MOLLY PARKER
The Southern
MURPHYSBORO â Mike Mills, who died this week at the age of 79, didnât set out to seed a love of barbecue across the country, well beyond its roots in the South and parts of the Midwest, but thatâs what he ended up doing. After graduating from Murphysboro Township High School in 1959, he enrolled in the first class in the Dental Technology program at Southern Illinois University.
He earned an associateâs degree and moved to Elgin to work in a lab there. After learning the trade, he returned home and founded the Murphysboro Dental Lab. It produced crowns and dental prosthetics for nearly 60 years on 14th Street until it closed in 2019, making it one of longest continuously running businesses in Murphysboro.
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