Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

William Mounts Interview

Becky Bailey: This is Becky Bailey from the Matewan Development Center, Tuesday, June 26 1990. I'm in the center and I'm talking with Mr. Bill Mounts. Mr. Mounts my first question for you is, what is your full name and can you tell me when and where you where born?

Bill Mounts: My full name is William Ray Mounts,

B: Uh-huh.

BM: I was borned in uh...McDowell County.

B: And what year was that?

BM: It was nineteen and twenty-seven.

B: And where in McDowell County were you born?

BM: Just a little place right in McDowell it was no certain place, what they call Ellie Vough, I guess it was more what they call uh...I don't remember the exact uh...town right through there then, little town it was it was in MacDowell County.

B: Okay, I was just wondering if it was near Premier or...or Welch or...

BM: Uh, yeah that's right it was Devon.

B: Devon.

BM: Yeah, Devon.

B: Okay. And what were your parent's names?

BM: My daddy was named Bill Mounts...just Bill Mounts.

B: Uh-huh. And your mother?

BM: And my mother was Sara...Sarrie Mounts.

B: Okay. Were you born at home or at a hospital.

BM: Yeah, I was born at home.

B: Okay. Did your mother have a doctor or a mid-wife or did they ever say?

BM: She had a mid-wife.

B: And what was her name?

BM: That was my grandma, that was Dell Mounts, D.E.L.L.

B: Okay. Alright. And where were your parents from originally, do you know?

BM: Uh...Daddy and Mommy I mean at the of their birth, I think that Daddy I don't know exactly where he was borned at, but my grandmother originated from Blackberry City up here, (phone rings) she was, she was a Nicholas before she married uh...Jeff Nicholas' daughter.

B: Uh...huh. Okay. And how 'bout your, you say you don't really know where your Dad was from?

BM: No, I don't know exactly where my Dad was born, but it was this area in West Virginia but I don't exactly where. The first uh...re...recollection I remember like that is before my daddy got uh...hurt in the mines and died. That's why I remember Mahamad. We lived at what we called Vulcan, West Virginia at that time...And so, I stayed with my grandmother, because my mother was disabled to care of me at that time. But my Daddy worked at Majestic Coal Company at the time of the accident, he fell down into a coal shoot, the coal broke loose with him and took him down to the bottom of the mountain.

B: And did you say that disabled him, and then killed him or did it just kill him right off?

BM: Yeah, right off, yeah just a little while he got out and got wet and he died really from the uh....pneumonia from the accident, he was weak...so he died just in a short time from the accident.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. And you say, your mother at that time wasn't able to take care of you.

BM: Well, she was in a family discussion I mean for that part of it I mean...It was something to the family that I was told as I growed out it was something that happened as I growed up, my grandmother took me and raised me so...I never really never really got the straight of it and I don't want to try to say because I was really to young.

B: Okay.

BM: I lived with my grandmother 'til she passed away up Thacker up here, she passed away. Then I came to Matewan, I went to school, I went to school at Thacker Grade School, I completed the eighth grade...I never started high school...after my grandmother died I went on my own, that's how come me got to here to Matewan, get with these people who had a restaurant at that time...In years that was nineteen forty...forty-six.

B: Uh...huh. Did you hear about work in Matewan is that why you came?

BM: No, I was just a travelin' on the streets and went on my own. I was just down there, and I was broke and hungry and I think I had enough to buy a hot dog with but I didn't have enough to buy a pop. I come in this restaurant that was here at that time, the lady and her husband was here, the lady waited on me and she asked me, I bought the hot dog, and she asked me if I wanted something to drink, I said," No, I don't have any money to pay for it." I remember she gave me a glass of milk and she got to talkin' to me, I told her and she said, "Do you have a home or anywhere to go?" I said, "No I'm on my own," and that's when she told me she would take me in and give me a job. And so she took me in her home, bought my clothes, give me a job, at that time she paid, I think it was, eighteen dollars a week for workin' and that's what she started me off, same as she did her waitresses. She bought all of my clothes until I got on my feet, I stayed with her about from forty...forty-six 'til about forty-nine. I got married and left here, I went to Wheeling, West Virginia.

B: What was uh...this man and his woman his wife's name that took you in?

BM: Well the man was named Anse Roberts. And the other woman, woman's name was Sarah Roberts.

B: What was the name of the restaurant?

BM: It was the Matewan Restaurant. That was the full name of it.

