The East Chicago Industrial Fields – known colloquially as the Rust Yards – is a largely disused area that used to be a major shipping hub. With direct access to the railway and light freight ships across Lake Michigan via the Townshend Slipway, the Rust Yards was home to numerous industrial concerns in decades past.

 

An abandoned factory, Paradox Iron, sat lifelessly in the North-East corner of the Rust Yards. Once a thriving pig-iron foundry and distribution center, the building fell slowly into disuse 20 years ago.

 

As the sun completed its descent and the sky turned a deep-purple bruise color, the building exploded.

 

Violently.

 

Some witnesses claimed to see an electrical arc traveling upward just before the explosion. Others claimed that they didn’t see the Jacob’s Ladder-type phenomenon, but, instead, saw a brilliant flash of light erupting from inside the empty building. It was described as a blinding, lime-green color. Not everyone saw that.

 

The shockwaves were felt 12 miles from the epicenter. Huge sections of the city faced black-outs or brown-outs as hundreds of yards of power cables that ran high above the Rust Yards simply boiled away into nothingness.

 

Where Paradox Iron proudly stood for nearly a century was now a smoldering crater 60 feet deep.

 

What say you?

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DETAILS

Published: 5/30/2017

Total Volume: 198 pages, 47,142 words

Contributors:

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Steve Metcalf - Paradox Iron (27,472)

Robert S. Miller - The Foundry Incident (13,378)

DTE Madden - The Blue Ribbon Panel of Academic Experts (5,136)