The Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive has great historical significance. It originated as a result of the 1898 Battle of Virden because the fallen miners were denied burial in Virden, which was a company town. The United Mine Workers union was able to purchase land in Mt. Olive for the purpose of creating a cemetery. Additional land was subsequently purchased for the expansion of the cemetery. Later, the breakaway Progressive Miners of America union became custodians of the Union Miners Cemetery. In the years that followed the Battle of Virden, an annual October 12 commemoration began to be held at the cemetery. 

The Union Mines Cemetery was inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.The history of the Union Miners Cemetery is told in historian John Keiser’s article “A Spirit-Thread of Labor History. The Union Miners Cemetery at Mt. Olive, IL” (Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Autumn 1969). Indeed, one can walk among the graves and note the number of them that make reference to union membership. Here we refer to the four memorials honoring heroes of the coal mining labor movement: the memorial honoring martyrs of the Battle of Virden; the General Alexander Bradley gravesite memorial; the Mother Jones Monument; the newly identified original burial site of Mother Jones.

(1) The Virden Massacre memorial marker (below). An interesting article is available: CLICK.

(2) Near the Virden Massacre Memorial is the tombstone of General Alexander Bradley, the great leader in the Battle of Virden and unionization of the Illinois coalfields.

(3) Soon after Mother Jones’ death and funeral (1930), the newly formed Progressive Miners of America (which split from the United Mine Workers in 1932) raised the money for a great monument to Mother Jones and to their own martyrs in the violent labor battles against the UMWA. A cameo portrait of Mother Jones appears at the top of the tall column and a plaque bearing General Bradley’s name and plaques with the names of three of the miners felled at Virden are emplaced at the base. The monument was inaugurated in 1936 with great fanfare. The final gravesite of Mother Jones (foreground) is at its base.

(4) New historic marker indicating the original gravesite of Mother Jones. On May 4, 2025 the Perpetual Care Association of the Union Miners Cemetery in collaboration with the University of Illinois Mythic Mississippi Project inaugurated a new historical marker at the UMC, which recognizes the location of Mother Jones’ original burial site.

Her casket was transferred to its actual location at the base of the grand Mother Jones Monument when that was created in 1936 – the effort of the Progressive Miners of America to honor her. The historic photo (below) shows the transfer of Mother Jones’ casket from the 1930 gravesite to its place of honor at the foot of the enormous monument erected in her honor in 1936 by the Progressive Miners of America. Watch this video of Mother Jones (portrayed by actress Loretta Williams) indicating her original grave site in the Union Miners Cemetery, before removal of the casket to the base of the monument. We gratefully acknowledge James Alderson for finding the photographs relevant to original casket site and its relationship to the Ozanic tombstone.