B: And what kind of food did they serve?

BM: It was just a regular restaurant where they had home cooked meals that's what it was.

B: Uh-huh. Was it open for all three meals of the day...or just..?

BM: No, it was open, we took care of the kids, lunch or meals anytime after twelve. Well, breakfast, they didn't serve breakfast none, they had dinners. We got all the trade in town, it was like the Chatterbox, you know, up there open. We got all the business, all the school, and kitchen back there where they fixed all the meals, and they also had the hamburgers and hot dogs.

B: Uh...huh. Okay, um...where there any other restaurants in town at that time, was there any competition?

BM: Aaa...at that time yeah, there was one more restaurant that served food, and that was the Matewan Cafe over here straight across where the club is now. Where the Silver Dollar is... it was Matewan Cafe.

B: Okay. Uh...what was um...how did, how did the restaurant that you worked at... what did it look like inside?

BM: Well, it was big just like it is here now, this same, they built out and portions, and there was no closin' up on the walls or nothin' it's the same length...only uh...just the insides and they lowered the ceilings and stuff like that. They had very high ceilings. I don't know, I guess it, probably the other side you could tell what it looked like, the portion back there, where that door was at, there was a portion with a door in the middle, that went back into the cookin' area, steam tables uh...they sit in the main corner with uh...serving window, you know a door window where you could serve a meal. One long counter down this side here, back to the winders (windows)...and that was uh...that was maybe a little bar for people that had something to drink, and there was a row of booths on this side here and all filled with booths, there was no tables or nothin' just all filled with booths.

B: Uh-huh. Okay, so I'll have it on tape I'm going to tell you the booth side was on the flood wall side...

BM: On the flood wall side over there.

B: Okay, Alright, how much would a meal cost at this restaurant where you were working?

BM: Aw....that's hard to figure, I really don't remember what a meal would run you back then, I know hot dogs, hamburgers back then, if I'm not barely mistaken' uh...I believe hamburgers were fifteen or twenty cents one, I'm not for sure, and a hot dog costed you a dime, on the hamburgers I don't remember it was just a little higher than a hot dog. A bottle of pop costed you a nickel. A glass of milk was a nickel.

B: When you got married and went to Wheeling uh...who did you marry?

BM: I married a Charles' girl from up Blackberry City, Evelyn Charles.

B: How long did you all date before you got married?

BM: Roughly about maybe a month or two months, very short.

B: Fast courtship?

BM: Yeah.

B: Okay. How did you all meet?

BM: In this restaurant.

B: Okay. Did anybody, what, were her parents' livin'?

BM: Her parents' was livin. They lived in what you call Hurley, Virginia, she stayed with her grandmother up Blackberry City, and a aunt...her grandmother was uh...Betty Charles and her aunt was Stellie Charles. Her Daddy and Mom, stepmom lived in Hurley, Virginia, it was uh...his name was Dell Charles and his wife I don't know remember her stepmother, but her real mommy lived in Wheeling, West Virginia. Elsie Charles that was her real Mommy.

B: Uh-huh. So what did her family think of your all's fast courtship, did they say anything?

BM: No, they wasn't too much said about it.

B: Okay. And did you all go to Wheeling to...to be with her mother?

BM: Yeah, after so long of a time we stayed at Blackberry City, I say, well 'til '49. I went to work at Red Jacket Coal Company in the mines up there after I got old enough to get a job at Red Jacket. I worked in the mines there, and then I worked a while at Red Jacket. There was a bad place where there was so many deaths happens at that mines, I was really just scared out some. I just quit working in the mines and come back in later years. Why time passed being young, I got out and got in the wrong kind of trouble, in other words...and I messed up and was giving some time. After I was paroled, I came back here and we went to Wheeling.

B: Uh-huh. Okay, would you care to say on tape what kind of trouble you got into or uh...

BM: It was joy ridin' in a car, it wudn't nothing to brag about but it was joy ridin'. I received three year in reformatory.

B: How old were you at that time?

BM: 'bout 19, I guess, 18 or 19, I don't really remember.

B: Were you married at this point?

BM: Yeah.

B: Did your wife stay with you through this?

BM: Yes, she did, she was in the family away when I got in this trouble. We had our first child when I was in reformatory, and I came out and we left and went to Wheeling. I was proved to it... I was living with my mother-in-law there. I went to Wheeling, I stayed there 10 year, I came out in the late '50's early '50's when I came out of prison. And worked there at Wheeling, worked different jobs, worked for the city, Wheeling town, most of 'em I worked was for the city of Williamson, I mean Wheeling.

