Team Penning Horses for Sale near Virden, IL

About Virden, IL

Virden sits atop a large seam of coal. After the 1850s, when the Chicago and Alton railroad was completed, it became possible to mine Virden coal and ship it long distances for a profit. Throughout the second half of the 1800s, Virden prospered and grew as a coal-mining town. A bitter coal strike broke out in 1898. The Chicago-Virden Coal Company, fearing loss of key business in Chicago, refused to allow its Virden mines to be unionized, nor would it pay the nonunionized miners union-scale wages.