View source for Battle of Evarts

{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}

{{Infobox historical event
  |Event_Name     = Battle of Evarts
  |Image_Name     = 
  |Imagesize      = 
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  |Image_Caption  = 
  |Thumb_Time     = 
  |AKA            = 
  |Participants   = 
  |Location       = [[Evarts, Kentucky]], [[United States]]
  |Date           = May 5, 1931
  |nongregorian   = 
  |Deaths        = 
  |Result         = Four deaths
  |URL            = 
}}
{{Campaignbox Coal Wars}}
[[File:Mammoth Vein Coal Fig 8.jpg|thumb|Miners working underground.]]
[[File:Harlan Miner.gif|thumb|Eli Sanders, tipple worker, loads coal on car which has fallen off cars en route to tipple.]]
[[File:Harlan County Miners Houses.jpg|thumb|Children walking their way through the town of Evarts]]
The '''Battle of Evarts''' (May 5, 1931) was a 30-minute firefight between anti-union gunmen and striking coal miners on a rural highway near [[Evarts, Kentucky|Evarts]], [[Harlan County, Kentucky]]. Four people died in the shooting. The battle became the signature event of a violent decade that has been called the [[Harlan County War]]s. 

== The battle ==

Accounts differ, but there is consensus on some details. [[Peabody Energy|Peabody Coal Company]] owned and operated the Black Mountain mine at [[Kenvir, Kentucky|Kenvir]] in Harlan County. After some Black Mountain miners attended a March 1 pro-union rally in neighboring [[Bell County, Kentucky|Bell County]], armed guards working for Peabody evicted more than 175 families from company-owned housing at Black Mountain.<ref name=Bishop>{{cite journal |last=Bishop |first=Bill |title=1931: The Battle of Evarts |journal=Southern Exposure |publisher=Institute for Southern Studies |date=June 1, 1976 |volume=4 |issue=1–2 |pages=92–101 |url=https://www.facingsouth.org/southern-exposure/issues/vol-4-no-12-springsummer-1976}}</ref><ref name=Hevener>{{cite book |year=1978 |title=Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931–1939 |last=Hevener |first=John W. |location=Urbana, Illinois |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-00270-0}}</ref> March 17, local [[United Mine Workers of America|UMW]] members called a [[wildcat strike]] at the Black Mountain mine. Evarts, one of few Harlan County towns not then owned by mining companies, quickly became the temporary residence for evicted and striking miners. In the following weeks, as more miners joined the strike, the numbers in Harlan County mass marches and rallies reached 4000, and isolated violent acts included the dynamiting of one mine entrance.<ref name=Bishop/><ref name=Hevener/> A mid-April Knoxville ''News-Sentinel'' headline warned, “Flare Up in Harlan Expected."<ref name=Bishop/><ref name=Hevener/> 

Early on the morning of May 5, striking miners in Evarts spotted a Peabody truck passing through town. One account of May 5 says the truck was heading to [[Verda, Kentucky|Verda]] to pick up a new foreman and bring him to the Peabody camp at Kenvir.<ref name=Bishop/> A different account agrees that Verda was the destination but says the truck was sent to retrieve personal belongings for a recently hired non-union miner.<ref name=Hevener/> A third account says the truck was headed to [[Harlan, Kentucky|Harlan]] to pick up a load of non-union replacement workers for transport to the Peabody camp.<ref name=Garland>{{cite book |year=1983 |title=Welcome the Traveler Home: Jim Garland's Story of the Kentucky Mountains |editor-last=Ardery |editor-first=Julia S. |location=Lexington, Kentucky |publisher=The University Press of Kentucky |page=141 |isbn=0-8131-1432-2}}</ref> Whatever the reason, the truck's passing excited strikers who began to congregate at the Evarts railway station. Alerted by telephone to the strikers' unrest, Peabody managers dispatched from Kenvir a three-car caravan of armed guards for the purpose of meeting the truck at its pickup destination and escorting the truck and its contents on the return drive through Evarts to Kenvir.<ref name=Hevener/>

Accounts agree that just beyond Evarts, the dispatched caravan encountered armed strikers. Two accounts agree that one shot rang out, and then guns from both sides blazed away.<ref name=Bishop/><ref name=Hevener/> What's not agreed is whether the miners had set a deliberate ambush or whether they were attempting with a picket line to block the Peabody cars. [[Jim Garland]], then a coal miner in Harlan and Bell Counties, recalled in a later interview that the company gunmen drove "through Evarts and met the picket line. They jumped on one of the Negro pickets and started to beat him when all hell broke loose. Both sides began firing."<ref name=Garland/> History professor and author John W. Hevener, citing testimony from a 1932 U.S. Senate hearing, characterized the firefight as "the Evarts ambush."<ref name=Hevener/> 

== Aftermath ==
Immediately after the battle, thousands more Harlan County miners walked off their jobs to join the strike.<ref name=Bishop/><ref name=Hevener/> But mine owners held firm, and the national UMW distanced itself from the strikers.<ref name=Bishop/><ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.kentuckymonthly.com/culture/history/the-price-of-coal_1/ |title=The Price of Coal, Part II |last=Soodalter |first=Ron |date=October 31, 2016|magazine=Kentucky Monthly}}</ref> May 7, Kentucky Governor [[Flem D. Sampson]] sent 300 National Guardsmen to Evarts.<ref name=Bishop/><ref name=Hevener/> The Guardsmen disarmed the striking miners, and violence subsided.  Four days after the battle, strike leaders were arrested and charged with crimes. Eight miners received life sentences for conspiracy to murder for the actions that took place on May 5.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://wp.nyu.edu/specialcollections/2013/05/07/hell-in-harlan/ |last=Searcy |first=Rachel Aileen |date=May 7, 2013 |title= The Back Table: Hell in Harlan |publisher=New York University}}</ref> Less than a month after the battle, most strikers had returned to their work in the mines.<ref name=Bishop/><ref name=Hevener/> 

{{Portal|Organized labour}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evarts, Battle of}}
[[Category:Conflicts in 1931]]
[[Category:1931 labor disputes and strikes]]
[[Category:Harlan County, Kentucky]]
[[Category:1931 in Kentucky]]
[[Category:Coal Wars]]
[[Category:Labor disputes in Kentucky]]
[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in Kentucky]]
[[Category:May 1931 in the United States]]