door about 9:45 p.m. and ordered him to leave town. Soon the group told Prager to come out first and kiss the flag to show his patriotism. Prager was told to remove his shoes; wrapped in the flag and barefoot, he was paraded along Main Street in Collinsville past numerous saloons where miners and other working men were drinking. Many joined the mob, which now numbered about 300. At approximately 10 p.m., three Collinsville policemen took Prager from the mob at Main and Seminary streets, and put him into the jail for his safety, in the basement of City Hall, three blocks away. The mob reassembled on Main Street; several hundred men marched behind a US flag, singing "The Star Spangled Banner" (a popular song that was not designated as the national anthem until 1931). They stopped at the front steps of City Hall. Mayor John H. Siegel and a few others tried to calm the mob and urged the men to let federal authorities deal with Prager. Siegel said if the man was a German spy, federal investigators might gain important information. Attacking Siegel and other officials for German ancestry, the mob accused them of being pro-German, too. During the time the mob was in front of City Hall, there had reportedly been an ineffective attempt by police officers to take Prager away. Unable to find a way to leave the building secretly, they removed Prager from the locked cell and hid him among sewer tiles in the basement. At about the same time, the mayor was told that Prager had been taken from the building by federal authorities, and he announced that to the mob. But many in the mob asked to search the building themselves. Believing Prager had been taken away, Mayor Siegel agreed. In this search, two members of the mob located Prager and took him back to the remnants of the mob, which had moved back to Main Street. Lynching The mob forced Prager to walk west on Main Street and the St. Louis Road, beating and harassing him. He had to sing patriotic songs and kiss the flag. When the mob arrived at the top of Bluff Hill, on the St. Louis Road overlooking St. Louis, some men took a car to get tar from a nearby streetcar stop. They intended to tar and feather Prager, as they had other targets of their wrath.