B: Uh-huh. What did you do for the city?

BM: I was truck helper, I picked up garbage on the sanitation department.

B: Uh-huh. And how many children did you and your wife have?

BM: Two.

B: Okay, and when did you come, come back in to this area?

BM: I been back here, 'course Willins was here when I came back here. I came back on my home 'cause we well... well obtained a divorce from each other...my two children was out there and she's out there and I remarried here.

B: Okay. And so when did you actually move back here?

BM: I come back here about uh...I came back here in '58.

B: Uh-huh. Okay, What were some of the stores here in town, when you came back? Can you.....

BM: Well, it was pretty long, the theatre was still here, and just about let's see, theatre was still here...that's one, the drug store was still here, Leckie's Drug Store, it was still in operation, uh...

B: Where was that?

BM: At the time, I come back it had changed to this building over here where uh...yeah, it's right over here where the... it's empty now, straight across the street...it was there. And uh...your place was still open, which back then it was the Smokehouse, and the Silver Dollar was down on the lower end...uh...let's see Hope's Department Store, S & J Hardware...out here....and I guess you call it Cooper's all old furniture store in past has been changed names over to the other furniture stores, which was Captains...(Caplan's)...Caplan's furniture, when I left it was Cooper's Hardware. See...all the Hope's store was here, Matewan Cafe, the barber shops, which was Ladon Keesee...and uh...Ladon Keesee, and the one across here uh...Stafford Body shop. The old and things that were still here most of had went out and changed hands, changed stores back then...this place here had changed which they had turned it in and remodeled it turned it into a place called Chatterbox. But in other words, everything was, pretty well runned like it was, like the bank and everything when I left at the time. That's the main stores that I remember was here when I left.

B: Okay, how 'bout the was there a Texaco station still?

BM: Yeah, Texaco Station there, yeah it used to be down on the corner there, below there right on the side where Coal City Parts that was the location of that...but it had, it was still sittin' in the same location when I came back here, because they moved after I came back. There's uh...Gulf station up, upper end which was uh...they called it the Motor End, that was a Gulf service station. It was runned by Dennis Queen... And W & E Chevey (Cheverolet) uh..And uh....I don't think the Cheverlot Garage was here that I remember was here when I was here. It was not longer, it changed hands, was W & E but it was a new store...but that's most stores I remember, you know.

B: Alright, um...let's see, When uh...you came back in '58 uh...that was right after a big flood in 1957.

BM: Well, yes they was just uh...coming out of, I come home, I don't know exactly what month the flood happened here, I don't remember what month is was, but I came home in September the nineteenth...in '57 so the flood done occurred here before I got here, they were still, you know, wasn't it was pretty well cleaned up at that time, but I wasn't here when that happened... but I was here it was in uh...I think '77 little ones, you know, well there was one before '77, the big flood I was in here.

B: Okay...What do you remember about the '77 flood, where were you livin'?

BM: I was livin' across the tracks over there where McCoy's apartments side of the Senior Citizens building.

B: What do you remember about that flood did the water reach your home?

BM: Yes, the water got very high it came up in town. The first time it ever come over to where I lived on to that side of the across tracks, uh...at the time that the water got up to the flood stage there it was running through into the hallway, back to the first step going to the hallway, to my apartment, and it went up to Warm Holler there to about three foot, I'd say maybe four, but very low but not that high, but backin' up, washin' up going up to Warm Holler it past that end of the wall, you know, where you walk down the holler where you walk down holler to that wall, where that telephone is. 'Cause we set in the police cruiser, and Dan Kinder and uh...we keep backin' up, we keep puttin' a beer can or pop can which ever it was, and it would come up and that's when we knew that the water was at a stand still. But in other words, from that stage up everything was under water, but it was really come up to there. Anything below there it got plumb across the tracks and underpass, that's how high I remember. But afterwards, like I say it was a very terrible mess, which everybody know it was a big mess. I reckon' as far as I know in the history of Matewan that was the first time it ever got that far over the tracks.

B: About how long did the clean up take, do you know?

BM: Quite awhile,I don't know, exactly to be exact on the time, length of time, it was quite awhile, because it was a really bad mess...I don't know exactly, to give you a definite answer but it was quite a mess, it was quite awhile.

