Matewan and the surrounding area have a history shaped by coal, the railroad, flooding, the Hatfield-McCoy feud, and the Mine Wars. In the early 19th century, the Ferrell family settled along the northern edge of Tug Fork and a then-unnamed tributary that legend says Richard Ferrell named Mate Creek after his dog Mate drowned there during a hunt. The town’s name is also tied to Erskine Hazard, a civil engineer for the Norfolk and Western Railway, who mapped the developing community in 1890 and suggested the name of his hometown, Matteawan, New York; the shortened form Matewan came into common use, likely to match the nearby creek. The railroad reached the town in 1892, drawing newcomers and workers for the nearby mines of the Williamson Coal Field, and coal companies built housing throughout the area before Matewan was incorporated in 1895. The area became known for violence associated with the post-Civil War Hatfield-McCoy feud, in which the Hatfields, led by Devil Anse Hatfield, lived mainly on the West Virginia side of Tug Fork and the McCoys, led by Randolph Ole Ran’l McCoy, lived mainly on the Kentucky side. The first reported violence came in 1865, when returning Union soldier Asa Harman McCoy, brother of Randall McCoy, was killed and local ex-Confederate militia called the Logan Wildcats were suspected, with rumors also implicating Devil Anse Hatfield. Repeated violent encounters between 1878 and 1891 led to the deaths of about 12 members of the two families. In the early 1920s, the Mine Wars centered on the United Mine Workers’ effort to organize miners in the southwestern West Virginia smokeless coal fields, and the resulting turmoil included the Battle of Matewan on May 19, 1920, the three-day Battle of the Tug on May 12-14, 1921, the killing of Police Chief Sid Hatfield and his deputy Ed Chambers in Welch on August 1, 1921, and the Battle of Blair Mountain in August and September 1921. Governor Cornwell activated the recently established West Virginia State Police and, along with Governor Ephraim Morgan, repeatedly sought federal troop assistance and declared martial law in Mingo County several times, including one period of 15 months from June 1921 to September 1922. By 1922, the state militia and the State Police had been strained by numerous incidents of labor unrest. Tug Fork has flooded the area since the earliest recorded settlement and has inundated Matewan an estimated 36 times since 1949. Major floods in 1957 and 1963 were followed by the record flood of April 4, 1977, which destroyed more than one-third of all dwellings, City Hall, a medical clinic, and other facilities. After that devastation, legislation authorized floodwalls in the region, and construction of the Matewan floodwall and supporting levee began in 1985, a year after another major flood, and was completed in 1996.