The Battle of Blair Mountain lasted five days, in late August and early September 1921, when union miners were marching from Marmet in Kanawha County down to the Logan County coalfields.

Armed guards, hired by coal operators operating non-union mines, confronted the miners on Blair Mountain. The battle ended when federal troops arrived.

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest armed confrontation in U.S. labor history.

Today, coal companies, including Massey Energy and Arch Coal, have expressed interest in developing strip mines along the historic 15-mile mountain ridge between Boone and Logan counties.

"The courage and sacrifice of UMWA miners is the sole reason Blair Mountain carries historic significance that makes it eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places," the union states in its motion asking the court to allow it to file an "amicus curiae brief" with the circuit court.

"Though the UMWA miners who marched to Blair Mountain were defeated in battle, their stand paved the way for legislative and collective bargaining achievements in the first half of the 20th century that helped build the American middle class."

The miners' march helped focus national attention on economic and political conditions in the Southern West Virginia coalfields.

The UMWA motion supports a lawsuit previously filed by the Sierra Club, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Friends of Blair Mountain and the West Virginia Labor History Association against U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

In 2006, the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated Blair Mountain as one of "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places."

The National Park Service added Blair Mountain to its National Register of Historic Places in March 2009.

But nine months later, in December, Carol D. Shull, Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, decided to remove Blair Mountain from the National Register of Historic Places.

Shull reversed her agency's previous decision after a dispute about who owns the properties on Blair Mountain.

Blair Mountain lost its place on the National Historic Register, the union's brief states, after "coal companies successfully skewed and undermined" the list of local property owners who could support, or oppose, the preservation of Blair Mountain.

That list, the UMWA brief argues, was "a selectively modified version of an outdated property owners list originally compiled in 2007."

That list was already outdated by October 2008, when the West Virginia Attorney General's office verified a list of 65 private property owners on Blair Mountain. Other property owners added to the list later, the brief argues, "had not been properly verified."

The UMWA criticizes Shull for using "the coal company list instead of the list produced by the West Virginia Attorney General in compliance with applicable regulations...

"The company list is unreliable," the brief states, rendering "her decision arbitrary and capricious."

During the Battle of Blair Mountain, the UMWA petition points out, more than one million rounds of ammunition were fired. National Guard airplanes dropped bombs on the miners and nearby towns. Sixteen men lost their lives.

The Battle of Blair Mountain, the UMWA argues, played a key role motivating people who succeeded 14 years later, during the New Deal, in "negotiating wage, benefits and safety improvements that have set working and living standards for generations since."

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164.