This was a center of coal mining in the early 20th century, having a peak of population in the 1920s.

Johnston City was founded in 1894 as a stop along the Chicago, Paducah and Memphis Railroad (later part of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois), and named for the contracting firm that constructed the railroad.

[4] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of immigrant miners from Italy, Wales and other areas arrived to work in the coal mines.

There were tensions among the different ethnic groups, especially when miners went out on strike for better wages and conditions.

[citation needed] On June 10, 1915, the city was the site of the lynching of Joe Strando, an Italian immigrant miner from Sicily, by a mob of 300 American men.

He was taken from the jail where he was held as a suspect in the murder of Edward Chapman, a wealthy local citizen, and wounding of his daughter.

[5] Six years later, immigrant Settino de Santis confessed to the murder of Chapman, saying that the man was accidentally shot while visiting at the home of mine foreman Ben Schull.

[citation needed] With the decline of mining, the number of jobs fell.