Groups sue over Blair Mountain de-listing

The Sierra Club, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), Friends of Blair Mountain and the West Virginia Labor History Association filed a legal challenge today to reverse the decision by the National Park Service to remove the Blair Mountain Battlefield from the National Register of Historic Places. Filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., the lawsuit alleges that the decision to delist Blair Mountain—the site of a famous 1921 battle in Logan County, West Virginia, involving 10,000 coal miners and law enforcement officials clashing over the right to unionize—was arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to the National Park Service’s own regulations.

In 2006, Dr. Harvard Ayers, an Appalachian State University archeologist and member of the Friends of Blair Mountain, found a total of 15 different battlesites within the Blair Mountain Battlefield. “The area contains a number of archaeological sites, many of which have yet to be adequately studied. These sites are in danger of being permanently destroyed unless the Park Service returns Blair Mountain to the National Register,” said Dr. Ayers. “Coal companies have acquired a portion of the battlefield and have shown their willingness to play hardball to keep the site open to surface mining despite the clear historic value of the Blair Mountain Battlesite.”...