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Herigstad further states: “Mayor G. C. Kincer of Jenkins, Kentucky indicated
this Thompson No. 91 belonged to the Consolidation Coal Company of
West Virginia and Kentucky, before coming to the city of Jenkins, Kentucky.
Consolidation Coal Company was the largest coal company in West
Virginia, formed by the consolidation of many smaller mines. Now today,
2012, this company is known as Consol Energy. City of Jenkins, Kentucky
[On display in Mayor G. C. Kincer’s Office GH 4/13]”. Main Island Creek Coal
Company was one of the companies absorbed by Consolidation Coal
Company, and this Thompson likely saw continued use guarding coal
mines in Jenkins, Kentucky.
The Coal Wars (1890-1930) were a series of dramatic armed conflicts in
the United States resulting from the economic exploitation of workers.
Four months after the original shipment of this Thompson bearing serial
number 91, the Battle of Blair Mountain occurred in Logan County, West
Virginia, and lasted for five days from August 25 to September 2, 1921. The
battle was fought between as many as 10,000 armed coal miners and 3,000
combined forces of law enforcement, state militia, Baldwin-Felts Detective
Agency agents and strikebreakers. “The Logan County Defenders” backed
by the coal mine operators fought against the miners. The forwarded
shipment of this Thompson to Gore and the Main Island Creek Coal
Company would indicate it was used on the side of The Logan County
Defenders.
The Battle of Blair Mountain was a culmination of decades of unrest,
frustration, and tensions between coal mine workers and mine
management. The coal miners attempted to unionize the southwestern
West Virginia coal fields, and many were forcefully evicted from their
company homes by Baldwin-Felts Agency agents hired by the coal mine
companies. Many workers were forced into living in tent cities, and a
number of incidents and shootouts led to a final breaking point.
A major catalyst was the Battle of Matewan (also known as the Matewan
Massacre) on May 19, 1920, in the town of Matewan, West Virginia, in
bordering Mingo County. The shootout followed a series of evictions
carried out by a dozen agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency.
According to some accounts of the incident, when confronted in regards
to the legality of their warrants, which included a warrant for the arrest of
pro-union Police Chief Sid Hatfield, Baldwin-Felts Superintendent Albert
Felts shot Mayor Cabell Testerman, Police Chief Sid Hatfield killed Albert
Felts, and a shootout ensued in which seven agents were killed, including
Albert Felts’s brother Lee Felts, and two coal miners were killed in the
crossfire. Police Chief Sid Hatfield was indicted on murder charges over the
incident, and he and his deputy Ed Chambers were ambushed and shot
and killed on the courthouse steps by Baldwin-Felts detectives on August
1, 1921. Sid Hatfield’s death galvanized the union movement.
The first skirmishes commenced on the morning of August 25, 1921, and
within a few days the battle was fully underway. A wide variety of firearms
were used during the Battle of Blair Mountain by both sides ranging from
muzzle loading Southern Mountain Rifles to a variety of Winchester lever
action rifles, older military rifles such as the Springfield Trapdoor and Krag-
Jorgensen rifles and imported Swiss Vetterli rifles, a variety of shotguns
and handguns, and even Gatling guns, Colt Model 1895 “Potato Digger”
machine guns, Colt Model 1917 machine guns, and early Thompson Model
1921 submachine guns such as this one. The West Virginia State Police
had 37 Thompson submachine guns on hand at the time of the battle and
showed up to Logan County nearly in full force.