{"id":3840,"date":"2026-04-03T20:00:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3840"},"modified":"2026-04-03T10:11:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T14:11:51","slug":"the-1895-flat-top-coal-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3840","title":{"rendered":"The 1895 Flat Top Coal Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nXRQLHUJrXI?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In the spring of 1895, a sudden wage cut swept through the Flat Top-Pocahontas coal fields along the Virginia\/West Virginia border, touching off one of the earliest large-scale labor confrontations in that part of Appalachia. What began as a wildcat strike quickly shut down mines along the Norfolk and Western Railroad, disrupted coal shipments to Norfolk, and brought state militia into the company town of Pocahontas.<\/p>\n<p>Today we tell the story of the Flat Top miners\u2019 strike of 1895.<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoy our stories of Appalachian history and folklore, subscribe to the Stories podcast and follow the show wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/podcast\/stories-of-appalachia--5553692\/support\" target=\"_blank\">Consider becoming a supporter of the Stories podcast as well, at spreaker.com.<\/a>\u00a0 You\u2019ll get an ad-free feed of our stories along with lots of extra audio!<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_2506\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3840-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71082628\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71082628\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71082628\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71082628\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3840-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71082628\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the spring of 1895, a sudden wage cut swept through the Flat Top-Pocahontas coal fields along the Virginia\/West Virginia border, touching off one of the earliest large-scale labor confrontations in that part of Appalachia. What began as a wildcat strike quickly shut down mines along the Norfolk and Western Railroad, disrupted coal shipments to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,34,5],"tags":[1628,104,1630,719,1632,1639,1626,1636,1103,1627,758,1638,1637,1633,861,1631,1629,756,1634,1635],"class_list":["post-3840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strike","category-the-1890s","category-the-coalfields","tag-1895-coal-strike","tag-appalachian-history","tag-black-coal-miners","tag-coal-miners","tag-company-towns","tag-early-union-movement","tag-flat-top-coal-field","tag-immigrant-miners","tag-industrial-appalachia","tag-keystone-west-virginia","tag-labor-history","tag-labor-unions","tag-mining-history","tag-norfolk-and-western-railroad","tag-pocahontas-virginia","tag-race-and-labor","tag-umwa","tag-united-mine-workers","tag-virginia-militia","tag-west-virginia-coalfields"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-ZW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3840"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3844,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840\/revisions\/3844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}