Mount Olive, IL

Mount Olive is a Macoupin County mining city in the Metro East, with its strongest local story laid out along old transportation and labor lines. The Union Miners Cemetery holds the graves of miners killed in the 1898 Battle of Virden and the monument to labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones. The cemetery sits just south of former US 66, so a road-trip landmark and a major chapter in Illinois labor history share the same edge of town.

The Mother Jones Museum on Main Street preserves and interprets materials tied to Jones and the miners' movement. Route 66 travelers also find Soulsby's Shell Service Station, described by the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway as the oldest, most original station still standing along the Illinois route. Illinois Route 138 ends in Mount Olive after running west from Benld. Put those pieces together and the city's map comes into focus: coal, union organizing, historic roads, and a cemetery that keeps the workers' story in view.