The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum is a people’s history museum founded in 2015 in Matewan (Mingo County) by local residents, labor historians, teachers, mine workers, community organizers, and archeologists. The museum originally opened in a small storefront inside the Hope Building, historically Chambers Hardware Store, a focal point of the 1920 shootout. In 2020, the museum expanded into a larger home in the Cecil E. Roberts Building, a two-story 11,000 square-foot facility that once housed the Matewan National Bank. Since its founding, the museum has quickly grown into the premier location for exhibiting, preserving, archiving, researching, and interpreting Mine Wars history, including the world’s largest collection of Mine Wars artifacts. 

The museum’s exhibits, public programs, and archives tell the story of the largest armed labor uprising in U.S. history: the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain and the Armed Miners’ March that preceded it. During that conflict, an estimated 10,000 coal miners and their supporters battled local law enforcement, coal company guards, and their allies in a struggle for union recognition and constitutional rights. 

Inside the museum, visitors engage with polyvocal exhibits that combine archival photos and film, first-person accounts, and rare artifacts and replicas. A timeline that spans centuries places the Mine Wars in a national and global context—from the earliest discovery of coal in China to major labor and economic reforms under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Permanent exhibits explore daily life and work in the coal camps, including the 1912-13 Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike, the 1920 Battle of Matewan (commonly called the Matewan Massacre), the Battle of Blair Mountain and the treason trials that followed, as well as the legacy of the Mine Wars.

The museum also operates the Solidarity Gallery, a rotating contemporary art exhibit that bridges creativity and history through artists’ interpretations of Mine Wars history and memory. Additionally, the museum operates the Matewan Community Center, an 80-person event space used for programs, including live music, book talks, and community gatherings.

Through its archives, research room, and library, the museum preserves hundreds of rare books and artifacts related to coal mining and labor history. These include 19^th-century railroad and mining equipment, rare company scrip, shell casings from Blair Mountain, weapons, and United Mine Workers of America ephemera. The collection also contains personal papers from march leader Bill Blizzard and labor historian Dr. Frederick Barkey.

Beyond its four walls, the museum leads the multi-format Courage in the Hollers: Interpreting Coal Miners’ March and Battle on Blair Mountain. As part of this public history project, permanent monuments and markers are being installed along the 50-mile route taken by marching miners in 1921. 

Education is central to the museum’s mission. Programs include a comprehensive curriculum with teacher-developed lesson plans, classroom field trips, traveling teaching trunks, a paid educators’ advisory panel, and other resources for youth. For adult audiences, the museum hosts book readings, film screenings, lectures, and a biannual gathering of modern-day unionists. It also produces the online Mine Wars Forum, which features interviews with scholars, musicians, and local storytellers.

West Virginia Mine Wars website: wvminewars.org