Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Mount Trashmore is a 65-foot hill in Robert E. James Park in southwest Evanston, near Dodge Avenue and Oakton Street, built on a landfill that the city closed and turned into a park in 1965.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTodayMount Trashmore is a sledding hill in winter and a place for runners and hikers in summer.2
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied James Park, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near James Park
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1976–1983 · 16.2 mi away · IllinoisA small ski slope on the grounds of the Marriott resort in Lincolnshire that ran from 1976 to 1983.
- 1962–1974 · 31 mi away · IllinoisA small ski area on a former farmstead off Cary-Algonquin Road that ran from 1962 to 1974, with its lodge at the top of the hill.
- 1967–1986 · 33.3 mi away · IllinoisA ski hill at Ingleside, two miles south of Fox Lake, that ran from 1967 to 1986 with a chairlift, rope tows and night skiing.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Mount Trashmore is a 65-foot hill in Robert E. James Park in southwest Evanston, near Dodge Avenue and Oakton Street, built on a landfill that the city closed and turned into a park in 1965. In 1973 Evanston opened it to skiers, putting in a rope tow and snowmaking machines. The slope was part of a city winter sports park that also had ice rinks and sledding and toboggan hills, and it ran two rope tows and night skiing.1,2,3
Skiing stopped in the mid-1980s; the Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project last finds it in a January 1982 snow report. The hill is still a sledding spot in winter and a training hill for runners and hikers.1,2
TodayMount Trashmore is a sledding hill in winter and a place for runners and hikers in summer.2
Sources for this history (3)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · James Park (Mt. Trashmore)
- 2Wikipedia · Mount Trashmore (Illinois)
- 3Colorado Ski History · Lost Areas #26 (The Lost Ski Areas of Illinois), The Colorado Skier, July 30, 1998
Photos
No photographs of James Park we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of James Park, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.0235° N · 87.7055° W · Illinois
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1973 · the year it closed is not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain