Unon Miners Cemetery at Mt. Olive, Illinois
CITY:
Mount Olive
COUNTY:
Macoupin
DEDICATED BY:
The University of Illinois Mythic Mississippi Project, the City of Mt. Olive, the Mother Jones Museum at Mt. Olive, the Union Miners Cemetery Board and the Illinois State Historical Society.
DEDICATION DATE:
October 10, 2021 at 12:00:00 AM
The marker is located at the cemetery entrance on N. Lake Street/Mt. Olive Road in Mt. Olive. The cemetery also is the location of the Mother Jones Monument.
The Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois, is the only labor union-established and union-owned cemetery in the United States. It is the result of the “Battle of Virden,” fought in Virden on October 12, 1898, when the Chicago-Virden Coal Company refused to honor the national wage negotiated by the United Mine Workers union. An armed struggle broke out that day between miners and company forces attempting to use scabs (non-union strike-breakers). Eight miners, four mine guards, and one company employee were killed. The bosses capitulated and agreed to the legal wage. Four of the dead miners were from Mt. Olive, but the owner of the privately owned town cemetery did not want dead miners buried there to prevent the cemetery from becoming a miners shrine. Therefore, the UMW purchased land in Mt. Olive in order to create a dedicated union cemetery for the dead miners and all miners in the future. In 1932 the cemetery was deeded to the Progressive Miners of America union. Today a perpetual care committee tends the cemetery with the help of labor unions from around the country. The cemetery’s labor history significance is recognized by inscription on the National Register of Historic Places (1972).