Matewan and the West Virginia Mine Wars
Matewan is a Mingo County town on the Tug Fork, and the Devil Anse trailhead is in town. It is also where a 1920 gunfight took place that the National Park Service calls a major catalyst for the Battle of Blair Mountain.
This page covers the labor story. For the family feud that gave the trails their name, see the feud history and the feud sites guide.
The Mine Wars in brief
The WV Encyclopedia dates the Mine Wars to 1912 through 1922 in the southern coalfields. The period opened with the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek strike in Kanawha County in 1912. In January 1920 the United Mine Workers began a drive to organize the non-union mines of southern West Virginia. About 3,000 miners joined. Many were fired and put out of company houses, and Baldwin-Felts detectives carried out the evictions.
The Matewan Massacre, May 19, 1920
Baldwin-Felts agents came to Matewan to evict striking miners' families. Police Chief Sid Hatfield, who supported the strike, and Mayor Cabell Testerman challenged the detectives' authority to do it. Late that afternoon, near the railroad station, an argument over who could arrest whom turned into a gunfight.
Ten people died: seven detectives, including Albert and Lee Felts, brothers of one of the agency's founders, along with Mayor Testerman and two other townspeople. Hatfield and other strikers were tried for murder in early 1921 and acquitted.
Welch, the march and Blair Mountain, 1921
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| August 1, 1921 | Baldwin-Felts detectives shoot and kill Sid Hatfield and his deputy, Ed Chambers, on the steps of the McDowell County courthouse in Welch. Both men were unarmed. |
| August 1921 | Armed miners gather at Marmet in Kanawha County and march toward Logan and Mingo counties. Estimates of their number run as high as 20,000. |
| Late summer 1921 | Miners meet deputies, mine guards and state police at Blair Mountain, near the Boone and Logan county line. |
| End of the battle | President Warren G. Harding sends 2,500 federal troops and a squadron of bombers. The miners go home. |
| Afterward | Hundreds of miners face charges up to treason. March leader Bill Blizzard is tried in Charles Town, Lewisburg and Fayetteville before the charges are dropped. |
The National Park Service calls Blair Mountain the largest armed labor uprising in U.S. history. The number killed is not known; the WV Encyclopedia calls the casualty counts conjecture. The union collapsed in southern West Virginia after the march, and the coal companies' control went largely unchallenged until the New Deal.
The Blair Mountain battlefield's place on the National Register of Historic Places has its own history. It was listed in 2009, removed nine months later after an ownership dispute, and reinstated in 2018.
What to see in Matewan today
The Matewan Historic District has been a National Historic Landmark since 1997.
- West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. Opened in 2015. It is at 112 Mate Street, on the first floor of the former Bank of Matewan building, and presents what it calls the people's history of the Mine Wars, with artifacts from the period. Check its visitor page for current hours before you go; it notes that cell service in town is intermittent and offers free wifi.
- Matewan Depot Replica Museum. 100 Bridge Street. A replica of the depot that stood across the tracks from downtown until the 1960s, with artifacts from the feud and the massacre. It also works as the town's welcome center.
- Matewan Floodwall. WV Tourism describes an etched mural of the town's history on the wall, laid out as a timeline.
Riding in
The Devil Anse trailhead is in Matewan, and the system connects with Buffalo Mountain, so you can build a museum stop into a riding day from Williamson. Stay on the town's approved connector routes and check the current map. The Matewan town guide covers riding in town.
Welch, where Sid Hatfield was killed at the McDowell County courthouse, is in the same county as the Warrior and Indian Ridge systems.