Buck Wright, former Law Enforcement Officer in War, West Virginia

Interviewed by:  Betty Dotson Lewis
June 21, 2002  2:30 pm
Justice Twins' Barber Shop, War, West Virginia

Buck and his wife, Lorraine, drove up from Bristol, Tennessee for the oral history.  Buck enjoyed visiting with friends in the barber shop before starting on his story. Several customers came in the shop to visit and  talk with Rush and Riley Justice, owners of the barber shop during the oral history.  Jeb Brooks, Washington & Lee University student and his grandfather stayed for the collection of the Appalachian memory.

One black man greeted Buck warmly after getting a haircut.  Buck was showing off his trim waist when the other man pointed to his midriff which was a little round and told Buck , "You have to be on welfare to get a belly like this."

 Most of the employment opportunities left War when all the coal operators pulled out of what had been the world's largest coal producing county for 22 years.  They left in the mid eighties seemingly in the middle of the night.

Buck Wright's oral history:

My Dad was a coalminer and had a medical card.

My baby brother was born with Muscular Dystrophy.  I took  care of him all of his life.  There was 10 kids in my family.  I was next to the oldest. I was born in Mingo County, West Virginia on May 11, 1920.

My Dad was from Wise County, Virginia.  He moved to Montcoal, Kentucky right across the river from the West Virginia line.  My mother is from Matewan. 

We moved up to Yukon  and then to War when I was in junior high school. Yes, I was raised right here in War.  I was raised here. 

My  Dad spent fifty long hard years working in the coal mines.  He had a few injuries. One time I remember he got his jaw broke. Mostly they transported the coal by train, the S&N.   He worked for Carter Coal Company, then he worked at Bartley shaft mine.  He was working at number 5 when Bartley blew in Caretta.

I started  school at Yukon and came to junior high school at War.  Finished high school at Big Creek.   Whites and colored  had separate schools  at that time.  We had the world's largest coal producing county for 22 years.  The blacks had been hand loading coal for years, Some nice blacks.  I policed  with them for years.

What are some of your memories of the Depression Era in War?

During the Depression those coal companies hired  gun thugs (police officers  Baldwin and Felts Agents).  My poor old daddy came in from work one day and changed clothes, eating a bowl of beans and going back to the mines, someone knocked on the door, I was in school,  2nd grade , three of them standing there,  I was peeping around the door watching them, and they had a voters' book , Paul Harman, House of Delegates, Republican Ticket,  Sarge Harman's,   husband they owned the mines and the company store, they wanted him, my dad, to change his registration to help their candidate in the election.  He did not want to change.  One of them shook a finger up to my daddy's  nose and said, You will change it if you want to stay here".

And when these old miners got to where they couldn't pay their rent at the coal camps regardless where they had one or ten in the family, these agents would carry their furniture out of the company house and set it in the road.

Back then food was so cheap, my daddy always had cows, hogs and chickens and we fed people, I never went to bed hungry.   You would see these coal trains, you would see ho-bos hitching rides in the empty cars, even women riding during the Depression era, this was the Hoover Era.  Nearly every car had a bunch of ho-bos, even women riding.

My dad worked what he could during the Depression  but we always lived where we had a big garden and we had  one room with hams and bacon and canned stuff.  We were never hungry.

My daddy helped people. He always helped people. One was an old black woman, Aunt Jo, she had one eye.  She would come to our house three or four times a week to help out with the housework and cooking.  My mother had typhoid and couldn't do any of the work around the house.  We thought she was dead two or three times but she finally got well.  They buried people all around us. Dead from typhoid.   We had a doctor Hatfield, out of Mingo County,  my mother's third cousin.  He came out of the Hatfield clan.  They had some kind of medicine they used to doctor the typhoid.

My grandmother's  sister was married  to Devil  Anse Hatfield.  So many tales told about that feud that no one knows the truth. 

In the first place Anse Hatfield was a wealthy man through owning timber and  land and the McCoy's couldn't get it.

Then there was the love affair between Jonathan Hatfield and Roseanne McCoy.  Then the Civil War came along, Anse was a Captain for the South and McCoy fought for the North.  Someone in one of the families supposedly got killed.

They used to tell this story; Uncle Ellison, Anse Hatfield's  brother went to vote,  went upstairs to the 2nd floor to vote, as he came down the steps  three McCoys, in their teens, drinking moonshine shot him twice as he came the steps and after he rolled down, they stabbed him several times.

Anyway, the way I was told was the McCoy boys were arrested  and they told Devil Anse to let the law take its course.  Uncle Anse said, "If he dies, they die."

He died and after they buried him, Devil Anse's son, Cap, my grandfather, everybody call him "Cottontop" went and took the three McCoy boys away from the Deputy Sheriff on the Kentucky side, killed all 3 of them in a PawPaw patch and the war broke out.

They scouted them  out because they had rewards out for them and the fighting and feuding went on until they got a Hatfield elected Governor of the State of West Virginia.  Anse died a natural death.

They had a write up in the Bluefield paper that said, "Devil Anse Hatfield was not a mean man but wealthy and he would give you the shirt off his back but it wouldn't do to make him mad".

I spent a short time in the Navy but I had an injury and was discharged.  I came back here.  All the younger fellows were up in Detroit working in the car factories.  I showed  dad  my discharge papers and so I left here and went out to Dearborn Michigan making stuff in the factories until the war was over.

