August 9, 1954: Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin Died

On August 9, 1954, former Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin died in Huntington at age 67. Chafin had been elected Logan County assessor at the young age of 21 and sheriff at 25. After a term as county clerk, he was reelected sheriff in 1920.

  

Sheriff Chafin bitterly opposed labor unions, and, with funding from coal companies, used his deputies—including ones hired off the street—to keep the United Mine Workers of America out of Logan County.

He was hated so much by labor that he was once shot on sight by a union leader when he walked into UMWA headquarters in Charleston. The union man stated that his only regret was not using a more powerful pistol.

In 1921, Chafin led the resistance to the miners’ armed march on Logan County. He organized forces to combat the marchers at the Battle of Blair Mountain and had homemade bombs dropped on the miners.

Supposedly, Don Chafin received 10 cents for every ton of coal mined in Logan County. At the time of his death, he was a millionaire living in a Huntington penthouse.

Mine Wars Museum Receives Grant for Anniversary Project

The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum has received a $30,000 challenge grant for a project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain in 2021.

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced the grant last week. The museum is located in Matewan.

The grant will enable the museum to hire a director to coordinate activities. The museum said in a news release the grant is also intended to increase fundraising capacity and connect with humanities organizations across southern West Virginia.

The Battle of Blair Mountain lasted five days, unfolding on the border of Boone and Logan counties. The Blair Centennial Project is planned to last five days with activities across the counties where the conflict took place.

Screenings of the film “Matewan” are planned in October, with proceeds to benefit the centennial project.

John Wilburn Leads Miners Against Blair Mountain: August 30, 1921

On August 30, 1921, John Wilburn of Blair assembled between 50 and 75 armed men to attack Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin’s troops, which were entrenched at the pinnacle of Blair Mountain.

The 45-year-old coal miner and Baptist preacher told his followers it was time for him to lay down his Bible, take up his rifle, and fight for the union.

After camping that night, the group, which included two of his sons, ran into Logan Deputy John Gore and two nonunion miners—all three belonging to Chafin’s army. Both sides opened fire. Gore and Chafin’s two other men were shot dead. One of Wilburn’s men, a black miner, was also killed.

Both Wilburn and his son, John, were sentenced to 11 years for murder. However, Governor Ephraim Morgan reduced each of their sentences to five years, and Governor Howard Gore later pardoned the Wilburns after they’d served three years in the state penitentiary. John Wilburn and his son were two of the few people ever convicted for their roles in the Battle of Blair Mountain—the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.

Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin Died: August 9, 1954

On August 9, 1954, former Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin died in Huntington at age 67. Chafin had been elected Logan County assessor at the young age of 21 and sheriff at 25. After a term as county clerk, he was reelected sheriff in 1920.

Sheriff Chafin bitterly opposed labor unions, and, with funding from coal companies, used his deputies—including ones hired off the street—to keep the United Mine Workers of America out of Logan County.

He was hated so much by labor that he was once shot on sight by a union leader when he walked into UMWA headquarters in Charleston. The union man stated that his only regret was not using a more powerful pistol.

In 1921, Chafin led the resistance to the miners’ armed march on Logan County. He organized forces to combat the marchers at the Battle of Blair Mountain and had homemade bombs dropped on the miners.

Supposedly, Don Chafin received 10 cents for every ton of coal mined in Logan County. At the time of his death, he was a millionaire living in a Huntington penthouse.

Judge: Decision to Delist Blair Mountain Was Wrong

A federal judge in Washington has ruled that the U.S. Interior Department was wrong when it removed the site of the Blair Mountain labor battle from the National Register of Historic Places.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that Monday, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton granted a motion for summary judgment sought by groups that challenged a 2009 decision that Blair Mountain should be delisted.

The delisting was made at the urging of a lawyer for coal companies that own potential mining sites in the area.

Walton says in a 47-page opinion that federal officials didn’t verify a list of objecting landowners and failed to act transparently.

According to the ruling, the legal fight traces its roots to the 1921 “armed conflict between coal miners and strikebreakers” during the United Mine Workers efforts to unionize West Virginia’s southern coalfields.

Do You Know Where the Word "Redneck" Comes From? Mine Wars Museum Opens, Revives Lost Labor History

In the early 1900s, coal miners were fighting for the right to organize and to stop the practice of using mine guards. They also wanted an alternative to shopping at coal company stores and being paid in scrip, instead of money. In the early 1900’s, miners led a series of strikes in southern West Virginia, leading up to the climatic march on Blair Mountain in 1921.

Now, this history is honored at a museum, called the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum.

“My name’s David Hatfield, I’m the great-great nephew of Sid Hatfield, who was the police chief here back in 1920. So this mine wars museum means a lot to me, and to this town, and to this whole area. And I’m just grateful to all the people who worked on it, took their time, and blood sweat and tears, to make it possible. And if they could, I’d love for everybody to come down and see it because it’s something to behold.”

