Miner & Convict Relations During The Coal Creek War
Original Photographs, Letters & Other Mementos Commemorate The Lost Lives Of Coal Miners During The Coal Creek War & Fraterville Coal Mine Explosion
“Many of the Mining Museums in West Virginia and Kentucky celebrate the mines and are funded by the corporations who run them. We celebrate the miners that worked in the mines,” explains Charles Winfrey, historian for Coal Creek Miner's Museum in Rocky Top, Tennessee. The museum houses historical photographs, letters, and interesting tidbits about the wealth and history of coal mining in the area.
Winfrey comes from a line of miners- his grandfather and great-grandfather were miners. “My grandmother would tell me stories about them and that is how I started studying the history of the area,” Winfrey says. The area is home to two very famous events that shaped many different paths the United States would eventually take - the Coal Creek War and the disaster at Fraterville Coal Mine.
The Coal Creek War was a revolt of miners against the mining corporations who started replacing their jobs with convicts through the convict lease system that happened in the south during the period after the Civil War. “The convict lease system was basically a system that perpetuated the institutions of slavery and it was nothing but dead wrong,” explains Winfrey. In Winfrey’s studies, he discovered that right after the Civil War, there were about 400 convicts and they were all white because, “The slaves were punished by the masters.” By 1891, the time of the Coal Creek War, there were about 1500-2000 convicts and all were black except for about 200-300 whites. The mining companies started to use the convicts to replace the miners. “The way they went about it was by telling the convicts to go in and evict all the miner families in company homes and then destroy the homes and build a stockade,” Winfrey says. Obviously this did not sit well with the miners of the area. There was also a trigger of the way miners were paid. “Back then, miners were paid by the ton, which, of course, didn’t amount to much at all,” explains Winfrey, “And it was found out the company was short-changing the miners.”
The miners armed themselves and, at first, treated the convicts like dangerous men. “They gave the guards back their weapons when they got to the train so they can escort the convicts back to Knoxville,” Winfrey says. The second time the convicts came back, the miners realized that the convicts were in a similar position to themselves - the miners were being abused by the company, the convicts were being abused by the government. “So they robbed the company store and gave the clothes to all the convicts and told them to head north to be free,” Winfrey says. This eventually shed some light on the form of slavery the convict lease system was and it was disbanded in Tennessee. “It wasn’t really about the moral of it, but the financial standpoint,” Winfrey says, “The politicians in Nashville realized it was costing a lot of money to keep the system.” For the miners, though, something that was originally self-serving turned into a much more noble cause.
The other major event from the area was the Fraterville Coal Mine explosion, the worst mining disaster ever in the south. “An explosion collapsed the tunnel to the mine, causing over 200 men to die inside, either directly from the explosion or through suffocation from lack of oxygen,” explains Winfrey. This was on May 19th, 1902. “There are mines all throughout the hills in this area and sometimes they meet up,” explains Winfrey, “So what they did back then was bore air holes and they would light a fire at the front of the mine.” There was someone to man the fire 24 hours a day and the draft would suck out all the gas the would build up in the mines and bring in good air. “Well, over a long weekend, the company sent the fire guy home because they didn’t want to pay him and when the miners went in on Monday - the first one to light a match or cause a spark caused the gas exploded and trapped the miners,” Winfrey says. As a result hundreds of men died. Not only men, but some of their sons, too. “Since the miners were paid by the ton, they were encouraged to bring in their sons into do the easy work,” Winfrey says. One famous father and son that suffocated in the mine were Jacob Vowell and his 9 year old son. They died of suffocation and wrote a love letter to their family before suffocating. It ends, “Oh God for one more breath. Ellen remember me for as long as you live. Goodbye, Darling.” The disaster led to regulations such as preliminary child labor laws as well as safety precautions to prevent future disasters.
These are two of the events that can be experienced at the museum in Rocky Top, Tennessee. There are many more photographs, letters, artifacts, and other mementos that commemorate the lives of coal miners.
Last, visitors may be wondering why the name of the town is Rocky Top instead of Coal Creek. In fact, the town changed it’s name twice, once to Lake City and then to Rocky Top, both of which also have a fascinating history. Lake City came about as a result of a State Senator getting picked on in Nashville. “His father, who was Marshall of Coal Creek during the Coal Creek War, was mistakenly identified as an Anarchist leader of the revolt in a newspaper,” Winfrey says. So the other senators picked on him for having a Commie father and so he silently passed a bill to change the name to Lake City, without anyone knowing it. The next time the town changed it’s name was in 2014. A guy approached the town and said he wanted to make a theme park and name it Rocky Top after the popular song “Rocky Top,” which is used by University of Tennessee students as a fight song, as long as the town would change its name. Long story short, the town changed its name, which was opposed by the family of Boudleaux Byrant, who wrote the song. “The town paid over $100,000 to change signs, police cars, and highway signs,” explains Winfrey. The guy who promised a theme park? “No one has seen him since.”
Andrew Malo
A graduate of Northeastern Illinois University in Education, Andrew has taught for the past decade in Chicago, New Mexico, and Japan. He enjoys tinkering with trucks and motorcycles, woodworking, reading and computer programming.
Make Sure To Stay At:
Cove Lake State Park, which is 717 acres situated in a beautiful mountain valley on the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau. Scenic nature trails lead through a diversity of wetlands and woodlands offering wildlife viewing for the nature enthusiast.