Drivers travelling from LaSalle to Oglesby on Route 351 can be excused if they barely notice Jonesville.
There are few houses, a bend in the road, and then drivers are continuing the trip from the Illinois River up the hill to Oglesby.
The little area of Jonesville, combined with Piety Hill and Crockettsville, was born sometime before the end of the Civil War in 1865, when the LaSalle County Carbon Coal Co. opened a mineshaft. The mine was owed by O.L. Jones, which made the name of the new town easy to determine.
Bob Marincic’s family has a long history with Jonesville. His grandfather worked a number of the mines in the area, and one of his prized possessions is a certificate from 1917 when his grandfather was certified as a coal miner in the state of Illinois.
Marincic said the mine closed down in 1929.
“There was some kind of a strike going on, and they had somebody actually dynamite one of the shafts,” he said.
The mine was bought by Union Coal, who had plans for reopening the mine, but instead sold off some of the property.
Some of the land was sold to Marincic’s father, John, who built a tavern on the land in 1938.
“Dad had always lived there with his parents,” he said. “There were five children in the family, and they all lived within four or five blocks of one another. Back then, nobody moved.”
John Marincic, also known as Shine, played the banjo with various groups throughout the area before opening his bar.
“He saw how much money these tavern owners were taking in, and he said, ‘I can do it,’” Bob Marincic said.
John Marincic built Shine’s Tap in 1938, and he was only 20 years old.
“He couldn’t even get a liquor license because he wasn’t old enough,” Bob Marincic said. “In order to start the business, my grandmother got the liquor license in her name.”
John Marincic also opened up a gas station next to the tavern. He also ended up moving the old Columbus School down the hill next to the highway for use as the Valley View Motel.
“When I was a kid in the mid-1950s, Route 351 used to be Route 51, and there used to be a lot of north and south traffic before the interstates,” Bob Marincic said.
Marincic said Jonesville used to have a lot more residents, as back then everyone had large families.
“But it’s still a nice little community,” he said.