More than three decades before the American Revolution, Colonial explorers had already discovered coal in the southern Appalachian Mountains. While scouting tributaries of the Kanawha River in 1742, a man named Peter Salley christened one of these streams Coal River after finding outcroppings in the hills above. Little did he know that dozens of seams covering hundreds of square miles lay all around containing billions of tons of the combustible fuel. It mattered little, however, as the territory was a vast rugged wilderness of steep mountains and deep narrow valleys remote from civilization where coal might be of use.
As settlers moved west they largely bypassed the southern mountains in search of more hospitable land. It was not until 1873 when the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad reached Huntington by way of the New and Kanawha Rivers that the vast reserves of coal became accessible. The coal industry in West Virginia was born and when the Norfolk & Western Railroad reached the Ohio River in 1895, it exploded transforming the sparsely settled hills into a great industrial zone. Coal was America’s power source and like oil today, the country had an insatiable appetite for it.
The combination of rapid change and the opportunity to make incredible fortunes combined to create tension and conflict which led to violence and eventually open warfare between exploited miners and their capitalist bosses. A series of strikes, gunfights, and assassinations followed culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain which took place in Logan County in 1921. There, more than ten thousand armed coal miners fought thousands of mine guards, deputies, state police, and company employees armed with modern military machine guns, light artillery, and airplanes that dropped bombs on the miners.
This history, now commonly known as the West Virginia Mine Wars has long been ignored by mainstream historians and as incredible and important as it is, it has faded into the shadows of time. And there it has remained largely unknown even to the generations of West Virginians whose forbearers fought those battles. The struggle continues to this day but in order to understand the continuing conflict one must first know this history.
Coal Country Tours LLC is pleased to offer to those who wish to learn more, to the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of coal miners everywhere, and to those who seek a better understanding of our past and present, the opportunity to tour the southern West Virginia coalfields and to visit the sites and learn the history of the West Virginia Mine Wars.
We invite you to join us as we learn about the railroads that opened the territory and as we travel deep into an early 20th century coal mine to learn about the work and lives of the early miners. Come with us as we visit an authentic 1890 coal company store and learn the disturbing secrets of its operations. Travel with us to Holly Grove where striking miners and their families were machine-gunned in their tents and visit the unmarked graveyard where those killed in the fighting repose. Walk the ridge of Blair Mountain where the largest armed insurrection in US history excluding the Civil War took place.
See the streets of Matewan where ten men died in a running gun battle in 1920 when Police Chief Sid Hatfield and striking miners fought the notorious Baldwin Felts Detectives. Stand on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse where the Baldwin Felts men exacted their revenge when they assassinated Hatfield and his boyhood friend Ed Chambers a year later. Experience the wealth and privilege of the coal Barons in the town of Bramwell. And finally, tour the jail where union leader Bill Blizzard and other miners were incarcerated and the same, adjacent courthouse where he and fellow coal miner Walter Allen were tried for treason as was the famous abolitionist John Brown half a century before.
Coal Country Tours is pleased to announce the inaugural West Virginia Mine War Tour coming on June 16-17-18, 2011.
As settlers moved west they largely bypassed the southern mountains in search of more hospitable land. It was not until 1873 when the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad reached Huntington by way of the New and Kanawha Rivers that the vast reserves of coal became accessible. The coal industry in West Virginia was born and when the Norfolk & Western Railroad reached the Ohio River in 1895, it exploded transforming the sparsely settled hills into a great industrial zone. Coal was America’s power source and like oil today, the country had an insatiable appetite for it.
The combination of rapid change and the opportunity to make incredible fortunes combined to create tension and conflict which led to violence and eventually open warfare between exploited miners and their capitalist bosses. A series of strikes, gunfights, and assassinations followed culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain which took place in Logan County in 1921. There, more than ten thousand armed coal miners fought thousands of mine guards, deputies, state police, and company employees armed with modern military machine guns, light artillery, and airplanes that dropped bombs on the miners.
This history, now commonly known as the West Virginia Mine Wars has long been ignored by mainstream historians and as incredible and important as it is, it has faded into the shadows of time. And there it has remained largely unknown even to the generations of West Virginians whose forbearers fought those battles. The struggle continues to this day but in order to understand the continuing conflict one must first know this history.
Coal Country Tours LLC is pleased to offer to those who wish to learn more, to the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of coal miners everywhere, and to those who seek a better understanding of our past and present, the opportunity to tour the southern West Virginia coalfields and to visit the sites and learn the history of the West Virginia Mine Wars.
We invite you to join us as we learn about the railroads that opened the territory and as we travel deep into an early 20th century coal mine to learn about the work and lives of the early miners. Come with us as we visit an authentic 1890 coal company store and learn the disturbing secrets of its operations. Travel with us to Holly Grove where striking miners and their families were machine-gunned in their tents and visit the unmarked graveyard where those killed in the fighting repose. Walk the ridge of Blair Mountain where the largest armed insurrection in US history excluding the Civil War took place.
