The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum

The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum is a community-based interpretive center located in Blackberry City, West Virginia, that serves as a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of labor rights movements in Appalachia. As a tax-exempt corporate entity registered with the federal government since 2016, the museum has established itself as a prime recipient of federal grant awards focused on public humanities programming, digital access initiatives, and cultural preservation. The organization does not serve as a federal contractor but has successfully competed for and received multiple project grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), demonstrating its capacity to deliver culturally significant public programming and educational content to federal funders.

The museum's federal grant work has centered on comprehensive public humanities projects that interpret the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest armed labor uprising in U.S. history, through multiple delivery formats and community engagement initiatives. Most recently, the NEH awarded the museum a $275,000 Project Grant in January 2026 to launch the third phase of "Courage in the Hollers: Interpreting Coal Miners' March and Battle on Blair Mountain," a two-year initiative spanning a 50-mile area across four counties that will produce historical signage, audio installations, an interactive website, and entries in the Clio app to ensure public accessibility of Blair Mountain's legacy. Prior to this, the museum received a planning grant from NEH in May 2023 to develop the complementary resources for this multi-format project through consultation with humanities scholars, tourism professionals, designers, descendants, and local landowners. The museum has also delivered federally-funded projects focused on digital access and preservation, including a 2021 NEH grant to create virtual exhibits and an online "Mine Wars Forum" interview series to expand digital audiences, and an IMLS grant to support the preservation of Sid Hatfield's apartment and the development of a participatory mural in partnership with Coalfield Development and United Mine Workers of America Local 1440. These grant-funded efforts demonstrate the museum's expertise in blending physical and digital interpretation, community-centered programming, and historical scholarship to fulfill NEH and IMLS priorities around public humanities and cultural tourism recovery.