Zeigler, IL

Zeigler is a Franklin County city in southwestern Illinois, with 1,484 people at the 2020 census. Illinois Route 149 runs through town, Illinois Route 148 follows its western edge, and Interstate 57 is six miles east. The city incorporated in 1914 and took its name from Levi Zeigler Leiter, father of Joseph Leiter, who founded the Zeigler Coal Company. Leiter's original plan used a circle with radiating avenues modeled after Washington, D.C., giving Zeigler an unusual street pattern for a small Southern Illinois city.

ATTRBrian Stansberry / CC BY 4.0

Coal made Zeigler, and coal also left its deepest scar. In 1905, an explosion killed 50 men in or near the town. The early company town drew immigrant miners who spoke 28 languages, and labor conflict shaped its first years. Zeigler reached about 7,000 people in 1926; after coal demand fell, the population contracted and many businesses disappeared. Franklin County's mining history includes 40 active mines since 1882, and the industry helped pay for schools, roads, and other local works. At the center of Zeigler, a 1974 miner statue stands in the town circle, recalling the coal era and the people who worked it. The circle, the routes to West Frankfort and Royalton, and the older lots and buildings make the former mining economy visible without turning the city into a museum display. The local scoop is a Southern Illinois city whose street plan was built for a coal company, whose memorial keeps miners in view, and whose current map sits between the old mining towns and I-57.