Every day, I find myself driving past the beautiful scenery that Southern Illinois University's campus has to offer. An area that I found toward the end of this summer has now become a part of campus that I like to drive past almost every day due to its given scenery. That place is Southern Hills.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just take a look here and see if it refreshes your memory.
If you're driving toward or past The Vine church, you will find this place surrounded by weeds and trees. You know, the abandoned and deteriorating buildings that look like old dorms? Yeah, that is Southern Hills.
Southern Hills is now a vacant part of SIU's campus which once were apartment complexes home to many graduate students and students with families. SIU's student housing started construction on these apartment complexes in 1960 and finished their construction in 1962. The apartment's featured 1-2 bedrooms, concrete walls, tile floors and a kitchen.
According to an article that I found on The Southern by Sarah Graham, the reason for students choosing other living arrangements over Southern Hills was due to the fact that the complexes were becoming outdated.
With the completion of the Wall & Grand Apartments in 2007, students wanted to live somewhere with a more updated feel. As of a few years ago, Southern Hills said goodbye to some of their last residents. Ever since, SIU has been wracking their brains trying to figure out what to do with the land and the apartment's themselves.
Me being the curious individual who loves abandoned buildings, I decided to drive into Southern Hills to explore.
Driving through, all I had passed were a crap ton of trees, leaves, rusting buildings and an unused tennis court.
Walking up toward one of the buildings, I saw caution tape surrounding the stair case indicating it was not safe to walk up. Plus, it was also a given since the concrete was crumbling, as I could very well tell just by looking at it.
(Photo cred: Branda Mitchell)
My boyfriend and I continued to explore when he pointed out a large wood-like wall with what looked like a speaker attached to it. When thinking about what it could possibly be, I realized that it was a projection wall that was used to watch movies on.
Pretty cool, huh? This was located right behind one of the apartment complexes with plenty of room for residents to sit and relax on a nice night while watching a movie.
While glancing through one of the windows, we saw an old room filled with misc. supplies and a mattress. From the looks of it, SIU is using some of theses complexes as extra storage.
On the walk back to my car, I couldn't help but feel sad. Seeing the abandoned housing and realizing how people used to call this their home and all of the memories that were created here, just made me upset. There is so much land here and beautiful scenery that needs to be taken advantage of. Southern Illinois is known for their scenery and this could be turned into something awesome. I understand money has and is an issue for SIU, but I really hope they put this area to good use instead of just abandoning this all together and tearing the remains down.
If you ever get a chance, drive into Southern Hills and just check it out. It is a piece of SIU history that is not only cool, but pretty interesting to explore. Just be aware that campus police does patrol the area, so don't do anything crazy kids.
