Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Mine War: West Virginia Declares Martial Law, Mother Jones Imprisoned

On April 18, 1912, approximately 7,500 coal miners in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek districts of West Virginia went on strike against abysmal conditions in company-owned towns, initiating fifteen months of armed conflict that would see the declaration of martial law, the imprisonment of octogenarian labor organizer Mother Jones, and dozens of deaths.

The miners faced a system of total corporate control. Coal operators owned the towns, the stores, the housing, and employed their own police forces through the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. Miners were paid in company scrip redeemable only at company stores, effectively trapped in debt peonage. When they struck for union recognition, improved safety, and the right to shop freely, they were evicted from company housing and established tent colonies on public land. Baldwin-Felts agents, mounted on an armored train called the “Bull Moose Special,” fired into tent colonies, killing striker Cesco Estep and wounding others.

Governor William Glasscock declared martial law three times during the conflict. Under military rule, civilians were tried by court-martial, and 83-year-old Mother Jones was arrested in February 1913 and held incommunicado for three months, charged with conspiracy to commit murder. A Senate investigation eventually brought national attention to the operators’ brutality, and a settlement was reached in August 1913, though many of its provisions were never enforced. The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek conflict demonstrated the extremes of corporate capture: entire regions functioned as private fiefdoms where constitutional rights were suspended at employer request and state power served exclusively corporate interests.