The West Virginia Mine Wars

From 1912 to 1921, thousands of coal miners in the southern coalfields of West Virginia fought violently against coal company operators to secure their right to unionize and abolish the brutal mine guard system.

(For full details read the  West Virginia Mine Wars  series on NPS.gov)

West Virginia coal mining began in the mid-1800s, prior to the ratification of the state. By the early 1900s coal was dominating the American economy, powering industry, railroads, and streetcars across the nation, in addition to being a reliable source of heat and energy for many homes and businesses.

Due to its high demand, many assumed that the men and boys that mined coal were doing well financially. However, the American coal industry was disorganized, decentralized, and extremely dangerous for the men that worked in and propelled the success of coal.

This map shows the counties that witnessed some of the pivotal moments of the West Virginia Mine Wars. Interact with the map to learn about each county's roles in the events.

The counties shown here in the part of southwestern West Virginia were major coal producing areas of the state in the early 1900s. The soft bituminous coal mined in this region of the state was transported by rail to the major cities in the Midwest and Northeast to power homes and industry.

More miners lived and worked in coal-company owned mining towns in West Virginia than any other mining state in the greater Midwest. Much of the fighting in the state during the Mine Wars centered on abuses suffered in these company towns.

When coal company operators in the Paint Creek Valley in Kanawha County refused to grant union workers a modest pay raise, miners began a "wildcat" strike in which workers launched a work stoppage without union assistance.

Soon, 7,500 nonunion miners nearby Cabin Creek joined them, spurred by the oppressive rule of the company operators. When company guards started forcibly evicting mining families from company-owned homes, the miners fought back.

"Here the miners had been peons for years, kept in slavery by the guns of the coal company, and by the system of paying in scrip so that a miner never had any money should he wish to leave the district."

The United Mine Workers (UMW) was the nation's main labor union representing American coal miners. While the UMW had not initiated the strike, they lent their full support to the striking miners. To assist them, the union sent both renowned labor organizer Mary "Mother" Jones and UMW vice president Frank Hayes to the region.

The coal operators responded by hiring Baldwin-Felts mine guards to bust the strike. The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency was a private security firm hired by coal mine operators throughout the country to violently suppress strike activity in mining areas of Appalachia and the West.

The Baldwin-Felts guards constructed iron and concrete forts outfitted with machine guns throughout the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike area in Kanawha County. They continued to evict mining families from company housing, destroying $40,000 worth of personal property, including furniture, in the process.

The following map shows the general location of the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strikes. Over the course of a year, non-union and union miners struggled for their labor rights in this rural section of West Virginia. Scroll through the map to learn more about the strike zone.

It was the spring of 1920 when coal miners in Mingo County began a strike in the town of Matewan.

The strike stemmed from the company operators' continued employment of private mine guards to suppress the miners' attempts at organizing. Once the strike was declared, the operators refused to compromise and hired Baldwin-Felts agents to evict striking miners and their families from company housing.

On May 19, 1920, town sheriff, Sid Hatfield, and the mayor, Cable Testerman, confronted the Baldwin-Felts agents sent to evict miners and demanded to see warrants for the evictions. An argument ensued between Hatfield and an agent, Albert Felts. Each claimed they had a right to arrest the other. The altercation turned violent when someone began shooting. By the end of the shootout, Testerman, seven Baldwin-Felts agents, and two other townspeople were dead.

The Matewan Massacre, as it became known, only added fuel to the fire. By July 1920, over 90 percent of miners in Mingo County had pledged the union oath. Sid Hatfield escaped injury at the massacre and became a symbol of the miners' struggle against the tyranny and violence of the mine guard system.

"There can never be industrial peace in West Virginia so long as the great corporations and landholding companies who are not interested in West Virginia's tomorrow attempt to rule with the iron rod through private detective agencies and privately-paid deputy sheriffs."

After the deadly shootout of the Matewan Massacre, Sheriff Sid Hatfield and deputy Sheriff Ed Chambers were brought to trial for their roles in the affair. Hatfield was acquitted of murder charges stemming from the incident in a trial held at the Mingo County Courthouse. But, while he was able to beat the murder charge, Hatfield still had several pending charges to contest.

One charge against him was for exploding a piece of coal loading machinery in Mohawk--a coal town. The trial was scheduled to occur at the McDowell County Courthouse, located in Welch. Hatfield's codefendant was twenty-two-year-old Ed Chambers, his friend and former deputy.

On August 1, 1921, while walking on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse with their wives, C. E. Lively and another Baldwin-Felts agent shot Hatfield and Chambers to death in full view of witnesses.

The brazenness of the murder at McDowell County Courthouse, coupled with Hatfield’s popularity among the miners, became a rallying cry for the strikers and served as one more catalyst leading to the culmination of the mine wars at the Battle of Blair Mountain.

