The small town of Heron was located in the heart of what was once considered coal country

in southern Illinois.

In the surrounding area, rich veins of coal were discovered in the late 1800s, and for

a time coal became the largest source of wealth and industry in the entire region, overshadowing

the farm life that had once been so important to families and businesses across the southern

tip of the state.

By the turn of the last century, coal was king.

Fortunes were made for the men who owned the mines, and while those who toiled beneath

the earth, eaked out a living that, while it paid more than plowing a field, was much

more deadly.

Taking coal from the earth was a thankless task.

The lives and health in the miners were of little concern to the men who paid the wages.

Miners worked in water up to their knees and gas filled rooms, and unventilated mines

where the air was filthy and filled with toxins, and far too often, the nightmarish conditions

crippled and injured the men, and there were no compensations for the accidents that

often incurred.

There was no compensation for the families of the dead, either.

Death under the ground meant only that your wife was now a widow.

Your children were orphans, and since the company owned your home, they were now homeless

too.

But then a few brave men and women decided to stand up to the men the miners were making

rich.

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