The Fascinating History Of Welch, West Virginia and McDowell County

The Fascinating History Of Welch, West Virginia

Appalachia (/ˌæpəˈlætʃə, -leɪtʃə, -leɪʃə/) is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, to Cheaha Mountain in Alabama, Appalachia typically refers only to the cultural region of the central and southern portions of the range, from the Catskill Mountains of New York southwest to the Blue Ridge Mountains which run southwest from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia, and the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina.

The first workers strike, in West Virginia, was the Cabin Creek and Paint Creek strike of 1912–1913. With help from Mary "Mother Jones" Harris Jones, an important figure in unionizing the mine workers, the miners demanded better pay, better work conditions, the right to trade where they pleased (ending the practice of forcing miners to buy from company-owned stores), and recognition of the United Mine Workers (UMW).

The mining companies refused to meet the demands of the workers and instead hired Baldwin-Felts agents equipped with high-powered rifles to guard the mines and act as strikebreakers. After the Agents arrived, the miners either moved out or were evicted from the houses they had been renting from the coal companies, and moved into coal camps that were being supported by the Union. Approximately 35,000 people lived in these coal camps.

A month after the strike began, hostilities began with the arrival of the Baldwin-Felts Agents who provoked the miners. Socialist Party activists began supplying miners with weapons: 6 machine guns, 1,000 high-powered rifles, and 50,000 rounds of ammunition.