Life as a West Virginia coal miner in the early 20th century meant living at the mercy of coal companies.

Miners were paid low wages, used rented tools, and lived in company housing.

Wages were often paid in script.

This was credit that could only be used at company-owned stores.

And trying to organize for better working conditions

meant risking eviction, unemployment, and violence.

Coal operators wanted to stamp out any effort of the miners to unionize, and there was a private

army at their disposal.

This included local police, paid to harass union organizers,

and armed mine guards from the Baldwin-Felds Detective Agency.

But many miners were determined to organize for better pay and

working conditions to end violence by mine guards and to be able to join the Union.

Songwriter Walter Seacrest described the miners story in the lyrics of his song

Law in the West Virginia Hills. These miners got together one warm July day, they laid away their tools and struck for better pay.

Then the cruel company gunman with officers from all around came and drove them from the houses, threw their stuff out on the ground.

The early 1900 saw several violent clashes between miners and coal company guards. The governor of West Virginia even declared

martial law three times. And on August 24, 1921, a few thousand miners gathered at Lens Creek in Canala County, West Virginia.

They were determined to march the 65 miles south towards Logan County to rescue

miners there who had been jailed and abused for trying

to unionize.

A local union official named Bill Blizzard officially led the miner army. In response, the coal companies and the governor quickly assembled

the state police, a citizen militia, and the mine guards. As the armed miners marched to Logan County, their numbers grew to several thousand.

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