Welch was named for Captain Isaiah Welch, a surveyor whose reports of rich coal seams in the Elkhorn Valley helped encourage development of the Norfolk and Western Railway. In 1888 he bought land at the confluence of Elkhorn Creek and Tug Fork in anticipation of the railroad, which arrived in 1891; Welch became the McDowell County seat in 1892 and was incorporated in 1894. Within a few years, more than 30 nearby mines were operating, drawing large numbers of native-born and foreign mine workers. Welch became especially associated with the 1921 murder of Sid Hatfield and the 1960 visit of presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. On August 1, 1921, former Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield and Deputy Ed. Chambers were killed on the steps of the McDowell County courthouse by operatives of the Baldwin-Felts detective agency in retaliation for the killing of several of their men in Matewan on May 19, 1920. Public outrage over the murders led to the Battle of Blair Mountain, where federal and state troops defeated the miners and blocked United Mine Workers efforts to organize the southern West Virginia coal fields. During the 1960 Democratic primary campaign, Kennedy visited Welch twice and spoke against the poverty he saw in the region; those experiences in Welch and nearby contributed to the later development of the nationwide Food Stamp program and other anti-poverty legislation for Appalachia. Welch’s commercial center stood along McDowell and Wyoming streets near the Norfolk and Western Railway station. A 1911 fire destroyed many wooden buildings, which were replaced with brick and stone structures built by Italian stone masons employed by the railway. By the early 1920s, Welch had two dozen coal company offices, a state hospital, and a thriving business district. Its economy later rose and fell with the regional coal industry, and mine closings, increasing mechanization, and the diversion of rail traffic away from Welch after World War II contributed to decline. Flooding over the past century, including devastating floods in 2001 and 2002, also damaged the town but prompted revitalization efforts along the Tug Fork riverfront.