Coal Mine War Museum

This project is being used to teach Unreal Engine 4, game development tools, history.

The West Virginia coal wars (1912–21), also known as the mine wars, arose out of a dispute between coal companies and miners. The first workers strike, in West Virginia, was the Cabin Creek and Paint Creek strike of 1912-1913. With help from Mary "Mother Jones" Harris Jones, an important figure in unionizing the mine workers, the miners demanded better pay, better work conditions, the right to trade where they pleased (ending the practice of forcing miners to buy from company-owned stores), and recognition of the United Mine Workers (UMW). The mining companies refused to meet the demands of the workers and instead hired Baldwin-Felts agents equipped with high-powered rifles to guard the mines and act as strikebreakers. After the Agents arrived, the miners either moved out or were evicted from the houses they had been renting from the coal companies, and moved into coal camps that were being supported by the Union. Approximately 35,000 people lived in these coal camps. A month after the strike began, hostilities began with the arrival of the Baldwin-Felts Agents who provoked the miners. Socialist Party activists began supplying miners with weapons: 6 machine guns, 1,000 high-powered rifles, and 50,000 rounds of ammunition. On September 1, 1912, approximately 6,000 unionized miners from across the Kanawha River crossed the river and declared their intent to kill the mine guards and destroy the company operations. Due to this threat, the mining companies deployed additional armed guards and awaited the miners' attack. Consequently, the Governor proclaimed martial law to be in effect on September 2, 1912, seizing 1,872 high-powered rifles, 556 pistols, 6 machine guns, 225,000 rounds of ammunition, and 480 blackjacks - as well as large quantities of daggers, bayonets, and brass knuckles. On May 19, 1920, a shootout in Matewan, West Virginia, between agents of the Baldwin-Felts and local miners, who later joined the United Mine Workers of America, sparked what became known as the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest insurrection in the United States since the American Civil War.

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Organizations

United Mine Workers - UMW
a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents.

Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency

a private detective agency in the United States from the early 1890s to 1937. Members of the agency were central actors in the events that led to the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 and violent repression of labor union members as part of the Coal Wars in such places as the Pocahontas Coalfield region of West Virginia, the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia, 1913-1914 Colorado Coalfield War (including the Ludlow Massacre in 1914), and the Battle of Matewan in 1920.

People

Mary G. Harris Jones aka - Mother Jones
(1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930)

an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. After Jones' husband and four children all died of yellow fever in 1867, and her dress shop was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, she became an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union. In 1902, she was called "the most dangerous woman in America" for her success in organizing mine workers and their families against the mine owners. In 1903, to protest the lax enforcement of the child labor laws in the Pennsylvania mines and silk mills, she organized a children's march from Philadelphia to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in New York.

Charles Francis "Frank" Keeney Jr.
(March 15, 1882 – May 22, 1970)

a union organizer during the West Virginia Coal Wars. He served as a rank and file leader during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912–1913, and became president of United Mine Workers District 17 from his election in 1916 until 1924. He played a leadership role during the strike of 1920–1921, leading up to the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Justus Collins
(December 14, 1857-October 18, 1934)

Coal operator Justus Collins was born in Clayton, Alabama. He began his coal career in his native South, reportedly supervising convict mine labor. About 1887, he resigned as secretary treasurer of Woodward Iron Company, an Alabama mining firm, to move to the new ‘‘smokeless coalfields’’ of southern West Virginia. In Mercer County, Collins organized Louisville Coal & Coke Company about 1887, one of the first mines to ship coal on the Norfolk & Western Railroad. In 1893 he opened Collins Colliery in Glen Jean, Fayette County, opened Greenbrier Coal & Coke at about the same time, and later the Whipple mine near Mount Hope. He built identical octagonal company stores at Collins and Whipple, and the Whipple store survives today as a local landmark. In 1906, both the Collins and Whipple mines were sold to the New River Company, and Collins organized Superior Pocahontas Coal. He opened Winding Gulf mine in 1910, becoming a pioneer in the Winding Gulf Coalfield; his earlier mines were located in the neighboring New River and Pocahontas fields. In 1929, Collins consolidated his mining properties into the Winding Gulf Collieries Company. Collins’s comment that mine managers should strive for a ‘‘judicious mixture’’ of races and nationality groups, on the theory that diversity hampered unionization, is often quoted. Miners resented his labor policies, and he was avidly disliked by rival coal operators, including W. P. Tams and Samuel Dixon. Justus Collins left the coalfields as his business interests expanded, moving his family first to Charleston and then to Cincinnati.

