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What Is the Importance of the Battle of Blair Mountain?
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Map highlighting the location of the Battle of Blair Mountain in southern West Virginia, United States. A photo of three coal miners in their mining gear. They bear grim expressions. A newspaper clipping of The West Virginian's front page. In bold, large font, the leading headline of the issue reads, Sid Hatfield killed in gun fight. A map of the route the miners intended to take from the town of Marmet to Mingo county.
Black and white photo of an older man with a beard, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and carrying a rifle over his shoulder, during the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia.
A crowd marches through a street. The people at the front carry a banner that reads: Don't strip our mountains. MTR poisons air, water, communities.
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Map highlighting the location of the Battle of Blair Mountain in southern West Virginia, United States.
Location of the Battle of Blair Mountain

What Is the Importance of the Battle of Blair Mountain?

Written by
Estela Morais Westphalen
Estela Morais Westphalen was an Editorial Intern for Encyclopaedia Britannica. Estela graduated from Brown University with a Master's in Public Affairs and a bachelor's degree magna cum laude...
Estela Morais WestphalenAll
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

More than 10,000 Americans marched against a force armed with machine guns and aerial bombs. Combatants buried their dead in the depths of the mountains. They were not fighting a foreign adversary, nor was this an episode from the American Civil War. This was the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia, 1921. Its history features coal miners, mining companies, and various tiers of the American government. Poor Americans across ethnic lines—including Black workers from...

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