The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-17
FATE OF A MINING TOWN
IN THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
 TRACY SOLD
Fer FIGy-seven Dollars to Satisfy Unpnid Taxes-Chsnges of Ten Years-It Had Consisted of about Thirty Acres

Ihirty Acres
 Sold to Emil Freirer for $5729'
 With these words County Clerk Fred Mann of Kankakee county disposed of the village of Tracy to cancel tax in- debtendness of $20 and costs MT. Freir- CT is a carpenter who has an ambition to start cooperative colony.
 Tt will be good place for me to go when I get out of a job he said to the county clerk. "Ill borrow money, build a few houses and start a colony"
 Suppose that thep roperty is redeem ed?" suggested MT. Mann.
 Redeemed? I get clear title, don't I? I've paid the money"
 Sure, but the original owner has a certain length of time in which to re- deem it."
 MT. Frieirer was disgusted, but what could he do? Four days later Walter Lawless appeared at the county clerk s office to redeem the property. It orig inally had belonged to him. His 200- acre farm adjoins it on the east.
 "Do you suppose I'd let that land go for s57?" he inquired of MT Mann. Its worth $75 an acre"
 Why didn't you pay the taxes then?"
 MT Lawless didn't say, but it cost him considerably more than $57.29 to se cure a clear title.
 Ten years ago the village of Tracy was thriving settlement covering an area of 30 acres Deserted when the vein of coal that was it's sole excuse gave out, the village houses rotted and furnished lumber and fuel to neighbor- ing farmers for years. Sold for taxes, the town site passed into the hands of carpenter, who disposed of it a few days thereafter to the farmer whose land it adjoins. Next year cornfields will obliterate the last traces of town where several hundred people formerly toiled and lived
 Take the Kankakec and Seneca branch of the Big Four railroad, ride out northwest from Kankakee on a go- as-you-please mixed train, and at the end of about 20 miles you come to the town of Essex, Hire a rig al exorbitant rate and drive west for a couple of miles until you strike an unused coal road that is marked Illinois Central on the map. Then go south for a quarter of a mile on a highway that has not been disturbed by wheels for years. Looking sharply about you now, you can see traces of af ormer town It is the site of the abandoned Tracy. There are no imposing ruins, such as one might encounter in the valley of the Nile or in the Grand canyon of Col prada. This is deserted mining town, and deserted mining towns in this country are of superlative1y evanescent character.
 Doubly melancholy is the forgotten hamlet shrouded in the deep snow. It is like the neglected grave of first wife supplanted for the more lively younger town of Clarke City, one mile farther | south, on the coal road that has been | mentioned.
 Here, it is easy to see, was once wide street, and on both sides at inter- vals are found excavations where rude cellars existed. Mansions were not found in Tracy Remains of former foundationy robbed of it's best dimen- sion stone; show where house of some pretensions stood Perhaps there the | superintendent lived. A dilapidated | fence, overlooked by kindling wood | gatherers, must have at one time guard ed kitchen garden from wandering and interruptions cows. The most con spicuous feature of the gloomy land scape is a huge hill of slack, many times larger than the dust heap that Dickens describes in "Our Mutual Friend" It is near the mouth of the abandoned mine. and will stand there till some ingenious American discovers a process for converting what is now considered waste material into building blocks and paving brick. Then the owner will be in position to buy more land and raise more corn.
 Any buildings standing? Yes, one 2x10 foot shanty with earthen floor. In 1t are the charred remnants of a recent hunters fire and bits of fur that needs no Sherlock Holmes to assist in convey ng the information that sportsmen fingered here to satisfy hunger by dining