Virden, IL

At the 2020 census, Virden was a Macoupin and Sangamon County city of 3,231 people sitting over a large coal seam. The Chicago and Alton Railroad reached the area after the 1850s, making it profitable to ship coal beyond central Illinois and turning Virden into a mining town with a complicated county-line edge. Most of the city is in Macoupin County, while a small northern piece reaches into Sangamon County and the Springfield metro.

The city's defining chapter came on October 12, 1898, when an incoming train carrying non-union miners and armed guards met resistance from union miners at the Virden mine. The gun battle lasted less than ten minutes; seven miners and five guards were killed, dozens were wounded, and the mine owners' contract was upheld. The episode became a turning point in the Illinois labor struggle, remembered in the Virden town square and through the wider Mother Jones movement. Virden is a city whose coal seam is underground, but whose labor history still sits right on top of the map.