A major issue in former coal towns in Illinois is the degree of their well-being that developed after mine closures. Some towns have rebounded and are on an upward trajectory. Others, however, have been decimated, as the hyperlinked report here indicates, with its dramatic image (below).

WE ARE ESPECIALLY INTERESTED IN TOWNS OF THE “COAL TRIANGLE”, A REPRESENTATION OF WHICH APPEARS BELOW. 

Regardless of your position on the coal industry today, historically it played a role of unparalleled importance in our state’s economy because much of Illinois sits on a vast bed of coal. Coal miners played a defining role in the U.S. labor movement including stopping child labor, setting hour limits on the work day and achieving safety features that we now take for granted.

Miners were heroic men, going deep into the ground and not knowing if they would return to the surface to see their families. The wives of Illinois miners were fierce political activists in support of their husbands’ labor rights and they kept their families together.

“General” Alexander Bradley (a charismatic but forgotten figure) worked tirelessly to mobilize his “troops” in dozens of mining towns to fight for better work conditions. Mother Jones, who was once described as “the most dangerous woman in America”, campaigned tirelessly for worker rights across the Illinois coalfields and throughout the country.  She and General Bradley are buried near each other in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mt Olive.

Labor victories were often achieved through violent encounters with mine owners. And miners themselves fractured their own union in the early 1930s when they went to war with each other in a period of extreme violence during the Depression. 

Mining towns were ethnic and religious melting pots where Italians, Lithuanians, Croats and many other Europeans worked together in a brotherhood of mutual support and determination. In towns such as Benld, Italian was spoken on the street into the 1950s. The multicultural legacy of coal mining is still evident in surnames, gravestones at cemeteries, and the Festa Italiana in Herrin.

Here are the Coal Triangle towns and other central Illinois mining towns on which we are focused. The list will expand.

BENLD: click

CARDIFF: click

CARLINVILLE: click

COLLINSVILLE: click

GILLESPIE: click

HILLSBORO: click

MT. OLIVE: click

MOWEAQUA: click

PANA: click

PANAMA: click

TAYLORVILLE: click

VIRDEN: click