Preservationists face off with industry over site of deadly 1921 labor uprising
By TOM BREEN
Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.VA. — Eighty-six years after the largest armed uprising on U.S. soil since the Civil War, Blair Mountain is once again a battlefield. ~snip~
The state Historic Preservation Office ultimately will decide whether to back an application to have 1,600 acres in Logan County named to the National Register of Historic Places. ~snip~
Historians and environmentalists say the value of the site where more than 10,000 armed miners fought police and the U.S. Army in 1921 is equivalent to better-known battlefields like Pennsylvania's Gettysburg. But property owners and coal industry figures suggest the preservation effort is an attempt to block new surface mining operations from starting in the area. ~snip~
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4949693.html