Moake Crossing was located on the Coal Belt Electric Line half a mile west of the point where the Coal Belt crossed the C.B. and Q. Railroad. This was on the township line between Herrin and West Marion Townships between sections 33 and 4.

Moake was a group of three or four houses at a flag stop on the trolley line at the crossroad. It had no significance until the Herrin Mine Riot. It was here that the non-union mine Superintendent C.K. McDowell, was lead down the south road and shot in cold blood. Moake became a historical place when Paul Angle recorded the event in his book, “Bloody Williamson.”

(Ghost Towns of Southern Illinois, by Glenn J. Sneed, published 1977)