My mother was born in 1925, in Logan County, West Virginia.  Her father was a teacher, and spent the first half of his professional life working in little schools, often with just a single classroom, that served the small coal mining communities along the border of West Virginia and Kentucky.  In the early 20^th century, this was a rough, poverty-stricken area where education rarely extended to children in their teens.  As both teacher and principal of these small schools, my grandfather was no doubt a respected member of the community.  Still, it must have been a very difficult task to instill a love of learning to children whose parents were more concerned with where the next meal was coming from, or whether their  breadwinner would suffer sudden death from a collapsing mine, or, more likely, from the longterm agony of black lung disease.

 My grandfather (standing in rear) with his class, 1915

A few years before my mother was born, Logan County was the scene of the bloodiest labor strife in American history.  The catalyst was the murder of police chief Sid Hatfield of neighboring Mingo County by thuggish private detectives who had been hired by the Stone Mountain Coal Company to prevent the United Mine Workers Union from organizing in the area.  Following the murder, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones called on miners to march on Logan County and set up a union by force.  Two weeks later, 13,000 miners were marching down the Kanawah River Valley toward Logan County, eventually commandeering a train to meet up with armed union organizers from throughout West Virginia. 

The anti-union sheriff of Logan County, with financial backing from the Logan County Coal Operators Association, hired a private army of 2000 well-armed men to disperse the union organizers.  Fearing a bloodbath, most of the miners started to return home.  The Logan County sheriff, however, was not to be denied his battle.  Several union sympathizers in the county were shot, and many families were caught in the crossfire.

At this news, the enraged miners turned around, commandeered several more trains, and headed back to Logan County.  Over 100 were killed in the ensuing battle.  President Warren Harding authorized World War I warplanes to drop several bombs and gas on the union organizers.  This is probably the only time in American history that air power was used by the American government against its own citizens.

Although the union organizers lost the "Union War" of the early 1920's, the longterm impact was much more favorable to them.  The tactics deployed by the coal companies were deplored by many across the nation, and for the first time people outside the immediate area saw just how terrible conditions were in the mining communities.  Before long, laws protecting the rights of miners to organize were passed in Washington, and the union movement saw a great resurgence that lasted for over a generation.

Sheriff's deputies prepare to fight Union organizers.  Note the machine gun on the left side of the picture! 

By the time of my mother’s birth, the family was living in Lundale, West Virginia, one of several small coal mining towns on Buffalo Creek.  On February 26, 1972, Lundale and the neighboring communities along Buffalo Creek tragically made national news.  They were virtually washed off the face of the earth when a coal slurry dam burst, sending 132 million gallons of thick, black, waste water down the narrow valley.  In a matter of minutes, 125 people were killed, 1,121 injured, and over 4,000 left homeless.   This was just four days after a federal inspector declared the slurry dam “satisfactory”, posing no danger to nearby residents.

While my mother was still a small child, the family moved to Man, West Virginia, where Buffalo Creek empties into the Guyandotte River.  Man was, and still is a small town, with less than 800 residents in the 2000 census.  Nevertheless, it was larger than Lundale and the other upstream communities along Buffalo Creek, and is actually one of the largest towns in Logan County. 

 Mom, with her mother and brother in Man, about 1930

My grandfather was the principal of Man School,  as well as the troop leader for the Boy Scouts.  Once he took his Scout troop on a hike into the mountains.  After they had wandered far up a remote trail, a man with a long beard and a shotgun approached them.  “What’re you folks doin’ up here?” he asked.  My grandfather answered that he was the principal of the school in Man, and that he was taking his Boy Scout troop on a hike.  “Alright,” the man said.  “Up yonder there’s a fork in the trail.  You just make sure you stay to the left, and don’t go wanderin’ off on that other trail, you hear?”  Apparently, the man had a whisky still hidden on the other trail, and he did not want my grandfather to see it!

Mom in center, with friends, about 1933

Logan county, along with neighboring Mingo County, was where most of the Hatfields, of the the Hatfield-McCoy feud, lived.  The McCoys were just over the border in Kentucky.  The Hatfield-McCoy feud has faded into the recesses of historical memory for many Americans.  However, it is an iconic source for many of the stereoptypical images of long bearded, shotgun toting hillbillies that many still associate with rural Appalachia. 

The feud began toward the end of the Civil War.  The West Virginia Hatfields were Confederate sympathizers, and the Kentucky McCoys favored the Union.  The patriarch of the Hatfield clan, Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield, had formed a Confederate militia, called the Logan Wildcats.  Not long after Harmon McCoy came home from the front to recover from a broken leg, he was found murdered in a cave.  Most assumed it was the work of the Logan Wildcats.  The Hatfield-McCoy feud had begun, and would rage off and on until 1891.  By the time it ended, 11 members of the two clans had been murdered.

When my mother was a little girl, the memory of the Hatfield-McCoy feud was still very vivid.  Even those who were not involved seemed to have strong opinions.  Nearly 100 years after the feud ended, my nonagenarian grandmother told me, “The Hatfields were good church-goin’ folks.  Those McCoys were mostly white trash.”  My uncle, who was listening to our conversation, winked at me and said, “Ma, the whole bunch of them were barely civilized!”

Hatfield clan --  Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield seated second from left

Today, there is a small tourist industry in Logan County that is dedicated to the Hatfield-McCoy feud.  You can even visit the Hatfield-McCoy Museum, housed in a trailer outside the village of Sarah Ann.   Several years ago my wife and I did just that.  Inside the trailer were pictures of the murdered feud victims, a T-shirt display, and two friendly, elderly gentlemen, one a Hatfield and the other a McCoy.  The men were obviously long-time friends who chuckled when we asked if there were still any hard feelings between the two families.  My wife and I spent about 10 or 15 minutes there, and I bought a T-shirt before leaving.  It pictured a bearded man wielding a shotgun astride his horse, and included the caption, "Anderson 'Devil Anse' Hatfield and his horse, Fred".  It was a very sad day for me when I had to retire that shirt several years later.  I love kooky T-shirts!

Up the road from the museum is the Hatfield cemetery, where Devil Anse and his clan are interred. 

 Entrance to Hatfield Cemetery

Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield gravesite

Logan County is a place of amazing contrast.  Its scenery is at times breathtaking.  There is not a straight road in the entire county.  The best advice is to view that fact as a blessing.  A leisurely drive on those curvy roads is a wonderful way to spend a day.

Unfortunately, the area is under an environmental siege.  Logan County is one of the main areas of West Virginia where “mountaintop removal” is being used as a substitute for traditional subterranean mining.  Here is a Google Earth view with Buffalo Creek running through the middle of the picture.  The creek ends at the bottom of the picture, at the town of Man.  The scars on either side of the creek are what remains after the mining companies blast the mountains away.

Here is a closer view:

 This was once the top of a mountain

Coal was a bitter fact of life in Logan County when my grandfather was a young man, and when my mother was a little girl.  Despite the fact it powered America’s emergence as an industrial giant, the men -- and boys -- who worked the mines were forced to live in dire poverty.  When the miners attempted to improve their lot, the effort was met with violent retribution.  The miners are treated better now, and the nature of the work is less dangerous, but at what price?  What will Logan County be when its mountains are no more?