This page has been wrong for years. Of the 10 Illinois sites it listed, not one is an open abandonment you can walk into. Several are museums or public parks, two are working neighbourhoods, and the most photographed one has been torn down. Here is the real state of them.
Old Joliet Prison
Not abandoned. The Joliet Area Historical Museum has run guided tours of the 1858 limestone prison since 2018, it was listed on the National Register in 2023, and in April 2026 the prison baseball field hosted a Joliet Slammers exhibition game that drew about 5,500 people. Buy a ticket; unescorted entry outside tours is still trespassing. Prison history.
Damen Silos, Chicago
Effectively gone. Michael Tadin Jr. bought the site from the state in 2022. Wrecking began in July 2025, was halted for a week over dust, and resumed on 8 October 2025 with only 2 silos still standing that morning. It is an active demolition site, closed to everyone. The silos while they stood.
Peoria State Hospital, Bartonville
There is no asylum called Ashland Meadows. The place behind that name is Peoria State Hospital, opened 10 February 1902 on the cottage plan and closed in 1973. By 2019 only 12 of its 63 buildings were left, and all of them were occupied. The museum at 4400 Industry Rd runs historical and paranormal tours by appointment, and that is the only legal way in. Hospital history.
Cairo
Not a ghost town. Cairo is an incorporated city with a mayor, operating schools and roughly 1,500 residents, down from 15,203 in 1920. The streets are public and you can drive them. The empty downtown buildings are privately owned and structurally unsound. Magnolia Manor, built in 1869, operates as a museum. What happened to Cairo.
Savanna Army Depot
Broken up, not abandoned. The depot closed on 18 March 2000 and 9,404 acres went to the Lost Mound Unit of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, which you can visit under refuge rules. The rest is Savanna Depot Park, a working business park. It has been an EPA Superfund site since 1989, and unexploded ordnance is the governing risk. Depot history.
Manteno State Hospital
Redeveloped decades ago. The grounds now hold the Illinois Veterans Home, an industrial park, a municipal golf course and housing. The last derelict building, Morgan Cottage, came down in May 2015. Hospital history.
Two more corrections: the Rock Island Lines depot has been Abbey Station, a brunch and banquet venue, since 1999, and the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium is now North Park Village, with public parkland and a nature preserve. Southern Hills at SIU Carbondale is genuinely derelict but sits on university land and is on the demolition list.
For the full Illinois list with the date each site was last checked, see Abandoned Places Near Me: Illinois.