Herrin, Illinois, has seen many dramatic events unfold in the nearly two hundred years since it was a bell-shaped prairie on the frontier. Now, Herrin native John Griswold, a writer and teacher at the University of Illinois, provides the first comprehensive history of this most American city, a place that in its time became not just a melting pot but also a cauldron. Discover why the coal was so good in the "Quality Circle" and

what happened to the boom that followed its discovery. Explore the roots of the vicious Herrin Massacre of 1922 and learn why the entire nation has focused its gaze on this small midwestern city so many times.

Incorporating the most recent scholarship, interviews and classic histories and

narratives, this brief and entertaining history is illustrated with more than seventy-five archival photos that help tell this important American story.

John Griswold grew up in Herrin and graduated from Herrin High School in 1981. After serving in the US Army, he attended Northern Illinois University and worked in Chicago for several years as a corporate writer. He now lives with his wife and two sons in Champaign-Urbana, where he teaches writing abd literature at the University of Illinois. His novel, A Democracy of Ghosts, is set during the infamous Herrin Massacre and its main character is based on Griswold's grandfather, who was a state senator and the UMWA sub-district president in Herrin in 1922.