Pyramid State Recreation Area, the largest state recreation area in Illinois, contains 19701acre. It is located within Perry County, and is administered by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (Illinois DNR). The nearest large town is Pinckneyville, Illinois.History and current usePyramid State Recreation Area is almost entirely made up of land that was strip mined for coal. Like much of Southern Illinois, the region lay atop Pennsylvanian deposits of coal. Much of the coal was owned by St. Louis interests, and was shipped to that city for heating and industrial production during the first part of the 1900s. Until the 1960s, it was the custom to write off strip-mined sections of Illinois as worthless.In 1959, the Pyramid Coal Company ceased mining operations, and of former coal-mining property soon entered state hands, being owned and used by Southern Illinois University for research into the rehabilitation of strip-mined coal properties. In 1968, a predecessor of Illinois DNR acquired this parcel of land, and continued the rehabilitation process of the parcel as a new natural area, at first named Pyramid State Park. After further land acquisition the new state park contained approximately of open space. In 2001, Illinois DNR acquired of additional reclaimed land from a separate coal company, forming the largest portion of the new Pyramid State Recreation Area.
