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MUDDY, Ill.—One way to be come mayor of your town is to create the town. This is what a stocky, ex-coal miner from Saline County *has done. John Molinarsld of Muddy, a tiny hamlet near Harrisburg, is now village president of Muddy. A few months ago Muddy did not, have a_ Village, president Board of Police Magistrate. Now Muddy* has been incorporated, through the efforts of Molinar old and his son John Jr. At one time Muddy was a thriving little village of some 250 souls. A big coal mine, the old Sahara No. 12, was in full operation. The town was a “company town.” That is most of the houses and stores were owned by the Sahara Coal Co. The mine, however, dropped its last cage in 1937. A few miners stayed for a while but most drifted away when the Ohio River flooded the entire area in 1937. Molinarolo Town - Now Muddy is a Molinarolo town. He owns the only store and John Jr. owns Muddy's only other business—a concrete block manufacturing company. The Molinarolos also own the “Venice Club,” a sort of part time night club, which is rented out to private parties. In addition, the Molinarolo family owns all 62 houses that are in the incorporated part of Muddy. John Sr. owns 60 of the homes and a relative owns two. John buys up old company houses, rebuilds them and shifts them about. He rents the re finished homes. The Molianarolos say they are building up the town as a resi dential district. Whether the Molinarolos know it or not—and they probably do the incorporation of could create a damp little island in Saline County. Saline is just about as dry liquorwise as its name implies. A few bootleggers may peddle booze in Saline but none is sold legally there. But in an election the residents of a city or village can vote it just as wet as they want. All it takes is a majority of the regis tered voters. If a village is voted wet the mayor automatically be comes the liquor commissioner. Play It Close The Molinarolo men are play ing it close to the vest on this question. They neither confirm nor deny any intention to estab lish Muddy as the site of the only legal liquor license in Saline County. But they could, providing 31 of the 60 registered voters also wanted it that way. This isn’t Molinarolo senior’s first venture at incorporating Muddy, or into politics. He is a former member of the Saline County Board of Supervisors and once hit a sand bar in an in corporation attempt for Muddy. The measure was defeated by voters in 1952. Muddy, incidentally, gets its name from the one-time sad con dition of its streets. Now, how ever, it has one blacktop road the rest are gravel.
Newspaper Details
Mount Vernon Register News
Mount Vernon, Illinois, US
Thu, Jun 07, 1956
Page 17
Full Page
Clipped by
James M.
USA 14 Feb 2026
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