Madison County Workers Memorial spared by sinkhole

By ELIZABETH DONALD
Illinois Correspondent

Alton, IL – The earth opened up here June 26 and swallowed half a soccer field and a light pole, but it didn’t take the Madison County Workers Memorial with it.

Gordon Moore Park in Alton, Ill. made national news when a collapsed mine caused a giant sinkhole to appear in the middle of a soccer field that had recently undergone a $1 million renovation. The sinkhole measured 100 feet across in the center of the soccer complex, and 50 feet deep according to the Belleville News-Democrat.

The collapse was caught on camera, and the video quickly went viral across the U.S.

Gordon Moore Park is also home to the Madison County Workers Memorial, managed by the Greater Madison County Federation of Labor. It is also under renovations, with a new brick yard underway to allow families and locals to honor their members. The memorial itself lists every worker in the Federation’s membership who has died on the job, going back decades.

The collapsed mine was an active limestone operation owned by New Frontier Materials of Maryland Heights. New Frontier acquired the mine from Fred Weber Inc. in 2021, and it produces crushed limestone and limestone agricultural products, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

All the workers safely evacuated from the mine and no one was injured, according to the company.

Approximately 55 people worked at the mine, with 28 employed underground. The cause of the collapse is under investigation by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has called for a full review with state assistance.

“The residents of Madison County deserve a thorough and well-communicated investigation into this incident to hasten their return to normalcy,” Pritzker said.

The mine last had an accidental worker death in May 2020 when a worker was struck on the head by an unsecured pipe, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Federation President B. Dean Webb said as soon as he heard about the sinkhole, he drove out to the memorial to ensure it was still aboveground. There was no apparent damage, he said, but the renovation project is on hold while the mine subsidence is being investigated.

Gordon Moore Park and the adjacent Olin Golf Course remain closed during the investigation.