B: What kind of um...work did you do when you came back to Matewan?

BM: I went back in the mines as a coal miner, oh...when I came back to Matewan. When I came back to Matewan, I couldn't find a job so uh...the only thing they had is what you call, back then they had a work program, the EOC, it was a work program for a man that had dependent children. I worked on that for the town of Matewan here...as signed to the town. I worked on that 'til I was hired, and went straight on to the Water Department. I worked for the Water Department for a good while, 'til they felt I was able to I obtain full employment at the Water Plant...they hired me steady, I was there about three year, I worked for them about three year...I was a meter reader, did repair work on the line, put in meters, (in) other words I guess you could call it maintenance man...done work like that, and I left, was released by the town. I went into the mines, I went back into...back in the mines until I was layed off up here, I was laid off in '80.

B: And why was that?

BM: Well, the mine I worked for, Canny Branch, for five year, that was a little truck mines. Then I came and went to there and was off for a while because, back then working conditions for Canny Branch, left there, I mean was no trouble on their part, which I could worked, wasn't plentiful. So I went and was off for a while, then I got a job for Eastern Coal Company, at Kentucky over here. I worked the day shift on, they was uh...about couple year, it was the same way you got to work when there was no work. They wanted to strike all the time, so I just went out to work one day, called it, it, you know, this, make it a habit. So after that, while it took me a while to get back on to Welfare, I got back on Welfare, stayed on it until my boy come eighteen years of age, which is about three year ago...Now, I partly work for myself you know, odd jobs wherever I can get 'em. My trade is a coal miner, I mean that's my full trade, what you call (it).

B: Okay. What's um...what's um, when you said that you worked at a little truck mines, just so that it will be on tape, can you explain, that what you mean by that?

BM: Oh, truck mines - that's a little mines back in then, they didn't have the big mines, coal was trucked about the same thing as it is today - was a little mines, have trucks hauling' which,coal trucks where smaller than they are today - wasn't many of 'em on the road...And they first to go around and the coal was moved by cuttin', the coal uh..., was what they call a cuttin' machine, loaded by hand into cars and into tipples, down to the bottom of the mountain and haul it off. That's what they call truck mines. As the years went by they finally got loading machines. They still call truck mines you know, alot of them today. But back then they was very small just everybody back and forth in the mines, 'cause the law wasn't has strict...and just about everywhere you looked you seen little truck mines, somebody tryin' to get coal. But today, you know, the laws is strict and there is not as many of them is going as there are now.

B: Did you have to work...did you belong to the Union then, did you have to belong to the union then?

BM: No it was most all of the little mines back then, you were on your own. They had insurance and stuff like that. There won't no union, they paid you by the car. Maybe I've worked in some of the mines - maybe I've worked a car, seventy-five cent a car to a dollar a car - that uh...if you loaded coal you didn't make no money. It was up to you how fast you could load or how good of conditions, working conditions, that you made any money. I went to work maybe make six to eight dollars a day in the mines it just 'cording what conditions it was.

B: Okay, Um...let's back track for a minute...just to back track for a minute, I know you said your father was killed as a result of a mine accident...

BM: Yeah.

B: But back on both sides of your family, where the men all coal miners, was that something that men did?

BM: No, one uncle he worked, uh...all my other uncles you didn't have to buy nothin', my daddy and two brothers. Uh...my daddy was coal miner, my...my Uncle Archie Mounts was a railroad master for N & W railroad and Fred Mounts, he was a boss on the railroad. That was back uh...I was just a kid now, he retired a few years after I moved here. Fred did, and my Uncle Archie got disabled to work. He died the last year, and Fred Mounts, lives up North Matewan. And that was in the family there was no girls or nothing like that.

B: Okay. You say uh...your Uncle Fred was a boss for the railroad.

BM: Yeah, he was a boss for the N & W Railroad right. There was a section what is called a section foremen, like the men that get out here, now they got machinery, back then, mostly when he was boss, the years he was there everything was done the hard way. I mean today they got stuff to carry the steel with and to lift the ties. But back then everything was done the hard way, everything was done by man power. If the track was laid it was laid by man power.

B: Okay, how about your Uncle Archie?

BM: He was sectioner, he worked just with the laborers on the railroad, he was just, he did just labor that's what you called it back in them days, labor...

B: Uh-huh. Did they move around much for work?

