Name This Peoria Landmark

Upon hearing some rumors of abandoned mine shafts and evidence of a prohibition era tavern, I gathered together an exhibition team and went exploring. This is wooded hillside above Woodruff High School, across Abington St from Glen Oak Park. While we didn’t find what we set out to find, we did see some wild turkeys, some deer and a few appliances long ago dumped. We also found this odd feature bricked into the hillside, water freely flowing out of it. It is circularly bricked inside, similar to an old well, is filled with water and appears to go down about two feet to a sediment filled floor.

Is this “Breathers, left from the old mines to vent gas buildup” as Raoul Duke suggests, or an East Bluff natural spring, similar to the Peoria Mineral Springs on the West Bluff, as we initially thought? I have no idea. I seem to recall Billy Dennis claiming this area as his childhood hangout; maybe he knows something about it.

This also sits on the land which Neighborhood House is to build their new facility.

Here’s a zoomed out photo for perspective purposes.

And here’s a short video showing the water flow.

feldencat Says: “The very first Glen Oak School was located in a frame house at 903 E. Frye Avenue. In 1898, Glen Oak School opened in a three-room frame building at the corner of Atlantic and Republic Streets.”

The web site from which I borrowed this photo says simply “Glen Oak School circa 1885.”

For the record, the current Glen Oak Primary School, whose days are numbered, is located at 809 E. Frye Ave.

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Mahkno: Playground, Glen Oak Park.

Tricentennial Playground
Located in Glen Oak Park
Opened in 1991
Funded and built by the Junior League of Peoria
Managed by the Peoria Park District
Place where I spent many a weekend afternoon chasing my children through the mazes.