Cabin Creek

From the brakeman and the conductor of the train, I picked up the story of the strike.

It had started on the other side of the Kanawha Hills in a frightful district called Russia, Cabin Creek.

Here the miners had been peons for years, kept in slavery by the guns of the coal company and by the system of paying in scrip so that a miner never had any money should he wish to leave the district.

He was cheated of his wages when his coal was weighed, cheated in the company store where he was forced to purchase his food, charged an exorbitant rent for his kennel in which he lived and bred, docked for school tax and burial tax and physician and for protection, which meant the gunman who shot him back into the mines if he rebelled or so much as murmured against his outrageous exploitation.

No one was allowed in the Cabin Creek district without explaining his reason for being there to the gunman who patrolled the roads, all of which belonged to the coal company.

The miners finally struck.

It was a strike of desperation.

The strike of Cabin Creek spread to Paint Creek, where the operators decided to throw their fate in with the operators of Cabin Creek.

There's more physical resistance on the part of the miners and their families and union organizers and solidarity workers who are coming in and trying to help.

There was Paint Creek and Cabin Creek, 1912 and 1913, which was a partial victory but came at an absolutely enormous cost.

Mother Jones led miners to the West Virginia Capitol and denounced the state governor.

You are not going to believe his name.

Crystal Peter, and delivers food and material support to the families who were living in the tent colonies here.

She also helped to sustain a struggle that escalated into guerrilla warfare and martial law.

So that is how much this conflict at Pink Creek Cabin Creek escalated.

And that is how extreme the repression was.

I arrived in Charleston in the morning, went to a hotel, washed up and got my breakfast early in order to catch the one local train a day that goes into Paint Creek.

the train wound in and out among the mountains dotted here and there with the desolate little cabins of miners from the brakeman and the conductor of the train i picked up the story of the strike it had started on the other side of the kanawha hills in a frightful district called russia cabin creek here the miners had been peons for years kept in slavery by the guns of the coal company and by the system of paying in scrip so that a miner never had any money should he wish to leave the district he was cheated of his wages when his coal was weighed cheated in the company store where he was forced to purchase his food charged an exorbitant rent for his kennel in which he lived and bred docked for school tax and burial tax and physician and for protection which meant the gunman who shot him back into the mines if he rebelled or so much as murmured against his outrageous exploitation no one was allowed in the cabin creek district without explaining his reason for being there to the gunman who patrolled the roads all of which belonged to the coal company the miners finally struck it was a strike of desperation The strike of Cabin Creek spread to Paint Creek, where the operators decided to throw their fate in with the operators of Cabin Creek.

Immediately, all civil and constitutional rights were suspended.

The miners were told to quit their houses and told at the point of a gun.

He sent the state militia in, who at least were responsible to society and not to the operators alone.

One night in July, a young man, Frank Keeney, came to me.

Mother, he said, I have been up to Charleston, trying to get someone to go up to Cabin Creek, and I can't get anyone to go.

The national officers say they don't want to get killed.

Oh, yeah.

And so as this starts to really pick up, you start to get a bunch of miners from all over the state and, and from Kentucky actually crossing the line and coming over and, uh, wanting to support the, the miners in southern West Virginia, including a bunch of guys from Paint Creek and Cabin Creek who, you know, were the most militant in the state because they've been through this 10 years before.

Yeah.

They had a lot of guys who, I mean, had genuine, you know, guerrilla fighting experience from the Paint Creek, Cabin Creek strike before.

And so these guys start showing up.

And after Sid's killed, so that-- So this is the environment before Sid is killed.

And, and so once this happens, the miners from, from all over, they start to, uh, they, they, they start to assemble at a place called Lens Creek-

Hmm