For a hundred years there were more than a dozen functioning mines with a 3-mile radius of Marissa. The mines attracted population. The demise of the mines impacted the town. Its greatest population of 2,568 occurred in 1980 before the collapse of the coal industry due to the 1990 requirements of the Clean Air Act. In 2016 there were an est. 1,836 residents. Like many of the downstate coal towns, Marissa’s peak period was in the 1950s when Main Street was vibrant.
Marissa’s “Marissa Coal Festival” was founded in 1979. Perhaps a recognition of the future came in 1989 when that year’s Coal Festival Committee, local unions, area coal companies and the village and township contributed the funds to erect a Coal Miner Monument in the city park. The monument was dedicated in 1990.
This black granite slab bears the image of a coal miner on the front side and an inscription on the back side. Its front says it is “dedicated to coal miners of southern Illinois.” The text on the back says: “Papa dug coal from deep in the earth to earn a living. He dressed for work when everyone else went to bed. He wore faded denims and steel-toed shoes and he walked a mile to his job at the mine every night. It was important work. He was proud to do it.” The May-June 2013 issue of Illinois Heritage states that “a stone slab with a figure of a coal miner was set in Village Park on South Main Street in August 1921.” Information about this earlier monument is needed.
The 2019 Marissa Coal Festival had the theme of “Glory Days: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Marissa Coal Festival and the 100th Anniversary of the American Legion.” The latter could explain the abundant number of American flags lining the street and visible on various floats, trucks and cars in the parade down Main Street. It appeared that the entire population of the town not in the parade was living the street to watch it.
Girl Scouts float: “GSA Coal Co.” with picks, hard hats, “coal” smudges on legs
A NOTE: The Mythic Mississippi Project had just started when the 2019 Marissa Coal Festival took place. Until interviews are conducted we won’t know if previous parades featured the participation of the local division of the United Mine Workers of America and representatives of nearby branches, as happened in 2019, and if the presence of a few participants making direct reference to Marissa’s coal past were also present previously. This is a theoretically interesting question relating to anthropological concepts of “heritagization,” “memory” and the “vacant landscape.”