Sid Hatfield

Henry Hatfield

Fred Mooney

CE Lively

Cabell Testerman

Battles

Battle of Matewan

The most infamous striking breaking action undertaken by the Baldwin-Felts was in Matewan, West Virginia. A confrontation between locals and agents resulted in the deaths of two miners and Matewan's Mayor as well as seven Baldwin-Felts detectives including Thomas Felts' brothers, Albert and Lee.

On May 19, 1920, 12 Baldwin-Felts agents, including Lee Felts, arrived in Matewan, West Virginia and met with Albert Felts, who was already in the area. Albert and Lee were the brothers of Thomas Felts, the co-owner and director of the agency. Albert had already been in the area and had tried to bribe Mayor Testerman with $500 to place machine guns on roofs in the town; Testerman refused. That afternoon Albert and Lee along with 11 other men set out to the Stone Mountain Coal Co. property. The first family they evicted was a woman and her children; the woman's husband was not home at the time. They forced them out at gunpoint and threw their belongings in the road under a light but steady rain. The miners who saw it were furious, and sent word to town.

As the agents walked to the train station to leave town, Police Chief Sid Hatfield and a group of deputized miners confronted them and told them they were under arrest. Albert Felts replied that in fact he had a warrant for Hatfield's arrest. Testerman was alerted, and he ran out into the street after a miner shouted that Sid had been arrested. Hatfield backed into the store and Testerman asked to see the warrant. After reviewing it, the mayor exclaimed, "This is a bogus warrant." With these words, a gunfight erupted and Hatfield shot Albert Felts. Testerman and Albert and Lee Felts were among the ten men killed (three from the town and seven from the agency). Albert and Lee Felts were buried in Galax, Virginia in what is now the Felts Memorial Cemetery. Their funeral was attended by over 3,000 people.

This gunfight became known as the Matewan Massacre, and its symbolic significance was enormous for the miners. The seemingly invincible Baldwin-Felts had been beaten. Sid Hatfield became an immediate legend and hero to the union miners, and a symbol of hope that the oppression of coal operators and their hired guns could be overthrown. Throughout the summer and into the fall of 1920 the union gained strength in Mingo County, as did the resistance of the coal operators. Low-intensity warfare was waged up and down the Tug River. In late June state police under the command of Captain Brockus raided the Lick Creek tent colony near Williamson. Miners were said to have fired on Brockus and Martin's men from the colony, and in response the state police shot and arrested miners, ripped the canvas tents to shreds and scattered the mining families' belongings. Both sides were bolstering their arms, and Sid Hatfield continued to be a problem, especially when he converted Testerman's jewelry store into a gun shop.

On January 26, 1921, the trial of Hatfield for killing Albert Felts began. It was in the national spotlight and brought much attention to the miners' cause. Hatfield's stature and mythical status grew as the trial proceeded. He posed and talked to reporters, fanning the flames of his own legend. All men were acquitted in the end, but overall the union was facing significant setbacks. Eighty percent of mines had reopened with the importation of replacements and the signing of yellow-dog contracts by ex-strikers returning to the mines. In mid-May 1921 union miners launched a full-scale assault on non-union mines. In a short time the conflict had consumed the entire Tug River Valley. This "Three Days Battle" was finally ended by a flag of truce and the implementation of martial law. From the beginning, the miners perceived the enforcement of martial law as one-sided. Hundreds of miners were arrested; the smallest of infractions could mean imprisonment, while those on the side of "law and order" were seen as immune. The miners responded with guerrilla tactics and violence.

In the midst of this tense situation, Hatfield traveled to McDowell County on 1 August 1921 to stand trial on charges of dynamiting a coal tipple. Along with him traveled a good friend, Ed Chambers, and their wives. As they walked up the courthouse stairs, unarmed and flanked by their wives, a group of Baldwin-Felts agents standing at the top of the stairs opened fire. Hatfield was killed instantly. Chambers was bullet-riddled and rolled to the bottom of the stairs. Despite Sally Chambers' protests, one of the agents (Charles Everett Lively) ran down the stairs and shot Chambers once more, point blank in the back of the head. Hatfield's and Chambers' bodies were returned to Matewan, and word of the slayings spread through the mountains.

The miners were angry at the way Hatfield had been slain, and that it appeared the assassins would escape punishment. They began to pour out of the mountains and take up arms.

Mingo County

Economy

Scrip
restriction to literature/speech

Project Credits

Cory
Izzy Lead Level Design
Jeffery Level Design
David UI
Hunter Sound Design

RemakeWV / Coal-Mine-War

readme

Coal Mine War Museum

Organizations

People

Battles

Economy

Local Resources:

Videos:

Docs:

Weapon Refs

Project Credits