BM: Yeah, they had...had to move around they had so much district to cover without there was a wreck or something, you know. Out of the district they'd call them others in...but, I don't know exactly how many miles of track that they had to cover but they had so many miles, so many mile that they had to cover.

B: Okay, What about um...when you got caught joy riding and got into trouble, um... was that around here did you get caught by the police chief in town.

BM: That was Freeburn, Kentucky, I mean.

B: Oh, okay...How come, you would get in...into so...much trouble for that joy riding, where you busting up mail boxes or uh...?

BM: No, it's what you call joy riding, it's not, I don't know if just uh...takin', but that's what they put against you, but uh...alot of...

B: That still, that sounds like something in this area that - you...you once you knew the person actually had that...(car) - that they would of handled it themselves instead of did...or did you actually get caught by the police?

BM: They didn't know who had the truck at the time, if he'd knowed who had the vehicle at the time...it would of been different. Because after I was caught, put in jail for it... after I was picked up, he come and tried to get the charges, drop the charges against me. But they wouldn't let him because the state took it over...on that account, you see, that the party that it belonged to...if he had knowed at that time, they're wouldn't of been nothing like that.

B: Uh-huh. Okay that's what I thought, in this...this area. So did you have to go um...in Kentucky or did they transfer you to West Virginia?

BM: Yeah, I was transferred what the call uh... Laybranch, Kentucky.

B: Uh-huh. Um...did you have to serve the whole three years?

BM: No, I served uh...lets see about, 'bout thirteen, fourteen months and made parole.

B: Uh-huh. Okay.

BM: Had three year, made parole, I think, in fifteen months.

B: Okay, alright, um...you say you, you grew up with your grandmother basically, um...was she livin' in this area when the mine wars and all that happened?

BM: Yeah, she had to be but I don't know exactly where then, because that was before my time, you know, but don't know where my grandmother was but, she would of remember it because she died in '46,I think it was, and she was she was about 79 or 80 years old then. She was quite old. So I know she would of remembered it, but, you know, it was a little before my time, I can't speak well of that 'cause that was something I didn't even know about myself, not until later years as I growed up and heard more about it and, you know, history.

B: How did you hear about it? How did you hear about it?

BM: Well, you know, just mostly people here a talkin' and they get to askin', you know I didn't know what the Hatfield and McCoy Feud was... I hear people talkin' talk it was with older people and as I growed up, I learned just a little bit more. I heard about who they were and how it started but, still I don't know if they know today how it really started, because you hear so many stories of it. I...I...don't know myself, but that the way, just growin' up and you listen to different things and you know that's the way, that I didn't know Devil "Anse" from nobody else, you know, nothing else, just as I picked it up as the years went by and you know as I growed up.

B: Are there any stories that stand out in your mind?

BM: Any what?

B: Any stories that stand out in your mind, that you heard from other people, that what people would say does anything stand out, that you remember?

BM: No, um... it's just so much, I mean, I just heard, you know, just was told to me back through there, I really never let nothing, you know...never nothin' really stand out about it.

B: Okay. What about the Matewan Massacre here the shoot-out, did your grandmother ever talk about it?

BM: No, what was, I don't know, if she did, I didn't take it in I was very young there too, see, because she wanted never was nothing ever said about that. I growed up in uh...Thacker up here through my childhood, I growed up at Thacker, West Virginia... But uh...far as anything like that back in those days, you never heard, you never talked about it, nothing like that, just like I said I've heard where I found out about that, was you know through, in the hearin' about it. Other words, just like I didn't live here, and you come and you would tell me about it, you know...But uh...the Hatfields and stuff like that why, after years went by why you see, Ern...Ernest Hatfield, all other of them Hatfield men you see that was...in that. Then you know, I asked about, question if that Hatfield was any kin to that Hatfield, you know, that what were talkin' about on that...But on that shootout, why it was just one of the stories I've heard, and things like that...that's all I'd know about, that's all I heard about it.

B: Okay...what do you remember about Ernest Hatfield?

BM: Ernest, he, I really don't know, I haven't known Ernest too many years. I never know Ernest really, I remember him I knowed Ernest, not only personally, but before I ever left here in '40. His daddy was uh...I think uh...Chief Police here in Matewan if I'm not badly mistaken. He had a uncle, I think he was lawyer. Ernest,I don't know if he was patrolman at the time then, they had a little store up there, they had a little store up here as you go towards Blackberry city on the corner up here...I know Ernest Hatfield, but to really, to really get down to know him I don't....didn't really know Ernest until I came back to work for the city. City of Matewan, that's where I really got acquainted, Ernest Hatfield...