"Something extraordinary happened on [Blair Mountain] that day: American citizens were being subjected to aerial bombardment on their own soil."

After the murders of labor union-sympathizers Sheriff Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers, on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse, tensions were high among the miners of United Mine Workers (UMW) District 17.

In response to their brazen murders, on August 7, 1921, UMW leadership, including Fred Mooney and Frank Keeney, submitted a list of demands to West Virginia Governor Ephraim Morgan in which they explained their grievances against the coal mine companies. 

The union's biggest grievance was the employment of the brutal and extra-legal Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency guards. On August 17, Governor Morgan refused to concede to any of the union’s demands.

After Morgan announced his reply, thousands of union miners gathered in the small town of Marmet in Kanawha County, eight miles south of Charleston. The gathering miners wanted to avenge the murders of Hatfield and Chambers and free the union miners jailed under the martial law imposed on Mingo County at the time. A planned stop on their march was in Logan County to confront—and possibly kill—Sheriff Don Chafin, who took money from the coal mine operators to enforce their interests.

By the time the armed marchers arrived in Logan County, Chafin had assembled his own army of civilian recruits that were protecting positions along the Blair Mountain ridgeline. It was on Blair Mountain where the two forces came face-to-face.

On the night of August 30, a group of 70 miners marched up the mountain and encountered several of Chafin's deputies. In the gun battle that ensued, the miners shot, wounded, and killed one of Chafin's men beginning the battle.

For the next three days, the two sides battled with gatling guns, rifles, and other firearms along the ridge of Blair Mountain. During the second day of fighting, Chafin ordered his men to fly airplanes over the encamped marchers and drop two nausea-inducing gas bombs, and two bombs filled with gunpowder, nuts, and bolts.

After several days of heavy fighting along the mountain ridge, the miners were ready to move into Logan County when the federal government stepped in, dispatching troops, planes, and munitions to the area. This intervention effectively ended the miners’ march before they could enter into full battle with Chafin’s army. 

The miners willingly surrendered to the federal troops in September of 1921. They were not rebelling against the federal government, but rather against the local and state governments that catered to mining interests. In fact, miners viewed the intervention of the military as a victory, seeing it as a signal that the rule of law would return to the region.

The fighting of the West Virginia mine wars officially ended on September 4, 1921. Due to the size, length, and violence involved, the legacy of this short battle has loomed large in American labor history, and continues to be a symbol of workers’ struggles in the past—many of which continue to resonate today.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Blair Mountain, West Virginia Governor Morgan sought federal charges against the union miners who had surrendered to federal troops. When the federal government declined to bring charges,  the state of West Virginia took up the mantle of prosecuting the miners. 

During the winter and spring of 1922, the state indicted over 500 miners on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason against the state.

Treason charges were leveled against 20 members of UMW District 17 including Bill Blizzard, Frank Keeney, and Fred Mooney. These men actively worked to unionize the West Virginia coal fields throughout the early 1900s. 

The stakes of the trials were high, not just for the workers in the state, but also for the labor movement: if the prosecution prevailed, anti-union tactics could spread to other industries in regions far beyond the borders of West Virginia.

The trials, initially to be held in the state’s coal-mining region, were moved to Jefferson County—over 250 miles away by train—in an attempt to insure an impartial jury. Jefferson County had no coal mining operations, and thus was seen as neutral territory for the trial. 

The first to be tried was Bill Blizzard (far left) who was charged with treason against the state. The sheer amount of media attention paid to the treason trials, particularly Bill Blizzard’s trial, turned these regional labor issues into a national conversation. 

Blizzard’s case set the standard for the rest of the proceedings. Despite being recognized by many as the leader of the March on Logan, Blizzard's role in the Battle of Blair Mountain was complicated by conflicting witness testimony with some claiming that Blizzard was absent from the marching. The trial, which lasted over four weeks, ended in his acquittal on May 25, 1922. Rather than simply exonerate Blizzard, some contemporary observers claimed that the verdict had deeper implications.  

Blizzard's acquittal was recognized by many commentators at the time as representing a major blow to the anti-union forces of West Virginia and the nation. Blizzard's acquittal was celebrated in Charles Town after his hearing concluded.

The treason trials that played out at the Jefferson County Courthouse in 1922 were a major turning point in the West Virginia mine wars and the American labor movement, but at the conclusion of the trials, UMW District 17 went bankrupt which ended the union's labor organizing efforts in West Virginia.

While the Battle of Blair Mountain and its aftermath drew national attention to West Virginia miners and their fight for basic rights as laborers and citizens, the lengthy and expensive treason trials ended the UMW's attempts to unionize the state's coal industry. 

It was not until the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the passage of labor-friendly New Deal laws, like the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, that workers in the West Virginia coal fields and across the nation would finally gain the right to fully unionize.