Dalzell, IL

Dalzell is a village spread across Bureau and LaSalle counties in north-central Illinois, part of the Ottawa micropolitan area. The village began as the No. 5 Mine Camp after the Spring Valley Coal Company sank a shaft here in 1899. Dalzell was founded in 1903 and certified the following year, giving a formal town shape to a mining settlement that had grown around work, housing, and rail connections. Spring Creek runs through the village, and the Illinois River lies about five miles south.

Coal is no longer the daily employer, but the mine-camp layout still tells the story. Dalzell's homes and streets sit inside a landscape of former industrial towns, farm fields, and short drives to Spring Valley, Peru, and Ottawa. The village's two-county line is easy to miss in ordinary errands, while the old No. 5 name remains the clearest clue to its beginning. Dalzell is an Illinois village where a coal shaft, a creek, and a small-town street plan preserve the memory of a once-busy mining camp.