B: How did...

BM: He...

B: Oh, I'm sorry...

BM: knew he was Chief Police at that time at Matewan.

B: How did you get your job here in the city?

BM: As I say it happen through and by the work program that was...they set up (unintelligible) you work so many hours a month according to your family, you got so much uh...each month with food stamps and you went out and worked so many days a month. I think I had to work uh...I think mine was twenty days a month, I had to work for my check out of a month...that was labor, the rest of the time after your worked your time out you was free until work time again...Yeah, yeah I worked twenty days a month, I drawed a hundred and uh...I believe I drawed a hundred and eighty-three dollars a month...that was with food stamps and everything...That was when the program first went up it was by the name of the E.O.C. I don't know what it's under now but...

B: Uh-huh, who ran that do you remember?

BM: It was set up through and by the government of West Virginia, the governor's office, Welfare it was run through by Welfare...

B: Uh-huh. Okay, do you uh...you know alot has been said about the corruption of county government in Mingo. Was there any uh...politic that you can remember from this area say people like T.I. Varney, did you ever run across any of them...?

BM: Do you think it was wrong you mean?

B: Yes.

BM: No, I thought, I always thought, the man that I know to be straight and just like anything else, to be accused, T.I. Varney has always been straight with me, and he always been good to be...He was probation officer, if a person was under his jurisdiction was on probation... he was treated fair and I never knowed him to mistreat anyone, far as that concern, because I can only speak for my benefit only. What I know about him... what others may have said I can't vouch for that...But, any wrong doing in that part I can't say...But he was never mistreated (meaning he never mistreated Mounts) I just talkin', speakin' from my part, I mean... known of him doing anything, you can hear anything but that's hearsay. but, I'm speakin' where people, he always treated me.

B: Okay. How about some of the other people that were you know, accused, or been involved in the corruption back then did you know, what are your opinions to some of the other people, that where involved in the government at that time, accused of buying votes and stuff like that?

BM: Well, there's quite a few things about that, they say they offered but, back to Ernest Hatfield was through there, I think that Ernest Hatfield and quite a few of the politicians and people running...Uh...was accused of that but I was in again as I can say they buy their votes and this and that...But I had my first time through Ernest Hatfield, T.I. Varney or Steve Collins or anybody that was out on the election ground never come to me and offer me money for votes. So that's not so...if they did in other words, I don't know, far as me and my wife we always went together and my family it was none of that went on. I could truly speak at that.

B: Okay. How about uh...have you ever heard of this man his name was Huey Perry?

BM: Who?

B: Huey Perry.

BM: No.

B: Okay. He...he worked here from, and he'd written a book about that corruption in Mingo County, and I was just wondering, you know...

BM: No...

B: if he was involved in some of the Welfare programs, stuff like that back in the sixties, and I was wondering if that was around your time, if you have read any...

BM: No, I don't know anything 'bout that.

B: Okay. How uh...How would you compare Matewan in the 1950's till how it is now, what was it like? Was it busier or about the same size?

BM: Oh it, there was a lot more in Matewan then because so much of Matewan has been but away and destroyed, you know, took out. In the fifties Matewan was, you wouldn't walk those streets out there without you bumpin' into somebody, I mean it was not around a weekend it was constant back in the '50's...The coal mines was still going at Red Jacket, full time on payday...and th...show theatre over was the main attraction on three nights. Well let's see on Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, Saturday nights, Sunday's and Sunday nights, that was the great attraction here at that time...uh...yeah, Matewan in the '50's was much bigger. I mean it might be more modernized now...but the buildings of 'course the building, structure and stuff is alot more because you take up in town because both sides of these streets, as you go up through there all down to the crossing was houses, on both sides of the street...All down to from there to the stop sign up there to underpass that was it was lined with stores, with furniture stores, hardware, lumber company...Matewan Lumber Company was there all lined up, and they wudn't hardly a place, a spot empty. There wudn't a home there...So you take uh...talkin' Matewan was much bigger back then, it's maybe the same size, more modernized and spread out but uh...it's just more business and more traffic, back then than there is now, I mean. You couldn't hardly walk the streets, you did, always somebody on the streets, until the curfew time, which was back in them days was very strictly enforced. Anytime after twelve o'clock you where stopped and asked what your business doing on the street, and it was very strictly enforced. But for as then, and that's my opinion for it, I don't (unintelligible) back in those days Matewan was much bigger...'cause more to do, more places to go, more to see.

