Battlefield is Back on Historic Places List

The National Register of Historic Places has placed a protected designation on the site of a West Virginia battle that broke out in the 1920s when coal miners tried to unionize. The Blair Mountain Battlefield was removed from the registry in 2009 after a law firm representing a group of coal companies challenged the designation. Several historical and environmental groups fought the ruling, and in 2016 a federal court ruled that the site shouldn’t have been removed from the register. It was restored last week. The battle pitted thousands of miners against forces backed by the mining companies over five days in 1921.