Illinois Shanty, 1939

A shanty built of refuse near the Sunnyside slack pile, Herrin, Illinois. Many residences in southern Illinois coal towns were built with money borrowed from building and loan associations. During the Depression, building and loan associations almost all went into receivership. Their mortgages were sold for whatever they would bring, and the purchasers demolished houses by the hundreds in order to salvage the scrap lumber. The result was a serious overcrowding and high rents in all the coal towns. A number of people could find no houses to rent, and lived in tents and shanties on the fringes of the town.