B: Uh-huh...So what time of that are you saying that at night they would ask people what their business was in town.

BM: Ten o'clock young people would be off the street...at twelve grow ups better have a pretty good...reason to be on the streets 'cause they had that curfew, and that meant at twelve o'clock that didn't mean anything after, in fact the places sold beer and beverages, and stuff like that twelve o'clock that was it. They had to have their doors closed and locked up and gone. I don't know if they had to be gone, but they had to be locked up. After that they figured you could have after twelve the curfew was strictly enforced. Uh...I remember them days there, it was quite a few, I think Ernest Hatfield, Allen Hatfield, all them people through them people through there, Glen Meade...and people like that, in this town the law enforcement in this town...they were very strict.

B: Um...somebody, this would of been years before you come to Matewan but, at that time I say probably in the '20's or '30's they had a bell that they would ring?

BM: That was before my time, I didn't know that, see that's somethin' else, I didn't know about.

B: So there wasn't a bell or anything...

BM: No, there was no bell, there was just a curfew, in fact I don't remember a bell, but you know the law patrolled town, I mean if you was on the street and they see you in town you better have, you better act like you worked somewhere. In the mines from Thacker, you know all the miners, they walked to and from work...but if you were coming in from work, or just gettin' off work from some business place or you know where you work......restaurant, a beer joint or something like that...that was an excuse. But just to go street loitering...that was over, no more street loitering, the street were very quiet after twelve o'clock you didn't see nothing stirring.

B: Uh-huh...Okay, what about on Halloween, we heard that the Halloween was uh...kinda of a rowdy holiday in this town?

BM: Well, it was uh...I guess like it is now, I don't really remember well, you know they still uh...I don't think it's changed to much, from the time I come back here in the sixties. It was wild, you know, on Halloween night like it is now...kids we'd all come to Blackberry City you treat or treatin' you know...bring the kids and things...Yeah, I'd say mostly back then trick or treatin' was probably you know, something for the kids back in those times, they had a time set for it and that was it.

B: Okay... uh...what about uh...did you ever hear of a man called Blind Billy Adair or Adare, I think he was probably before your time too.

BM: I heard of him but I don't know anything about him.

B: Okay. Do you remember what you heard about him?

BM: Just about a name, I mean there was nothing, I heard people talk about him, I didn't know it was something...just another something that by-passed me...like a name that you'd heard spoke of it...I don't remember I really don't remember what it was all about.

B: Okay...Alright, uh...Mr. Mounts if there's nothing else the last question I'd like to ask you is what was above the Matewan Restaurant when you uh...worked here, do you remember?

BM: Well, it's settin' in the same location now, I'd say the same thing that was probably over it at that time, where it was just at, the design that's different, but I believe the apartment buildings is over now isn't it? Well its sittin' in the same location so that would of been over it then. But, it was designed different on the front and on the sides and everything was different, same door and everything same building, same way...

B: Uh-huh. Where was the front what did the front look?

BM: Well the front was, it was made out there, it wasn't sittin' out there like it is now, flush pump full out in the street there...with uh...I don't really remember exactly how the glass was in the front here through here was uh...glass on this side...which a door was in the middle, middle ways of it was door, which was a big, wooden door with glass in it and in this main corner, there was a corner just like, you know, that corner would be there back in the corner there it was. They was one glass there sittin' there...but the front was flushed with the street and kindly run off the street...there wasn't (unintelligible) it was just off the street into the restaurant.

B: Uh-huh, now is this the front that faced the railroad or this front out here?

BM: This front uh...was here the back was still as it was back then it, I mean it was the same uh...design and everything (unintelligible) uh...which there was a sidewalk that run up all the way up and down the back. But the back wasn't a door the back you know has never been changed. (train)

B: Uh-huh. But your saying right here out front was...was flush to the street.

BM: Yeah it was flush just like they got the building up here (unintelligible) yeah that's the way it use to be years ago, the front you know the way they got the plywood up there, that was flushed there you see. Just like that all the way down through there. There was no off set winders (windows) or no off set doors everything was flushed right into the.....

B: Okay.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection