Site of the 1922 Herrin Massacre

On the morning of June 22, 1922, an armed mob of sriking mine workers several hundred strong laid seige to the Southern Illinois Coal Company strip mine between Marion and Herrin. The nonunion strikebreakers who had been working the mine eventually surrendered, and were forced by the mob to march north and west to the Powerhouse Woods. Here, they were told to run as the striking workers fired upon them while they fleed into the woods. In total 23 men, 20 strikebreakers and guards and 3 union men, were killed. No one was punished.