The West Virginia Mine Wars: Paint Creek and Cabin Creek

Stories of Appalachia

For a century and a half the king of central Appalachia has been coal. That mineral powered the industrial revolution in America, made some men and corporations very wealthy and provided jobs for the Appalachian men and women who dug it out of the ground.
Those jobs, though, didn't pay nearly well enough to justify the human costs of the work, so in 1912 miners in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek areas of West Virginia went on strike, triggering the first battle in what's come to be known as the West Virginia Mine Wars.
Today we tell that story.
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