In a modest neighborhood once lined with railroad boxcars, a young man named John S. Muños left home for war and never returned. His story is rooted not only in the battlefields of Korea but in the American struggle for belonging, sacrifice, and recognition that defined a generation of Mexican-American families on what is now known as Hero Street.
Born in 1928, Muños grew up on Second Street in Silvis, a small industrial city along the Mississippi River near the Quad Cities. The area was home to dozens of Mexican families who had arrived after the 1910 revolution and found work with the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad.
Many of them lived in refitted boxcars, clustered beside the tracks that offered steady employment but little comfort. For their children, the path to acceptance in mid-century America often ran through military service.
When the Korean War erupted in 1950, the call reached even the short, narrow block of Second Street. Muños enlisted in the U.S. Army on January 15, 1951, joining the 38th Infantry Regiment, Second Infantry Division.
Within months, he was deployed to the Korean Peninsula — one of thousands of young Americans sent to a conflict that would soon be known for its bitter terrain and staggering human cost.
The 38th Infantry Regiment was assigned to some of the hardest-fought positions along the front. In late August 1951, as United Nations forces advanced toward a ridgeline north of the 38th Parallel, Muños and his fellow soldiers were ordered to take a series of heavily fortified hills later known collectively as Bloody Ridge.
Over 10 days of close combat, U.S. and allied troops attacked entrenched North Korean positions under relentless fire. Historians would later describe it as one of the war’s most punishing encounters.
“The last time I saw him, he came to say goodbye, and I was pregnant with my fourth child,” Mary Muños Ramirez, 95, said of her brother. “I sent him a picture of my new baby boy. I got the letter and picture back. He had already been killed.”
On August 27, 1951, Muños was killed in action. He was 23 years old. According to Defense Department casualty records, his remains were never recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, a testament shared by thousands whose final resting places are unknown.
“My great uncle John was in the thick of things when he died. He was in a very tough place. But he served with distinction,” said Brian Muños, retired Navy. “He gave his very, very best.”
For Silvis, his death marked a turning point. The small Mexican-American enclave that had sent so many sons to war realized the extent of its loss. From the same neighborhood block, six men had already been killed in World War II. Two more — including Muños — fell in Korea. What had once been a quiet working-class street of immigrants became a national symbol of disproportionate sacrifice.
By the late 1960s, the city formally renamed Second Street as Hero Street to honor those eight fallen servicemen. Civic leaders and veterans groups established a memorial park and monument near the old boxcar settlement, cementing its place in U.S. military history as the shortest street in the country with the highest per-capita loss of life in wartime.
“Hero Street,” a documentary series by Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle, explores the compelling true story of eight Mexican-American heroes: Tony Pompa, Frank Sandoval, William Sandoval, Claro Solis, Peter Masias, Joseph Sandoval, Joseph Gomez, and John S. Muños.
“The Last to Fall from Hero Street: John Muños Story” is the fifth episode in a nine-part series by Fourth Wall Films. It will premiere on November 8 at the Putnam Museum’s National Geographic Giant Screen Theater, 1717 W. 12th St. in Davenport, Iowa, during the Veterans Day weekend.
Hero Street’s transformation from a working-class rail settlement into a place of national reverence mirrors the broader history of Mexican-American military service — a record often overlooked despite generations of enlistment and sacrifice. For the families who lived there, the street’s new name was both an honor and a reminder that patriotism had come at an unbearable cost.
The eight men memorialized from that single block — six from World War II and two from Korea — became known collectively as the Hero Street Eight. Each of the men carried a story of migration, perseverance, and service, but Muños’ death in Korea marked the last time Hero Street would lose one of its own to war.
Records from the Illinois state casualty roll list his birth as April 5, 1928, confirming his status as “body not recovered.” His service number, U.S. 55104953, appears in the National Archives database among the 38th Infantry’s losses during the Battle of Bloody Ridge. That record, combined with the inscription on the Honolulu memorial, preserves his name in two separate federal archives — a rare level of documentation for a soldier from such a small community.
Many Silvis families found post-war work at the nearby Rock Island Arsenal, strengthening the community’s ties to America’s wartime industries. The Arsenal provided work for veterans and families left behind, turning grief into livelihood. Even as the boxcar homes were dismantled and new housing rose in their place, the families of Hero Street kept the memory of those eight men alive through stories, church services, and community ceremonies.
City records note that since the first residents settled there in 1929, more than 100 men and women from the block have served in the U.S. military. The story of their collective service has been preserved through public art, annual memorials, and documentary films.
Among those tributes, John Muños’ story stands out for its symbolism. He was the last Hero Street serviceman to die in combat before the street’s renaming. His absence left a permanent gap in the close-knit community, one felt most deeply by the families who watched their sons go off to war from front porches built beside railroad tracks.
The quiet of those evenings, broken only by the sound of freight cars passing, is recalled by residents who grew up hearing about the eight men and the promise their generation made to a country that did not always see them as equals.
Over the decades, Hero Street has become a site of pilgrimage for veterans, historians, and filmmakers documenting Latino contributions to the armed forces. Veterans groups continue to gather there on Memorial Day and Veterans Day to read the names aloud. The ceremony, unchanged for decades, has become a ritual of endurance for the descendants of Silvis’ original railroad workers.
“I’m just one of many that served from that street. And eight didn’t make it. And, we memorialize that. But we remember them, their families, and their sacrifice,” Brian said,” And the story has to go on.”
In July 2025, a delegation of Latino veterans and community leaders from Milwaukee visited Hero Street in Silvis, Illinois. The group, organized by Forward Latino and the American GI Forum of Wisconsin, studied how the neighborhood created a permanent tribute to Latino service members.
Their goal was to build a similar memorial in Milwaukee to honor veterans from across the state. The visit showed how the story of Hero Street continues to influence efforts to recognize Latino military history beyond Illinois.
Several months earlier, in October 2024, “Milwaukee Independent” published the 72-part series “Exploring Korea: Stories from Milwaukee to the DMZ and across a Divided Peninsula.” The project, which earned the Milwaukee Press Club’s Gold Award for Best Explanatory Series, documented the city’s diaspora and connections to the Korean Peninsula through veterans, adoptees, artists, and community leaders.
> READ: “Exploring Korea” series honored for chronicling 72 Milwaukee-connected stories across generations
The death of Muños on a ridge in Korea and the neighborhood that shaped him have become part of a larger American record, one that stretches from the boxcars of Silvis to the memorial work taking shape in Milwaukee.
Today, Hero Street Park serves as the centerpiece of that memory. A memorial wall engraved with each soldier’s name stands near the intersection of Hero and 1st streets, surrounded by flags representing the branches of service.
Together, they show how remembrance is built not from ceremony but from persistence, and also link Milwaukee’s stories of Korea with the enduring memory of Hero Street.
The story of John S. Muños, preserved through records, memorials, and the living memory of Hero Street, stands as a reflection of an American truth often measured not by geography or wealth but by the weight of sacrifice carried by the few.
© Photo
Fourth Wall Films
