Matewan West Virginia, 1920
The Stone Mountain Coal Company operated a mine in the Pocahontas Coalfield, paying its miners in scrip which could only be used to make purchases in their company store. When the UMW increased activity in the Pocahontas Coalfield, bringing unionization to several other mining companies in the region, their miners won concessions including increased pay and better working conditions. Stone Mountain fought the UMW by firing workers who joined the union and evicting them from their homes in the company town.
Stone Mountain hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to intimidate workers from attending UMW meetings and joining the union, and to evict the families of miners who had already joined. Their company town was just outside the town of Matewan, whose Mayor and Sheriff sided with the miners and their families. Matewan’s Sheriff was Sid Hatfield, a relative of the family which had the famous feud with the McCoys.
When Baldwin-Felt agents arrived on May 19, 1920 they evicted several residents of the Stone Mountain Camp. They then had dinner at a Matewan Hotel before walking to the train station to return to Bluefield, West Virginia. Encountered by Sid Hatfield, who claimed to have a warrant for their arrest, they produced another warrant purporting to be for Hatfield’s arrest. Matewan Mayor Caleb Testerman examined the warrant, which was presented by Albert Felt, and declared it to be fraudulent. While they were confronting each other they were surrounded by several miners, all of whom were armed.
It has never been determined who fired first, but a gun battle erupted in the streets of Matewan between the detectives, Hatfield, his deputy, and several miners. Mayor Testerman was wounded, and died soon after; some people said that he had been shot by Hatfield either by accident, or because Hatfield was having an affair with the Mayor’s wife and killed the mayor when the opportunity was presented. By the end of the gunfight seven Baldwin-Flats detectives were dead, as were two miners and the mayor. Four others were wounded.
The street battle was the beginning of a chain of violence involving the miners, Hatfield, the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency and the State of West Virginia. UMW efforts to unionize the Stone Mountain Coal Company increased, encouraged in part by the success in removing the Baldwin-Flats Detectives from the area.