David Hatfield’s ancestor, Sid Hatfield, has come to represent many things for the people of Matewan, depending on who’s telling the story. For most people, Sid Hatfield became a hero who stood up for the families of striking miners.

But for the coal company owners and the Baldwin Felts Agents who opposed him, “Smiling” Sid Hatfield was seen as a lawless, renegade cop.

Credit W.Va. Mine Wars Museum
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During the Matewan Massacre of May 19, 1920, Baldwin Felts agents approached Sid Hatfield and mayor Testerman by the railroad tracks. 

“And just as they reenact here every year in Matewan, the two groups of men had a tense stand off, with the Baldwin Felts agents, asserting that they had a warrant for Sid Hatfield’s arrest, and the mayor insisting that their papers were bogus or falsified,” said Lou Martin, a historian and one of the board members of the Mine Wars Museum.

Nobody is sure which side fired first, but a gun fight erupted beside the railroad tracks in downtown Matewan.

 

Some of those bullet holes are still visible in the bricks in the back of the new Mine Wars Museum.

Beside the bullet holes, there’s also an audio exhibit where visitors can hear the story first hand- from interviews with Matewan residents. These interviews, as well as countless artifacts and research material from the mine wars, have been collected by local historians throughout the years. But there hasn’t been a local museum to curate them, until now.

Credit W.Va. Mine Wars Museum
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“All through the decades there have been people, especially locally, trying to preserve this history, trying to honor it. We feel them cheering us on, and we know that a lot of people have been working towards something like this for a long time,” said Martin.

And some of those people who’ve been working to preserve the Mine Wars history for many years joined up with young organizers and historians to build the new museum.

Mingo County native, Wilma Lee Steele, is one of the board members for the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. Steele is a retired art teacher. For her the passion of sharing this history started from telling young activists about the history behind the word “redneck” and the red bandana. Striking miners tied Red Bandanas around their necks during the march on Blair Mountain.

Credit W.Va. Mine Wars Museum
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Wilma Lee Steele

“The thing that gets me, I guess, and what makes me want to do this, and tell other people about this, is that all these immigrants from all these different countries, they didn’t speak the same language. They did not have the same culture. And they were fighting each other and divided. But when they tied on these bandanas and marched, they became a brotherhood. And one of the things I love about the union is that the union was one of the early ones that said equal pay for blacks and whites. It’s pretty special.”

“It was strange growing up with this history because when I was first learning about it this history was not being celebrated at all,” said Chuck Keeney, a history professor at Southern Community College. He’s another one of the board members of the new museum. He’s also the great-grandson of Frank Keeney, who led striking miners in the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912–1913. These were some of the bloodiest battles of the Mine Wars.

“The first time I heard my great-grandfather’s name was I was around 8-9 years old. And it was my great aunt’s house. And it was just a family gathering, and I was actually out back behind her house and was trying to throw a little toy knife into the side of the hill. And an old man walked up to me and said to me, ‘you have to learn how to throw that thing well. Because you never know, you might have a Baldwin Felts thug after you one day.’”

“And I had no idea what he was talking about. So I asked him, ‘what’s a Baldwin Felts thug? And why would they be after me? And he said, ‘well don’t you know that you’re Frank Keeney’s great grandson?’”

 

During the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike, Baldwin Felts agents were sent to fight the striking miners. After the strike, Frank Keeney became the president of the UMWA District 17 in 1917.

But Frank Keeney had blood on his hands, and historians generally did not name him a hero. He was tried for treason and murder, though he was acquitted.

Until recently, the story of the Mine Wars was largely uncelebrated, even by the UMWA.

“So I mean there are enormous chunks of our own history that are just missing. It’s no wonder that the people in our state have an identity crisis; we don’t know our own story. If you don’t know your own story, how can you determine what you are?” said Chuck Keeney.

That’s why the local community and volunteers from far and wide have come together to build the  Mine Wars Museum. The funds to build the museum came from the West Virginia Humanities Council, the United Mine Workers of America, the National Coal Heritage Area, Turn This Town Around, and hundreds of private donations.

And the museum, like the history, means different things for different people.

Wilma Lee Steele says she hopes the museum will become a place where people throughout the coalfields can come to reclaim their identity.

“I think that we have a lot to say, and I think we’re gonna say it. We’re gonna tell our history, and we’re gonna come together as a community.”

Credit W.Va. Mine Wars Museum
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Beginning May 23, the museum will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is located in downtown Matewan, 336 Mate Street. The museum’s board members are Greg Galford, Lou Martin, Chuck Keeney, Kenny King, Katey Lauer, Wilma Steele, Charles Dixon and Catherine Moore. Most of the museum’s designs and exhibits are by Shaun Slifer.  in Matewan. For more information, visit www.wvminewars.org. Note: there are many stories about the origins of the term “redneck”. Most scholars agree that the term probably was originally used at least a century before the Mine Wars, to refer to southern farmers who were exposed to long hours in the sun while working in the fields. Do you have a story about where the term redneck came from? You can send a tweet to Roxy Todd @RoxyMTodd to join the conversation.

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