Robert Prager Lynching Site
CITY:
Collinsville
COUNTY:
Madison
DEDICATED BY:
The Prager Memorial Committee and the Illinois State Historical Society
DEDICATION DATE:
June 13, 2010 at 5:00:00 AM
The marker is located at the entrance to St. John Cemetery, National Terrace and St. Louis Road, Collinsville. It is placed near the site of the tree from which Robert Prager was hanged in 1918.
On April 5, 1918, German immigrant Robert Prager was hanged by a mob at this site. Prager’s lynching was the high-water mark of the anti-immigrant and anti-German hysteria that gripped the nation during World War I. Persecution in the guise of patriotism was especially severe in the Southern Illinois coal fields. Eleven men accused of the murder were promptly acquitted. For generations there was remorse in Collinsville over the town’s failure to stop the mob and the lynching. One witness later said: “Nowhere appeared a sober, clear-headed man to say ‘no’ and make it stick. And so came violence, death, tragedy and shame.”