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This small memorial at the Taylorville Courthouse says “IN MEMORY AND HONOR OF CHRISTIAN COUNTRY COAL MINERS”

TAYLORVILLE: TOWN SQUARE
The small memorial, seen above, was the initiative in 2004 of a local resident, William A. Stone. Christian County not only was a hub of coal mining in the early twentieth century, it was an epicenter of labor violence between the United Mine Workers of America and the Progressive Miners of America, starting in 1932. The history of the “mine war” is told in the Christian County Coal Museum. This small memorial honors all miners.

TAYLORVILLE: OAK HILL CEMETERY (820 S. Cherokee Street) 
George Franklin Bilyeu was one of the Battle of Virden martyrs. He is buried in Taylorville’s Oak Hill Cemetery rather than in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive. His gravesite has a monument that is so large and so deliberately scripted as a memorial – not just to him but to a cause – that it should be interpreted as a memorial. Atop a tall column stands the life-sized image of a miner wearing a miners helmet with light and carrying a pickaxe and shovel in either hand. The United Mine Workers logo appears on the pedestal, celebrating the achievement of an 8-hour shift in 1898 (a result of the Virden event) and below is the biographical information (George Franklin Bilyeu BORN January 6, 1854 DIED October 12, 1898) and the epitaph: “Lost his life fighting for industrial liberty at Virden, Illinois October 12, 1898″. See the images here: CLICK