Hunting for $1 billion of stimulus spending in rural Illinois.

In the middle of the property sat a three-story home with a driveway that ran at least a tenth of a mile off the main road. How could a home this big be sitting on land this expensive? We drove down to the house, now interlopers not only on FutureGen's land. As we got closer, though, the place showed signs of abandonment. The windows were missing panes, the door had been boarded up. Whoever was here had cleared out long before FutureGen could put a shovel in the ground.

As a coda, we drove back downtown to have dinner at Thai Noodle, a four-day-old restaurant that opened on the main drag. Its owner, a man named Boone, had been laid off at a Mitsubishi plant near his home in Urbana six months ago. Unable to find another job, he decided to open a Thai place in Mattoon, an hour away from his home, because the Thai food competition in Mattoon is thin. (Boone was the only person of color we saw during our time here.) He took out loans from his family to fund the restaurant. The first week was quieter than he would've liked, but he had a dozen and a half customers there on Friday night.

In his window sat a sign that read "Future Gen for Illinois." I asked why he put it up. He said he hadn't; it was there when he moved the restaurant in. He thinks his landlord put it in the window, and he doesn't feel the need to take it down. He knows FutureGen would bring jobs to the community, which would therefore be good for his business. He wasn't sure of much more than that.

(Photos by David Backer)

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