Today starts out with a visit to the Beckley Exibition Coal mine. This mine operated from 1890 to 1910. The market for the coal dug here was local it was distributed by horse and buggy to people for home heating, probably blacksmithing, and other local uses. This was a high quality coal seam called the sewell seam. The seam was 30 to 40 inches thick which meant that the miners worked all day with a pick and shovel on tjeir knees or sides. Six to Twenty miners worked the mine for the 20 years it was mined going back into the seam 5 to 7 miles. The coal was hand loaded into a car that ran on wooden rails. For his efforts he earned 20 cents a ton or a few dollars a day.
Our next stop in Beckley was at TEREX SHM a manufacturing company that is the world leader in the production of highwall mining systems. These giant machines are the cutting edge technology in highwall surface mining. These machines are sent from Beckley to places around the world. It is great to see world leading manufacturing and technology coming from Beckley WV.
Our next stop was Welch in McDowell County. The purpose of the stop is go visit the site of the killing of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers. This event is tied to coal because Sid was the sheriff of Matewan one of the few independent towns in southern WV that was not controlled by the coal companies. Sid had been a miner himself and refused to be bought out by the coal operators.
The United Mine Workers, the union of the miners were desperate to unionize the southern WV Coal Fields. The operators, due to the cost of labor effecting their ability to make money, were just as determined to keep the union out and not give the miners the pay increase the union would demand is they organized. This set the stage fot the events that led to the shootings of Hatfield and Chambers at Welch.
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