Biohazard Cleanup Near Orient Historic District Orient, IL

Orient is a small city in Denning Township in southern Franklin County, about 4 miles northwest of West Frankfort, in the heart of the southern Illinois coalfield.

Orient is a classic coal-boom city: it was first counted in the 1920 census with 1,388 residents, when the Franklin County mines were at their height.

The Chicago, Wilmington & Franklin Coal Company's Orient No. 1 mine operated from 1913 to 1955, working the Herrin coal seam more than 500 feet underground.

The company's Orient No. 2 mine, also called New Orient, opened in 1922 and was billed on a 1938 postcard as the largest coal mine in the world; it produced more than 60 million tons of coal before closing on November 30, 1960.

In December 1951, an explosion at the Orient No. 2 mine killed 119 miners, an Illinois mining disaster second only to the 1909 Cherry Mine fire in the number of lives lost.

As the mines closed, Orient shrank steadily, bottoming out at 296 people in 2000 before recovering slightly; at the 2020 census the city had 327 people in 199 households and 95 families.

The city of Orient covers 0.75 square miles in Franklin County's Denning Township and uses ZIP code 62874.