Cardiff

Overview

Thirteen years of coal

Before the mine came, the corner where Wabash and Main streets would cross was Patrick Collopy's farm, known as Collopy's Corners. In 1899 the White Breast Fuel Coal Company, turned away by people in nearby Campus, bought land from Collopy and broke ground on May 6. It struck coal at 250 feet, ran a spur two miles north from the Wabash Railroad, and on September 1 named the new town Cardiff, after the Welsh coal port. By December the mine was raising 200 tons a day, and in May 1900 Cardiff incorporated as a village.

It grew fast. By January 1903 some 400 miners were bringing up as much as 1,600 tons a day and more than 2,000 people lived there. Then, starting around midnight on March 12, 1903, a series of five explosions destroyed the mine. The first three, by March 16, killed nine men, and thirteen were hurt in all. The company sank a new shaft to the west and had coal coming up again by June 7. At the peak, in 1907 and 1908, the mine produced about 217,000 tons a year, and the town had two banks, two grain elevators, a bottling plant, a candy factory, saloons, a hotel and passenger service on two rail lines.

The end came almost as quickly. In 1910 the Wabash Railroad, the mine's biggest customer, stopped buying the coal because its quality had fallen, and the mine closed on September 21, 1912. Most of the houses were dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. By 1920 the census found 152 people. In 1983 the state used slack from the waste hill to fill the shafts. Today the slag hills, a few cracked sidewalks and a memorial at the crossroads mark the place, with a few houses and trailers along the road.

Timeline

From Collopy's Corners to farmland

1. Apr–May 1899Patrick Collopy buys his first 40 acres at the crossroads known as Collopy's Corners. In May the White Breast Fuel Coal Company buys land from him for $7,660 and breaks ground for a mine on May 6.
2. Sep 1, 1899The camp, first called North Campus, is named Cardiff, after the Welsh coal port. By now coal has been found at 250 feet and a spur runs two miles north from the Wabash Railroad at Campus.
3. Oct–Dec 1899A 17,000-bushel grain elevator opens on October 2. The mine goes from 50 tons of coal a day in mid-October to 200 tons by December, and a schoolhouse is finished.
4. May 24, 1900Cardiff is incorporated as a village. Frank Milem is elected mayor in June.
5. Jan 1903Some 400 miners raise 1,200 to 1,600 tons a day, and more than 2,000 people live in the village.
6. Mar 12–16, 1903Explosions on March 12, 15 and 16 kill nine men, the dates the state marker gives. Wikipedia counts two more blasts in the next couple of days, five in all, with thirteen men hurt. The mine is wrecked, and the marker says three of the dead are still entombed.
7. Jun 7, 1903The first coal comes up from a new shaft sunk to the west.
8. 1907–1908The peak: 216,781 tons in 1907 and 216,987 in 1908, with about 500 miners and an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 people in town.
9. 1910The Wabash Railroad, the mine's biggest customer, stops buying Cardiff coal because its quality has fallen.
10. Sep 21, 1912The mine closes. Most houses are taken apart and rebuilt in nearby towns and on farms.
11. 1916–1927The coal company's property is auctioned on September 2, 1916. The 1920 census counts 152 people, and the 1927 phone book lists two businesses and only three people with telephones.
12. 1983A state reclamation project uses slack from the big waste hill to fill the mine shafts and removes the concrete abutments.
13. Aug 2007The Herscher Area Historical Society and the Illinois State Historical Society dedicate a state marker and a memorial to the 18 men killed in Cardiff's mines.

What's left

Two hills and a memorial

The town itself is gone. The state marker, dedicated in August 2007, says houses and other buildings were taken apart or moved whole, that dozens of acres of homes, stores and streets have gone back to farmland, and that two large hills of mine waste are the town's monuments. Wikipedia describes a large slag hill from the second mine and a smaller one above the first, plus a few cracked sidewalks. The two coal-washing ponds have mostly been filled in and overgrown. At the corner, two black stone tablets in front of the marker list the nine men killed in the 1903 explosions and the nine killed in other accidents in the mines, set with original Cardiff bricks and memorial bricks. The two sources we read give different dedication dates: the Illinois State Historical Society's marker page says August 1, 2007, and a 2013 account says the memorial was unveiled on August 26, 2007.

