Oh, Dips! Downtown Sidewalk Dig Reveals Coal Room Under Sidewalk at Ice Cream Shop

To get to the hand-dipped ice cream at Ye Olde Country Ice Cream and Fudge Shoppe on East Main Street in Du Quoin took a little extra effort Tuesday. The E.T. Simonds Construction Co. was aware of this coal room that was actually dug in under the Main Street sidewalk sometime after the turn of the century. A block wall was more recently built to close the room so contractors could fill it with rock and pour the new sidewalk over it. Pictured is the exposed room and new wall under the entrance o the downtown business. In a related note, the newspaper has now determined that a bronze surveying marker removed and lost from the corner of the Du Quoin State Bank was not a National Geological Survey marker, but instead was a property line survey marker installed by J.T. Blankinship Engineers when sidewalks were poured in front of the bank in 1986.