The Town of Matewan
Matewan, founded in 1895, was a small independent town with only a few elected officials. The mayor at the time was Cabell Testerman, and the chief of police was Sid Hatfield. Both refused to succumb to the company's plans, and sided with the miners. In turn, the Stone Mountain Coal Corporation hired their own enforcers, the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, dubbed the “Baldwin Thugs” by the coal miners. The Baldwin-Felts Detectives had earned a reputation for their brutality. The coal operators hired them to evict the miners and their families from the company owned houses. As a result, hundreds of miner families spent that spring in tents.
Read more about this topic: Matewan Massacre
Famous quotes containing the word town:
“And oh, I knew, I knew,
And said out loud, I couldn’t bide the smother
And heat so close in; but the thought of all
The woods and town on fire by me, and all
The town turned out to fight for me that held me.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)