Miserable wages and working conditions in coal mines made conflict between miners and coal companies inevitable in the 1890s, and the battle that erupted at Virden became a landmark in the history of labor rights. After months of struggle, mine owners from Pennsylvania to Illinois agreed to a contract with the United Mine Workers Union, but the Chicago-Virden Coal Company, the largest in Illinois, refused to honor it and locked out local miners. Management then recruited African-Americans from Alabama who were hoping to escape poverty. Determined to stop trains carrying these replacement miners into the mine, hundreds of miners from surrounding towns poured into the village, some armed with pistols, hunting rifles, and shotguns, and some with nothing at all. The Coal Company hired 50 guards, armed them with Winchesters, and stationed them behind a stockade and on the train carrying the Alabama miners. When union miners swarmed the approaching train on October 12, 1898, the guards opened fire, igniting twenty minutes of carnage in which eight miners, four Company guards, and one bystander were killed and over 35 wounded. Illinois Governor John Riley Tanner, the first executive in any state to side with the workers union instead of the coal companies, sent troops to disarm the Company guards and prevent further violence, and the troops camped in this park. Within weeks, the Company yielded to demands and paid workers at the higher union scale. Along Route 66, the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive contains four of the Virden martyrs along with leaders of the labor movement.