Does anybody here know of any abandoned salvage/junk yards in Missouri or Illinois?
One of my favorite hobbies is photography. One of my favorite subjects are cars and/or trucks that have been sitting in the weeds for 20 years without moving. Any 70’s vehicle or older that is in the weeds will draw my attention, as long as it’s photo worthy.
Do you know of any?
No but that would be fun. There used to be one in Astoria, SD. Little town of a 100 people but a guy had about 20 or so old cars of the 50’s and earlier. Then he died and the cars got sold off. I’d rummage through there just looking at them when I was in town.
No, but sounds like a fun thing to do. Try not to get stung by a bee. 
I don’t know of any abandoned salvage yards but I used to know of an abandoned used car lot in Somerset, KY. It sat on a corner lot (a house was on the property as well) and was just as it was when the owner left for WWII. The cars were all 20’s and 30’s era (this was in 1970) and the widow of the man still lived in the house. He was killed in the war and she couldn’t bring herself to bother the car lot at all. Many people, including myself, tried to buy one or all the vehicles but she would have none of it. I hear that she died about 20 years ago and her son and daughter disposed of the property. The place would have made for some great photographs.
This is not the actual place but it was similar.
The EPA probably has a list since all of them will have oil and gas leaked into the ground and will require remediation before anything else can be built on them.
If you,want to see some vintage cars of the,1940s through the 1960s, Google Shore’s Garage Modoc Indiana. This yard, if it still.exists is at the intersection of U.S. 36 and. Indiana Highway in Modoc, Indiana. It has been a long time since I have seen the yard. It is pretty much neglected, but I think you can still pull and purchase parts.
Given how risky it might be to wander around a closed down yard on private property, the OP might just look for operating yards in the boonies, see what interesting photos they yield.
American pickers run into the kind of thing you are looking for quite often, just by looking from the road. I would suggest a peace offering of some sort for permission to go on their land, In this day and age if I had acres of cars and some PHOTOGRAPHER came up and said I just want to take pictures, If I had a shotgun handy I would grab it and say stay off my property! Grew up in the handshake and neighbor to neighbor era, but today just a crotchety old fart, except when I am not, and trust someone, and some guy wanting to take pictures of my stuff ain’t worth the risk of hood ornaments or whatever getting stolen in the dark of the night.
Dont know of any in those parts,but there was an old fantastic salvage yard,adjacent to" Staunton Lime" in Staunton ,VA,when I was hauling crushed stone from there,I was inspired to write a symphony entitled"Morning in the wrecking yard" of course I never composed it,but I spent a good many daydreams and flights of fancy,compiling and composing the various works that would have constituted it.
Dream on dreamer,but at least it was a fun way to fight boredom.
@Triedaq, the cars are still there. It even looks like they are still collecting new (to them) ones. You can see it on Google Maps,
When I was ~13-14 years old, a friend and I would ride our bikes to the city dump, where a separate section was reserved for abandoned cars that the city had hauled off of the streets.
This section of the dump was a veritable treasure trove of cars from the '40s & '50s, and my friend and I would…appropriate…hood ornaments and nameplates for our personal collections.
Sadly, I disposed of all of that “loot” about 10 years later.
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t very safe to be crawling over old rusted hulks in an area where the rats could be as big as housecats. However, it sure was a lot of fun for a kid!
Talk about crazy kid stuff, On the way to kinderdergarten in duluth we would shinny across the gas line over probably a 50’ gourge, In Kirkwood MO we would traverse the 10’ x 5’ h stormchannells with rusted corregated metal falling of the ceiling, Just fondly remembering my grandfathers bumblebee car I call it, 2 tone black or brown and yellow, maybe vertical fins, guessing around mid 50 vintage as his next car was a 61 olds dynamic 88!
@Triedaq
found it, looks good but a bit far for an amateur.
there a recent article about one north of Atlanta. It was awesome.
If Mississippi isn’t too far to travel I often bike past a hillside covered with cars. Those I could see and recognize dated from 1958 to 1972. The majority seem to be Fords from the early 60s, mostly Mustangs. There are hundreds visible through the trees and vines a few seeming to be complete but most have doors, hoods, fenders, etc missing. The location is about 7 miles south of New Albany Mississippi on the Tanglefoot trail. More precisely the site is 200 yards south of the rest station at Ingomar on the trail. The satelite view from Google shows a few cars out in the open away from the trail and it appears to be on land that is part of a farm. I have passed there many times in the past 2 years and never seen anyone in the area but the view from the trail is not too good. An old Edsel seems to be among those visible and several Fairlanes from the 60s but many Mustangs. There is a NO TRESPASSING sign posted facing the trail and a rusting old barbed wire fence but the trail was an abandoned rail spur until 2 years ago.
I’ll be within a whisker of modoc Sunday but no time to look see.
You might call them “abandoned” but the people who own the property and the scrap metal may not look at it this way…Ask before you climb over any fences…If there is a gate and a lock, for sure it’s not abandoned…