Tag: Blair Mountain

Events Across the State To Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Mine Wars, Battle of Blair Mountain

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain. While the anniversary is still weeks away, organizations and communities in southern West Virginia are already commemorating the centennial.

The Battle of Blair Mountain is one of West Virginia’s largest moments in American history.

As part of the Mine Wars, coal miners marched near the Boone-Logan County line from late August to Sept. 3. The march was the largest labor uprising in U.S. history.

It happened in the early 1900’s after coal miners in West Virginia endured years of dangerous conditions underground and brutal political and cultural treatment above ground.

By 1921, the miners decided to fight for their fellow miners in the Mingo County town of Williamson, who were locked up without trial. They were charged with violating martial law, an act that gives absolute power to the federal military during times of “war, rebellion, or natural disaster.” The battle ended when martial law was declared again, and U.S. Army troops disarmed the miners.

The uprising has been largely underreported but organizations and communities are hoping the events this year will provide more opportunities for people to visit and learn about America’s labor history.

Dozens of events are taking place online and in communities that played an important part in the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Mine Wars. Some of those towns include Matewan and Williamson in Mingo County, Madison, in Boone County and Welch in McDowell County.

Some of the groups working to organize the events include the Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, the West Virginia Humanities Council, and the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.

The next event is a performance of the play “Terror of the Tug” in Summers County at Pipestem Resort State Park amphitheatre on Saturday, Aug. 7 at 8 p.m. The main events are happening Sept. 3 and Labor Day, the first Monday of the month, Sept. 6. Some of the events include outdoor plays, reenactments, tours, virtual roundtable discussions and retracing the march to Blair Mountain.

The anniversary is Sept. 3, so Labor Day Weekend marks the 100th anniversary of the centennial. You can find a list of events commemorating the 100th anniversary at this site.

December 28, 1879: Brigadier General Billy Mitchell Born in France

Brigadier General Billy Mitchell was born in France on December 28, 1879. By 1921, he’d become chief of the Army Air Service. After seeing the potential military impact of aircraft during World War I, he wanted to demonstrate how planes could be used to quell civil unrest at home.

The West Virginia mine wars provided him with an ample opportunity. On August 25, 1921, armed miners began their long march culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County. Billy Mitchell arrived in Charleston the next day and ordered the 88th Squadron—part of the 1st Provisional Air Brigade—to southern West Virginia. Mitchell’s planes were used solely for reconnaissance. Many got lost, and one crashed in Nicholas County—located in the opposite direction from Logan.

Mitchell’s planes remain a confusing part of the mine wars story because Don Chafin, the Logan County sheriff, hired his own pilots to drop makeshift bleach and shrapnel bombs on the miners. Although Mitchell’s planes never dropped bombs, Blair Mountain holds the distinction of being the only time in U.S. history when law enforcement used planes to bomb American civilians.

Feds to Drop Appeal of Ruling in Blair Mountain Delisting

The Department of the Interior is dropping its appeal of a ruling that said the agency shouldn’t have removed the site of the Blair Mountain labor battle from a list of historic places.

In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, the department and Secretary Sally Jewell filed a motion to drop the appeal.

In April, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington ruled the department was wrong in removing Blair Mountain from the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

A lawyer for coal companies that owned potential mining sites in the area pushed for the delisting.

Environmental groups had challenged the delisting.

In 1921, some 10,000 unionizing coal miners battled police and hired guns at Blair Mountain. Sixteen men died before miners surrendered.

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.

Mine Wars Museum Focuses on W.Va. History, No Matter How Bloody

This past weekend, over 500 people visited Matewan, West Virginia- to catch a glimpse of a brand new museum that tells the story of a dark and bloody time in West Virginia’s labor history. 

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 that is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

 

Officials Move to Protect Historic Battleground from Coal Mining

State mining regulators have ordered a coal company to add a buffer zone at a surface mine near Blair Mountain.

The 1,000-foot buffer zone ordered by the Department of Environmental Protection is aimed at prevented mining activities from coming too close to the site where coal miners trying to unionize fought police and hired guns in 1921.

Division of Mining and Reclamation acting director Harold Ward tells the Charleston Gazette that state inspectors discovered that Aracoma Coal’s state permit for its Camp Branch mine didn’t include a buffer zone.

Ward says the change will affect about 50 to 60 acres at the mine.

Alpha spokesman Steve Higginbottom says the company doesn’t believe the change will have an adverse impact on its permit.

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