See the streets of Matewan where ten men died in a running gun battle in 1920 when Police Chief Sid Hatfield and striking miners fought the notorious Baldwin Felts Detectives. Stand on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse where the Baldwin Felts men exacted their revenge when they assassinated Hatfield and his boyhood friend Ed Chambers a year later. Experience the wealth and privilege of the coal Barons in the town of Bramwell. And finally, tour the jail where union leader Bill Blizzard and other miners were incarcerated and the same, adjacent courthouse where he and fellow coal miner Walter Allen were tried for treason as was the famous abolitionist John Brown half a century before.
Coal Country Tours is pleased to announce the inaugural West Virginia Mine War Tour coming on June 16-17-18, 2011.
Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield
Brig.General Billy Mitchell
Mary Harris better known as Mother Jones
Please Sign Guestbook
2012
West Virginia Mine War Tour.
Tamarack Cultural Center, Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine, Whipple Company Store, Holly Grove, Kayford, Blair Mountain Battlefield, historic Matewan, McDowell County Courthouse, historic Bramwell, Pocahontas Exhibition Coal Mine. A $150 deposit reserves your space. Payment in full due 60 days prior to departure. Lower rates for children with parents and for higher occupancy sharing of rooms.
May 17-20, 2012 Departing Columbus, OH, pickup Athens, OH. $549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details. Join our tours in Beckley at Tamarack and save, only $499. College or high school students only $499. UMWA members & family, $499.
West Virginia Mine War Tour.
Tamarack Cultural Center, Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine, Whipple Company Store, Holly Grove, Kayford, Blair Mountain Battlefield, historic Matewan, McDowell County Courthouse, historic Bramwell, Pocahontas Exhibition Coal Mine. A $150 deposit reserves your space. Payment in full due 60 days prior to departure. Lower rates for children with parents and for higher occupancy sharing of rooms.
May 17-20, 2012 Departing Columbus, OH, pickup Athens, OH. $549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details. Join our tours in Beckley at Tamarack and save, only $499. College or high school students only $499. UMWA members & family, $499.
June 7-10, 2012 Departing Pittsburgh, PA, pickup Fairmont, WV. $549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details. Join our tours in Beckley at Tamarack and save, only $499. College or high school students only $499. UMWA members & family, $499.
October 4-7, 2012 Departing Baltimore, MD area, pickup Charles Town, WV. $549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details.
Tour photos courtesy of Klair Gaston
Whipple Company Store
Matewan, WV
Armed coal miners at Blair Mountain
Browning machine gun and Hotchkiss cannon used against striking coal miners
Baldwin Felts mine guards & detectives with a machine gun at their fort at Mucklow on Paint Creek
Baldwin Felts detectives and the "death special" an armored car mounted with two machine guns
McDowell County Courthouse, Welch, WV, site of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers' assassination.
Widows Jessie Testerman Hatfield and Sally Chambers
One of the many mansions in Bramwell, WV once owned by coal operators.
Coal miners' children
Thomas Felts, head of the Baldwin Felts Detective Agency
Tamarack Cultural Center, Beckley
Rev. James Wilburn of Blair, WV. Photo taken in the Jefferson County Jail.
Jefferson County, WV Jail
Young mule tenders
WV National Guard, Paint Creek
Fuel Administration poster, WWI
2012
Hatfield and McCoy Tour.
Stage Production of "Hatfields & Mccoys" @ Grandview State Park, cable car and jet boat ride to the New River Gorge Bridge, Hawks Nest State Park, historic Matewan, WV, execution site of the McCoy boys, historic Pikeville, KY, tour of McCoy country in Pike County, KY, tour of Hatfield country in Mingo & Logan Counties, WV, historic Bramwell, WV.
June 13-16, 2012 (this date was originally listed as June 14-17 in the 2012 brochure) Departing Baltimore, MD area, pickup Charles Town, WV. $549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details. Join our tours in Beckley at Tamarack and save, only $499. Students, college or high school also only $499.
June 21-24, 2012 Departing Charleston and Beckley, WV.
$549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details.
Join our tours in Beckley at Tamarack and save, only $499. Students, college or high school also only $499.
June 13-16, 2012 (this date was originally listed as June 14-17 in the 2012 brochure) Departing Baltimore, MD area, pickup Charles Town, WV. $549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details. Join our tours in Beckley at Tamarack and save, only $499. Students, college or high school also only $499.
June 21-24, 2012 Departing Charleston and Beckley, WV.
$549 per person, double occupancy. Click here for details.
Join our tours in Beckley at Tamarack and save, only $499. Students, college or high school also only $499.
Coal Country Tours
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Coal Country Tours News
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*This price is $50 off the regular price of $599 and applies to all reservations made before by March 15, 2012.
540-233-0543
Coming this Memorial Day - The History Channel mini series "Hatfields & McCoys" starring Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton. It remains to be seen if this series will tell the true history or the popular history with its legends and myths but you can learn the real history of the Hatfield McCoy feud by joining one of our Hatfield McCoy Tours. See details below and see the trailer for the History Channel mini series here. coalcountrytours@gmail.comtext.
If you live in Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, the Carolina's or elsewhere and our Columbus departure is not convenient, join our May 17-20 West Virginia Mine War Tour in Beckley at the Tamarack Center. Leave your car on the well lit, patrolled parking lot for the duration of the trip. We will pick you up there and drop you off at your car mid-afternoon on the 20th. You can do the same if you are interested in our June 16-19 Hatfield McCoy Tour.