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'Herrin Massacre' excavation solves mystery but highlights town's 'horrible' history


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'Herrin Massacre' excavation solves mystery but highlights town's 'horrible' history

By Ted Gregory, Tribune reportercontact the reporter

Aug,19,2014 Herrin, Ill.

Caked in mud, Steven Di Naso and Grant Woods crouched in the cemetery trench they were clearing with trowels and gloved hands. They were searching for evidence of bodies — many from Chicago — that had been deliberately forgotten after one of the grisliest atrocities in labor history. It was 85 degrees. Sweat bees hovered around the two men.

 

Di Naso, Woods, local historian Scott Doody and their team had spent four years overcoming local resistance, reviewing thousands of documents, building databases and producing more than 500 maps, charts and graphs that tracked interments since the Herrin City Cemetery was established in 1905.

 

So far, digs in November and last week have yielded traces of eight graves in a pauper's field in the 25-acre cemetery. The crew is planning to return in September, which gives Herrin some time to absorb these excavations of reconciliation and remembrance, and work on how to deal with them.

 

"Now, 92 years later,

tgregory@tribune.com

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