Southern Hills: A decaying monument of SIU’s past

When driving south of the SIU Towers in Carbondale, especially in the fall, it is sometimes possible to spot a complex of buildings nestled away in the trees. Those familiar to Carbondale will recognize this as Southern Hills, a disused student housing area at Southern Illinois University. Southern Hills’ 17 buildings are overgrown this time of year and beginning to crumble.

Originally constructed between 1960 and 1962, Southern Hills provided married SIU students, staff and faculty with 272 affordable one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, playgrounds and other community-style amenities. Later expanded to be available to individual students, the apartment-community environment proved especially attractive to families and international students.

SIU alumnus Mike Ruhland, who attended SIU for graduate school in 1970, spoke fondly of his time spent with friends at the Southern Hills complex. He recalled the campus had an international, cosmopolitan feeling relative to the culture at the time, which the diverse body of residents at Southern Hills highlighted. This breadth of experiences was something Ruhland feels students living at Southern Hills highly valued.

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“It’s because these people were coming here for a purpose … there was a curiosity,” Ruhland said. “Here’s my one chance, maybe, to meet somebody from a different culture, a different race, and you know, have them over for dinner or just at least talk to them.”

The apartments themselves were designed for efficiency, not offering many amenities but affordably priced, and they included utilities. According to alumni who commented, the compact floor plans provided quite limited but reasonably comfortable space.

Over 60 years of use, Southern Hills’ buildings began to wear, as reports of plumbing and appliance issues began to increase. A change in Illinois’ statutes caused the sprinkler system to fall out of compliance, and the boiler system caused issues with air conditioning not functioning.

Altogether, these issues proved too costly to address, and maintenance expenses became too much to keep the complex running, especially as students began moving into the newer Wall and Grand Apartments. Around 2013, University Housing phased the Southern Hills buildings out of use and reported that they would soon be torn down.

Ten years later, the Southern Hills complex is still standing, with the buildings now unoccupied and in worsening condition. Beyond the building at the entrance, which is still used by campus staff, the remaining structures are showing significant wear, and the paths between them are increasingly overgrown. On one building, metal bars show inside the bottom of the staircase leading to the second floor, with the missing concrete still laying on the ground below. Most of the buildings have several windows covered with wood, but other windows are smashed and left open.

While the exact timeline is uncertain, the Southern Hills buildings remain on Facilities and Energy Management’s demolitions list. As of publication, University Housing, Facilities and Energy Management, and the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance’s office have not responded to requests to discuss Southern Hills or other buildings on the list.

In the meantime, the buildings of Southern Hills stand as a reminder of SIU’s past and how time has changed the Carbondale campus. To those who lived and spent time there, it still provides an opportunity to return and to look back on how it helped shape their lives and college experience.

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“I would encourage you … sometime in your own life … just make a pilgrimage to the places that you grew up,” Ruhland added. “I did look, back about four or five years ago. The feeling I had was as if I was visiting a grave or a monument. A monument to a wonderful time and some wonderful people.”

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