Cool USA Facts!

In 1920, the Battle of Matewan was a shootout between coal miners and the Baldwin-Felts detective agency, after they attempted to evict striking miners from company houses. Shooting of undetermined origins resulted in the deaths of two coal miners, seven agents, and the mayor, with Sheriff Sid Hatfield siding with the miners to defend them. Afterward, when the charges against Hatfield and 22 others for the murder of Albert Felts were dismissed, Baldwin-Felts detectives assassinated Hatfield and his deputy Ed Chambers on August 1, 1921, on the steps of the McDowell County courthouse in Welch, West Virginia. None of the Baldwin-Felts detectives was ever convicted of Hatfield's assassination: they claimed they had acted "in self-defense". 1