Marion Training Complex Gets New Life After Years Sitting Empty

Fire and police departments lead the revival on East Boulevard Street

By Verna Slate, Williamson County Bureau

MARION, Ill. — For years, the Marion Training Complex on East Boulevard Street sat mostly quiet — a facility with a purpose and no crowd to use it. That's changing, the Southern Illinoisan reports, thanks to renewed effort from the city's fire and police departments.

First responders here do the job every county in this state depends on and rarely gets asked about until something goes wrong. A working training center means officers and firefighters get to drill closer to home, on ground built for exactly that, instead of losing time and mileage to facilities elsewhere.

The Southern Illinoisan's reporting didn't detail a price tag or full renovation scope, but the message from the departments is plain enough: a resource that was going to waste is finally being used the way it was meant to be.

That's a small thing to some. To the men and women who answer Marion's calls, it isn't.

— Compiled from reporting by the Southern Illinoisan.

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