercial architecture that accompanied the post-war economic transition away from river-based commerce. Peru, at the junction of the Illinois River and the Illinois and Michigan Canal, was a prosperous commercial center in the 19th and early 20th centuries -- the canal brought goods and travelers, and the hotel served the merchants, rivermen, and travelers passing through the Illinois Valley. The LaSalle was the finest hotel in the region, with the amenities appropriate to a commercial hub of LaSalle County's significance.
The shift of commercial traffic from canal and river to rail and then highway, and the subsequent suburbanization of commerce that drew activity away from small city downtowns, left the LaSalle County seat commercial strip in Peru gradually depleted. The LaSalle Hotel -- like similar grand commercial hotels in hundreds of Midwestern cities -- became economically unviable as a full-service hotel and fell into partial use and then abandonment.
Peru and LaSalle together form the southern anchor of the Illinois Valley corridor that includes Ottawa and the Starved Rock area. The area's tourism potential -- Starved Rock State Park is one of the most visited parks in Illinois -- has generated some economic activity but has not reversed the fundamental decline of the Illinois Valley's commercial infrastructure.
10. Starved Rock Lock and Dam, Utica
Starved Rock Lock and Dam at Utica is one of the historic Illinois Waterway navigation structures -- a lock-and-dam complex built in the 1930s as part of the Illinois Waterway project that canalized the Illinois River from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, creating a continuous 9-foot navigation channel for commercial barge traffic. The Army Corps of Engineers built a series of locks and dams along the Illinois River between 1930 and 1939; the Starved Rock structure is one of the best-preserved and most accessible.
The adjacent Starved Rock State Park -- one of the most visited state parks in Illinois, with dramatic sandstone canyons carved by glacial meltwater -- brings millions of visitors annually to the Utica area. The lock and dam operation is visible from observation areas within the park. The combination of the geological spectacle of the canyons and the industrial history of the river navigation infrastructure makes the Starved Rock area one of the richest experiential sites in Illinois.
The Illinois River below Starved Rock was part of the French colonial trade network, the route used by LaSalle and Tonti in their 17th-century exploration of the Illinois country.
FAQ
Can you visit the Old Joliet Prison?
Yes. The City of Joliet operates guided tours of the Joliet Correctional Center, including historical tours and Prison Break themed tours. Book tickets through the city's heritage tourism program.
Is Cairo Illinois worth visiting?
Cairo is a genuinely remarkable and melancholy urbex destination: Victorian commercial architecture in advanced abandonment on streets laid out for a city that never achieved its full potential. Fort Defiance State Park at the confluence is publicly accessible. Respect the remaining community and private property.
Is the Pullman Factory open?
The Pullman National Monument is open for tours; check the NPS website for current hours and tour offerings. The factory floor and clock tower are accessible on guided tours. The Pullman company town neighborhood is a living historic district open for self-guided walking tours.
What is Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie?
Midewin is the former Joliet Army Ammunition Plant, converted to the first national tallgrass prairie in the United States. The public trail system passes through or near ammunition bunkers and production building ruins. Bison have been reintroduced. Check the Forest Service website for trail maps and hours.
What happened to the Brach's Candy Factory?
The Chicago factory closed in 1994. Most of the complex has been demolished or redeveloped. The GPS coordinates document the former factory location.
Where is Cairo Illinois and how do I get there?
Cairo is at the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi River. It is approximately 160 miles south of St. Louis via US Route 60.
Conclusion
Illinois's 567 documented abandoned places range from Chicago's vast post-industrial west side to the Mississippi River confluence ghost town at the state's southern tip. Free GPS coordinates for all 10 sites in this guide are on the interactive atlas.
