MAZON CREEK COLLECTION

On display at the Elgin Public Museum is a large collection of Mazon Creek fossils. Considered one of the world’s most valuable fossil deposits from the Pennsylvanian Epoch of the Carboniferous Period, its specimens are part of museum collections around the world. Mazon Creek is located southwest of Elgin, where there are vast deposits of fossils in Francis Creek shale.

At the Elgin Public Museum you can discover a geologic history of animal and plant life dating back to 300 million years when this region was a rainy tropic on the equator. You will also learn the process of fossilization and view a fossil of the Tully Monster, our state fossil.