Biohazard Cleanup Near West Muddy Muddy, IL

Muddy is a small incorporated village in Harrisburg Township in Saline County, Illinois, in the coal country of Southern Illinois.

During the 19th century, the site of Muddy was home to a small settlement known as Robinson's Ford, which was among the communities considered for the seat of Saline County after the county's creation in the 1840s.

The modern village of Muddy had its start as a mining settlement established by the Harrisburg Big Muddy Coal Company, for which it was named, in 1903.

The Muddy mine was sold to the larger O'Gara Coal Company in 1906, and a massive concrete coal tipple built in 1923 processed coal from the Big Muddy mine until the mine closed for good after the historic Ohio River flood of 1937.

The former St. Ioasaph Orthodox Church in Muddy, built in 1913 by Slovak and Russian Orthodox immigrant miners, is dedicated to Ioasaph of Belgorod and still stands as a landmark of the village's immigrant coal-mining past.

Muddy was incorporated on February 27, 1956, more than half a century after its founding as a coal company town.

As of the 2020 census, Muddy had a population of just 61 people, down from 68 in 2010 and 78 in 2000, continuing a long, slow decline since the mine closed.

At the 2000 census there were 78 people in just 34 households and 21 families residing in the village, spread over only about 0.30 square miles of land.