Editors Note: A previous version of this story misspelled Murphysboro Mayor Will Stephens’ last name and has since been updated.

U.S. Congressman and Murphysboro native Mike Bost toured the site of a former shoe factory on Wednesday, Feb. 18. 

The Brown Shoe Factory, located at 430 S. 19th St., had become an environmental concern for the surrounding neighborhood after decades of deterioration, and has since been cleaned of all hazardous materials according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Adam Vrabec, the on-scene coordinator from the EPA, said that there were approximately 3,000 tons of asbestos and 55 gallon drums of hazardous materials removed from the site over a two-month period.

The building is still standing, its windows discolored and broken windows. Whole floors have seemingly collapsed, leaving behind doors and windows and piles of bricks. A few still-standing walls have ivy growing over them and graffiti of every kind sprayed over the facade. 

Before the cleanup, the waste piled up to the third story of the building, where the ceilings and floors had caved in. It contained asbestos, unknown liquids and machinery suspected to contain mercury, according to the EPA.

These materials were mixed in with the remnants of the fallen building, but that wasn’t the challenge, Vrabec said; the challenge for the workers lay with the community and ensuring that none of the work on the site impacted the residents nearby.

Murphysboro Mayor Will Stephens explained the history of the factory. He said the Brown Shoe Factory operated from the 1920s to the 1970s as a manufacturer that supplied leather shoes across the country. 

When the company moved operations to a new factory, the Murphysboro building was sold. It became neglected and began to deteriorate under its absentee owners, Stephens said.

“This is the culmination of 10 years of work and conversations,” Stephens said.

Stephens said he used to get annual emails about what would be done to the property. The cleanup is a big win for Murphysboro, he said.

“When people see a community working with agencies and making things happen, it helps the reputation of the community,” Stephens said.

When the Department of Justice was required by the city to approve the project due to the EPA’s presence, it was Mike Bost, Stephens said, who ensured that the issue wasn’t forgotten amid other issues that required the DOJ’s attention.

“I used to play here – I used to live two blocks down,” Bost said.

Bost watched the factory slowly go from being a working environment to being abandoned. As he looked around at the homes close by, he said, “It’s home.”

Vrabec said the asbestos was loaded into tractor trailers and sent to a facility, and the other hazardous materials were sent to another facility to dispose of it.

Anne Vogel, the EPA Regional Administrator, said the project represents a “redevelopment to what the community actually needs.”

Vogel said that most contractors would not be willing to buy the property before the removal of the hazardous materials, but now they will. 

News Reporter Orion Wolf can be reached at [email protected] or orionwolf6 on Instagram.

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