The 1926-1930 alignment of Route 66 runs through Gillespie. Pun intended: Gillespie is a town on the move. Today that movement is happening without the coal industry that once made Gillespie prosperous – but with the vision of the civic group called “Grow Gillespie” and the high participation of the Illinois Coal Museum, located on the main street which is called Macoupin after the county. The Illinois Coal Museum anchors the regeneration of Gillespie through its attention to the great coal mining history of Macoupin County and its dedication to recovery of Gillespie’s role over more than a century. The photos below show Macoupin Street over a century.
The two images below feature the landscape design of Layne Knoche whose vision of Macoupin Street is now (Fall 2025) underway by the city and to be completed in the spring (2026).
The Illinois Coal Museum, in collaboration with the Mythic Mississippi Project, has accelerated the downtown revitalization goal through our signposting project. We have put a dozen illustrated historical markers on significant buildings along Macoupin Street, including the building that once housed the important miners’ co-op. Please go to the “historical markers” web page to see all of the signposting we have done in Gillespie.
Let’s look at Gillespie’s coal history. Gillespie had some of the largest coal mines in the world and coal mines were located throughout the township.
Superior Coal Company was, by far, the dominant industrial force in Gillespie.
The coal industry contributed to the prosperity and growth of Gillespie. The photo below exemplifies dynamic Gillespie in the early coal mining era.
Gillespie is tremendously important in the history of the labor movement associated with coal mining. First let’s consider this 1909 photo:
And now let’s move up to September 1932 when the Progressive Miners of America union was created in Gillespie as a breakaway from the United Mine Workers of America (CLICK).
The inaugural meeting of the Progressives was held in the Colonial Theater (on the corner of Chestnut and Montgomery), long ago razed. Today a dedicated group of Gillespie residents maintains the site as a community garden named “Colonial Giving Garden” in remembrance of the significant historical event that took place on that piece of land in 1932. Our project worked with the Illinois State Historical Society, City of Gillespie and the Illinois Coal Museum to erect a historical marker on the site where the Colonial Theater stood. The marker was inaugurated on May 1, 2021.
L: Dave Tucker, Curator, Illinois Coal Museum; R: Dan Fisher, current City Treasurer
SOURCE: https://hintongen.com/gillespie/pmwa1.html
The Colonial Theater was located on this corner, which volunteers turned into a beautiful garden in Summer 2021, as seen below. This is where our historical marker commemorating the founding of the Progressive Miners of America was placed.
The UMWA-Progressives schism was ideological and physical, leading to extreme violence between the two groups. This story and many other aspects of local coal mining and labor history are told in the Illinois Coal Museum. A visit to the museum is highly recommended.
Little of the formerly great coal industry can be seen on the landscape surrounding Gillespie. Here is the slag heap of Exxon’s Monterey Mine and still standing elements of the surface infrastructure.
And here is the site of the Little Dog Mine, which has been reclaimed and converted to a sports complex:
Today, Gillespie High School’s football team is called the Miners as are both the men’s and ladies’ baseball teams.
The”Miners” theme is a widespread icon in Gillespie.
304 S. Macoupin St.
WATCH this brief video shot by Illinois Extension of Gillespie’s main street: Macoupin Street in October 2021: CLICK
Starting in September 2025 Macoupin Street is getting a major overhaul, funded by the State of Illinois. Not only will the Illinois Coal Museum maintain its premier position in this redevelopment, the historic photographic-and-text signs already placed on buildings by the Mythic Mississippi Project in collaboration with the Illinois Coal Museum will enhance this major investment by the State and its local partner, Grow Gillespie.
Gillespie’s Illinois Coal Museum also features the Route 66 Blue Carpet Corridor as part of its comprehensive exhibit.
Just FYI: New Lake Gillespie 
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A NOTE ABOUT GROW GILLESPIE: Grow Gillespie announced its formation and goals in a series of public meetings in early 2019. It is seeking to improve downtown aesthetics, encourage entrepreneurship, retain and grow existing businesses and encourage new businesses to open downtown. WATCH THIS VIDEO OF GILLESPIE’S DOWNTOWN (from Abigail Bobrow’s online essay, Built on Coal).