The old USGS sheets in the historic maps below show the change. The 1948 Dwight sheet marks Mine Dumps northwest of the crossroads, a scatter of buildings around the corner and the railroad running diagonally through it. The 1961 sheet shows Cardiff as a small circle on that line between Campus and Reddick, and the 1983 Campus sheet shows only a handful of buildings around the crossroads, most of them north and west of it. Today's topo shows only a faint diagonal line where the railroad ran, and the aerial view shows a tree line along that route, the houses north of the corner and fields all around.

• Large mine waste hill (second mine)
• Smaller waste hill (first mine)
• Cracked sidewalks
• Filled coal-washing ponds
• State marker and memorial (2007)
• Old railroad line, now a tree line

Historic maps

Cardiff on USGS maps, 1948–1991

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

19481:62,50019611:250,00019831:24,00019911:100,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Dwight is the nearest town with food and fuel, about 21 minutes away by IL 17 and county roads. From Chicago the drive runs down I-55 for most of the way, then south on county roads. Both routes end at the marker, at the corner of East 2900 North and North 3400 East roads. The routes are computed from OpenStreetMap and haven't been driven by us.

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

Photos

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Visitor reports

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Nearby

Other sites near Cardiff

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Illinois index.

• Tracy8.6 mi N · Kankakee
• Millsdale27.2 mi N · Will
• Ballard34.9 mi SW · McLean
• Evans42.7 mi W · Marshall
• Tedens47.3 mi N · DuPage
• Caledonia50.4 mi W · Putnam
• Kumler54.1 mi S · McLean
• Marquette54.3 mi W · Bureau

Sources

Sources and credits

1. Wikipedia, "Cardiff, Illinois", revision of April 18, 2026, drawing on Jim Ridings, Cardiff: Ghost Town of the Prairie (2006): Collopy's Corners, the land sales, the dates of the mine, the naming and incorporation, production and population figures, the 1903 explosions and their toll, the Wabash decision, the 1912 closure, the 1916 auction, the 1920 census, the 1927 phone book, the 1983 reclamation, what remains, and coordinates.
2. Illinois State Historical Society, "Cardiff, Illinois" marker, read October 2026: the marker text (North Campus, incorporation, the March 12–16, 1903 explosions, three men entombed, more than 2,000 people, 18 mining deaths, legally incorporated village, waste hills, farmland), its location at County Roads 2900 North and 3400 East, and the dedication date of August 1, 2007.
3. Jess Simms, "Between Naperville And Peoria Is A Once-Thriving Illinois Coal Mining Destination That Is Now An Abandoned Ghost Town", Islands, April 18, 2026: the site today (sidewalks, no recognizable structures), the marker at North 3400 East and East 2900 North roads, the plaques, and food, fuel and motels in Dwight.
4. "A Ghost Town Remembered", Our Lineage, March 20, 2013: the memorial unveiled on August 26, 2007, the memorial bricks and the tablet of names.
5. City and town population estimates for Illinois, Vintage 2024, U.S. Census Bureau: no entry for Cardiff.
6. Wikimedia Commons, "Monument at Cardiff, Illinois", photo of October 3, 2019 (not shown here): the marker beside a house, the two black stone tablets of names and the original and memorial bricks.
7. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• The 1948 USGS Dwight sheet: Cardiff at the crossroads on the railroad, with mine dumps to the northwest: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Dwight 1948, 1:62,500; Aurora 1961, 1:250,000; Campus 1983, 1:24,000; Ottawa 1991, 1:100,000.