An underground network of century-old mine shafts beneath parts of Illinois and Indiana is drawing fresh scrutiny after a string of sinkholes and sinking homes, including a dramatic 2024 collapse that swallowed a soccer field in Alton. In Coal City, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, homeowner Larry Evans has already taken out mine subsidence insurance on his wife's house, saying there could be abandoned mine shafts anywhere in town.
According to an investigation by ABC7 Chicago, reporter Jason Knowles and the station's I-Team mapped hundreds of thousands of abandoned or defunct mining sites nationwide and identified thousands of historical mining records in Illinois and Indiana alone. Mine shafts were constructed in Coal City and other parts of Grundy County during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and historical records combined with ABC News data identified the town as a potential abandoned-mine location, per the investigation. Evans told the station he and his wife took out coverage on her house in case a mine shaft ever collapsed beneath them. He also said he had seen a home sink nearby and called the experience scary.
From Coal City to Belleville, Cracks and Collapses
The risk isn't confined to one town. The same investigation found that abandoned mines and related infrastructure have been linked to cave-ins and subsidence issues across the country, in some cases causing people to die after falling into or being swallowed by the ground, and in others causing homes and vehicles to sink. In Belleville, Illinois, residents have reported damaged and cracking homes due to mine subsidence, the sinking, shifting or collapse of the ground surface caused by failure of underground mine tunnels below, according to ABC7's reporting.
The most visible recent example sits in Alton, where a sinkhole measuring roughly 100 feet wide swallowed a soccer field at an active mine site in 2024, with no people on the field when it happened, according to ABC7. KSDK reported the collapse at Gordon F. Moore Community Park measured as wide as 100 feet and approximately 30 feet deep, swallowing artificial-turf soccer fields, bleachers, and a light pole above an underground limestone mine operated by New Frontier Materials. The park reopened in August 2024 following underground ceiling bolting and exploratory drilling by New Frontier Materials and federal Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors, though the collapsed soccer field itself stayed fenced off, according to EdGlenToday.com.
A Scale Too Big to Fully Map
Determining the exact number of abandoned mines nationwide is difficult, the I-Team found, because responsibility is divided among multiple federal agencies and offices. ABC News's data team spent months building a visualization of federal mining maps and abandoned-mine records, mapping sites ranging from coal mines to operations that once produced precious metals and uranium. Geologist Paul Santi told the station that shallower abandoned mines require increasing concern, and Illinois and Indiana both show several thousand mining entries in regional data, per the investigation.
Lanny Erdos, cited in the ABC7 report, said the abandoned-mine data itself is not 100 percent foolproof — a caveat that underscores why state tracking systems remain imperfect even as they expand. That gap is part of why the Illinois State Geological Survey built its own public tool, the Coal Mine Locator, in 2010, giving homeowners, buyers, and local planners interactive GIS mapping so they can check whether a specific parcel sits above a known underground mine, according to the Illinois Mine Subsidence Insurance Fund. The same geological survey data cited by KSDK indicates more than 330,000 homes in Illinois sit over abandoned mines.
Insurance Rules Differ Across State Lines
Illinois has handled the financial exposure differently than its neighbor. Under state law, property insurance policies in 34 high-risk underground mining counties automatically include mine subsidence insurance unless a policyholder explicitly rejects it in writing, per the Illinois Mine Subsidence Insurance Fund. Indiana takes a different approach — mine subsidence insurance there is available only as an optional endorsement in 26 southwestern counties, offering up to $500,000 in structural coverage with a mandatory 2 percent deductible, according to Torian Insurance.
On the regulatory side, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has monitored abandoned mines since 1980, and its Abandoned Mine Land Division maintains an inventory of evaluated sites, per ABC7's reporting. The state logged 85 abandoned-mine investigations in 2025 and 56 more through the end of July 2026. Illinois also completed 19 emergency cleanup and repair actions on mines in 2025, and one such action so far in 2026, according to the investigation.
Federal Dollars Flowing, But Slowly
The U.S. Department of the Interior oversees abandoned coal mines nationally, and officials have said restoring land disturbed by mining across the country could cost about $14 billion, per ABC7's reporting. The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, enacted in November 2021, provided $11.3 billion in total funding over 15 years through the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to clean up legacy abandoned mine lands nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. An announcement cited more than $24.6 million for Indiana.
That money has already produced results across the state line. In October 2025, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources' Abandoned Mine Land program received the federal Interior States Region AML Reclamation Award from OSMRE for removing 3,550 feet of dangerous mine highwalls and restoring 71 acres in Greene-Sullivan State Forest, as reported by the Times of India.
Despite the funding, officials acknowledged to the I-Team that addressing the abandoned-mine problem will not be easy. People who suspect they may be dealing with an abandoned mine issue are encouraged to report it to their state natural resources agency, according to ABC7's reporting.
