The Seattle Times – A mile down an unpaved road on the outskirts of Canton, Ill., population 14,500, stands a shuttered ethanol plant.
Corn farmers in the area chipped in $5,000 to $300,000 each — some even mortgaged their farms — to form the Central Illinois Energy Cooperative. They broke ground on the refinery in 2006, hoping that ethanol would bring higher prices for their corn and more jobs for Canton. The town had been in trouble since 1983, when International Harvester closed its plow factory there.
