McDowell County Courthouse: Where Sid Hatfield Was Killed in 1921

Ed Chambers (left) and Sheriff Sid Hatfield (right), shot dead on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse in 1921. West Virginia State Archives.

A murder in daylight

The McDowell County Courthouse, in Welch, West Virginia, became nationally famous as the scene of a notorious double murder, on its steps, in the middle of the day. The killings became one of the sparks for the violent climax of the West Virginia mine wars at the Battle of Blair Mountain.

McDowell in the mine wars

In the mine wars' later years, 1920–1921, labor unrest centered on southern West Virginia — McDowell, Mingo and Logan counties. McDowell itself saw no violent uprisings, but it was drawn in as coal operators and local law enforcement used every means to crush the strike in neighboring Mingo County. When Mingo's jails overflowed with strikers and union organizers, some were moved to the McDowell County jail.

Sid Hatfield

After the deadly Matewan shootout in 1920, Matewan Sheriff Sid Hatfield and Deputy Ed Chambers were tried for their roles.

• Acquitted: Hatfield was acquitted of murder at the Mingo County Courthouse — no surprise, since he was very popular with miners. He had been a miner himself and sympathized with them, and his stand against the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, the private security firm hired by the operators, and his part in the shootout that killed several of its guards, made him more popular still.
• Still charged: other charges were pending, including blowing up a tipple (where coal was loaded onto freight cars) in the coal town of Mohawk. That trial was set for the McDowell County Courthouse. His codefendant was Ed Chambers, twenty-two, his friend and former deputy.
• A change of venue: fearing they would get no justice in a county the coal operators dominated, their lawyer won a change of venue. As a formality, the two still had to appear at the courthouse to receive the judge's orders.

August 1, 1921

On August 1, 1921, as Hatfield and Chambers walked up the courthouse steps with their wives, C. E. Lively and another Baldwin-Felts agent shot them dead in full view of witnesses.

Lively, a miner and informant for the operators, had gone so far during the Mingo strike as to move to Matewan and open a café to spy on the miners' efforts to unionize. He befriended Hatfield to learn more — and even testified against him at his murder trial.

The brazenness of the killing, and Hatfield's popularity among miners, made it a rallying cry for the strikers — one more step toward the Battle of Blair Mountain.

The courthouse today

The McDowell County Courthouse is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the nation's historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Register is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate and protect America's historic and archeological resources. Read the courthouse's National Register nomination.

More: Resources on the West Virginia Mine Wars.

Sources

Based on "McDowell County Courthouse," West Virginia Mine Wars series, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. A photograph of the courthouse by a private photographer is not reproduced.