Coal Strike Tensions Simmer in West Virginia

In the scorching summer of 1897, a brewing storm was gathering in the coal fields of West Virginia. The coal strike, which had been raging for weeks, showed no signs of abating, and tensions between the operators and miners were at a boiling point. On July 14, 1897, a team of arbitration commissioners representing five states – Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and West Virginia – converged on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a desperate bid to broker a peace between the warring factions.