A Liberal
Dose
September 16,
2021
Troy D.
Smith
“Labor
History in White County, Part 3”
(see Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE)
Let’s resume our discussion of organized labor and coal
mines, which we will conclude next week.
Although booming at the turn of the century, within a decade
the Bon Air Coal and Iron Company was in decline due to a significant decrease
in profitability. This was, in large part, the result of a bad decision -the
company invested heavily to construct two very expensive coke ovens, only to
realize the coal in the area was not of high enough quality for the coke
process. The company went into receivership and, in 1917, was bought by
Nashville businessman William Cummins and several northern investors, including
the owner of the New York Yankees and the owner of the Chicago Cubs (and
chewing gum tycoon) William Wrigley. A rival coal company started in Clifty was
also bought by the group, and consolidated with the Bon Air operations.
With WWI over, in 1919 UMWA president John L. Lewis directed
a new campaign to unionize in the South. There were work stoppages on Bon Air
in 1919 and 1922. During that same time, the famous West Virginia Coal Wars
were reaching a crescendo. There was a shoot-out on the streets of Matewan in
1920 (see the movie Matewan), and in
1921 the Battle of Blair Mountain played out over several days -over 10,000 WV miners,
police, and strikebreakers in a pitched battle that saw over 100 men killed.
Fortunately, things did not reach that point in Middle and East Tennessee.
Bon Air miners also participated in a national UMWA strike
beginning in late March, 1924, with over 1,000 miners walking off the job in
White County in protest of their wages being lowered to what they had been in
1917. In the middle of the strike, suspected moonshiner Ernest Price and
several friends were reportedly drunk and waving guns around in Bon Air and
DeRossett. They were confronted near DeRossett by A. M. Phillips (manager of the
mine’s company store) and a federal revenue agent, Hugh Lowery. Price shot
Lowery in the thigh, severing an artery which caused the lawman to bleed to
death. Price then backed out of town, threatening to shoot anyone who got in
his way, and headed up the mountain. William Cummins offered a $500 dollar
reward for Price’s capture, and two thousand people joined in the chase -a
large number of them striking miners. The strike, meanwhile, ended after ten
weeks with the miners giving in. Around the same time, the price of coal went
down significantly, and the company closed down several of the less productive
mines -Carola in 1922, Clifty in 1924, and Eastland in 1926. The large mine at
Ravenscroft continued production, and several smaller mines in Bon Air and
Eastland were leased out to individuals. In 1926 the company merged with two out-of-town
companies to reform as the Tennessee Products Corporation, with Wrigley as the
Chairman of the Board.
Late 1929, of course, saw the stock market crash and the
beginning of the Great Depression, and introduced even more dire financial
straits for the company (and its workers). When the FDR administration
guaranteed collective bargaining rights with the National Industrial Recovery
Act in 1933, the miners at Ravenscroft once more began to organize. In 1934 the
miners and owners were unable to reach an agreement, and a strike was called.
The Ravenscroft mine was shut down, and a year later the railroad tracks
connecting the mines to Sparta were pulled up. As the Sparta paper put it on
May 13, 1937: “The once thriving industry of coal mining in this county belongs
to the past.” This was not the end of the UMWA connection to White County,
though. It was UMWA organizers who would establish the (brief) union at the
Sparta Shirt factory in the 1940s.
(My thanks to the Bon Air Mountain Historical Society for
the wealth of information they make available to the public.)
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
A complete list of Liberal Dose columns can be found HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE
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