New lock box. Combination is 3825. This is the remains of a concrete-block building that for as long as anyone can remember has been referred to as the Monkey House.
Its roof and windows are long gone, as are its doors—the openings for which are shorter and narrower than average. Its floor, buried under years of leaf litter and other forest debris has given rise to two buckthorn trees. Beverage cans and other assorted rubble are strewn about, and one hollow nook very recently housed a colony of yellowjackets. Ow.
But the building’s walls still stand strong. If only they could talk.
This was a Zoo building for the boys at the State home for boys, which is now the Illinois youth center. It once housed a variety of animals including monkeys! This is a picture from 1926 of the Zoo. This cache is on state land and was placed with permission of the Illinois Youth Center Engineering department.
