Lost/ComEd 1951 600mw Ridgeland Generating Station

(Satellite, most of the land is now container storage. But ComEd does store some transformers next to its switchyard.)

I knew ComEd had the Fisk and Crawford Generating Stations along the South Branch and Canal. The comments on the following photo taught me that ComEd had a third generating station along the waterway --- Ridgeland.

Jerry Jackson posted
I'll bet the guy in the 76' AMC Hornet could care less about this train and wonders if his spare is any good. I, on the other hand, wore a glove. Driving up the Stevenson Expressway, just past Harlem Ave. I saw this cool lash-up just after it had crossed the DesPlaines River, rolled the winder down and took as many as I safely could. This one was the best of the grab shots. The train is headed towards Nerska/Corwith. January 1988.
Mark Bilecki Sr. No thats not Ridgeland station , thats the Metro Water Reclaimation plant in the background. Ridgeland was directly north of where the photo was taken.

The plant existed in 1938: (Jun 2025 Update: a comment below says the plant did not exist in 1938. I've learned that this aerial is a mistake. (I left it in so that some of the comments make sense. Since I wrote these notes, I have learned how to get aerial photos between WWII and the 21st Century.) The Ridgeland Plant was west of this 1938 aerial view. So now I wonder what this building was.)

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Apr 20, 1962 @ 24,000; AR1VAHU00020151

The first four units were done in 1951. (I included the roundhouse because I didn't know about this one. Only the foundation is visible in the above 1962 photo.)

Dec 4, 1951 @ 23,600; AR1SA0000020056

Three sources say it was built in the early 1950s:

• JohnnyBigboy1425: "It was the most Modern Power plant in the world when it came on line in the 50's. People from all over the world would come and see it's operation."
• IEEE: "Newest addition to the Commonwealth Edison Company is the Ridgeland Station with an ultimate capacity of 600,000 kw. The result of long-range planning, the station has many modern features including centralized control, cyclone-fired furnaces, and hydrogen-cooled generators." (This was published in 1951.)
• Chicago Tribune: "The first completely new electric generating station built in the Chicago area since 1929"

So why do I see the same buildings with the same smokestacks exist in the 1938 aerial??? My current working assumption is that it was built as a coal plant and converted to an oil-burning plant in the early 1950s. JohnnyBigboy1425 also stated: "When I worked there, in the operating department it was an oil burning plant, it had been converted from coal some years before I started working there." Because OPEC very successfully increased the price of petroleum products in the 1970s, JohnnyBigboy1425 says it was dismantled piece by piece and reassembled in Florida. It must be the Florida plant that rmurwin is referring to with his 2014 comment: "This power plant is still in operation, albeit heavily modified. It now burns biofuel (wood). 

Ferndog confirms it was closed in 1982 due to high oil costs. (Update: see the comment below about it being closed because of "high maintenance costs on tube leaks from burning gas.")