I came back here and went in the mines in 1946 for  Carter Coal Company running mining motors and working as a brakeman and pulling coal cars off and sending the empties back after the coal was dumped into those big railroad cars to be hauled out.

Well, I got into it with that other bunch in town,  the Chief of Police of War.  I could smell whisky him and a close buddy of his who was a City Police and a deputy (I don't know his first name)  I didn't fool around town because of the way they done people, they black-jacked people.  There was 12 beer joints in town.  Along this street they had three joints in one place that was for the blacks. In those places they had knives, straight razors,  moonshine.

Well, an old school teacher of mine, Fred Combs, ran for mayor, Lt. Commander in Navy. the way they had it hooked up here, the town was divided into three precincts.  There was lots of people in War.

Fred Combs taught me in grade school in Yukon anytime my name was mentioned I was always his boy.  After he filed for office of the Mayor,  I went around trying to help him, campaigning.  He got beat so after the election, me and an old school buddy of mine  was going down to buy a little supper, and the man who won the election for mayor cussed me for fighting him in the election.  I said, "Why are you cussing me,  you beat?"  He always had whiskey on him breath.

Well they had another election after that and they still won, no one running.  Then in the late 40's, I remember when Freddy Combs finally got elected.  Politics was a big thing in McDowell County and War.

I  used to  be bad to shoot pool on weekends.  They had pool rooms they would keep it open until way up in the morning. The Police Chief was still throwing it up to me about fighting him in the election. So one Friday  or Saturday night I bought some stuff to take home, food and  clothes  and my brother had gone somewhere in the car and I had asked him come back after me.  He still hadn't come by the time I was ready to go home,  so I was walking down the street to get some coffee and thinking if he didn't come back I would just walk home. I set the package on the counter and sat down to talk to somebody. I was active in the American Legion, helped to get it organized, so one of my buddies in the Legion came up and said, " I got a couple new members to sign up."

 I went over to the booth and was getting papers to fill out for the American Legion. Somebody  hollered, "Ain't that your package down there?"  

This fellow was almost to the door with my package.   I could see he was drinking,   I just tapped him on the shoulder and he started to take a swing at me and I  gave him a punch that left him on the floor.  This Chief of Police rented a room upstairs that  he lived in.  He had left his family, he was Chief of Police of War.

It has been a long time since I have talked about this and I haven't thought about this for a long time either.  I got a temper too when I get mad.  Somebody got this fellow up and was taking him out.  I had left those papers for the American Legion.  He came through the room and he had a black jack in his hand, the Chief of Police.  He said,  " Who had this fight and hell-raising?"

I said, "I had to do it."

 He said, "Get the hell out of here."

I said, "That is where I am going after I get my package."

So my brother had not come to pick me up and we lived about a mile down the road.   I got out and hit the railroad tracks with my package, used to be there was road up to the top of the hill.  It used to be Excelsior.  There was an old building, company store.  Well,   this city police car was setting there, it was about 2 in the morning.  The police  arrested me. 

I said, "I will pay a fine." 

He said, "Yes, you will."  The police officer was crippled. He started up the hill with me and he started bragging  about all he had done.   He called me a stockboy on the trip to jail, I still have the scar.  He started cussing me about the election and he started hitting me again. I had my face covered up.  He hit me with the black jack, my eye was almost closed when I got to jail.  The other officer opened the door to the police car and I hit him  in the back of the head because I knew I was going to get it.  There was three of them, I was crying too.

(Buck showed me the scars on his face).  They knocked me out, kicked me in the ribs.  I had to wear bandages for a long time, three ribs cracked.  Cost me over $100 to get my teeth fixed they had to put gold in them.  Doctors had to sew up my face and head.

When I came back from the doctor I laid on the couch until late in the evening.  I set my shotgun where I could get at it easy, I was waiting until dark.  I meant to kill them.  I was going to crawl up the ditch line, my daddy caught me in about an hour.  They never found that gun, I could run like a deer, none of them could catch me.

(Riley Justice, one of the Justice twins who owned the barber shop came over and told me) - this boy was one of the best.  I remember when he was working with a state policeman and they tore up one of the biggest liquor rings in the country).

It took me awhile but finally we got  DV Cole elected mayor.  He got rid of the Chief of Police a short time after this happened.  Well, I went out to work one morning to the mines and they had a shortage on railroad cars.  We had nothing to dump the coal in so I had to come back home.

I had just returned from the West Virginia Legislature, started back up the street to a brick building which was  across the street from  a bus station.  Buses ran to  Bluefield, Welch, Grundy.  There was a  restaurant in the front part of the bus station and lockers and benches in the back and where I walked by was a big window.  The Chief of Police was standing there in the window looking at me as I went by. I was hoping to catch him somewhere else but I walked in and  said, "Come on let's go outside.  We got something to settle." 

 So, I turned him around I broke his nose with the first lick I hit him.  Somebody yelled that he had a snub nose gun in his pocket   The floor was slick where we were fighting and there was a bench.  I got him straddled the bench and was working on his face with my fist when and old man, Tom Nunn, old bus driver, I called him uncle Tom, he was so good to us boys, he was the one who got me off.  I went out the door went up where I was rooming to get my wallet and wash my  hands.   I had blood on my shirt.  I went back to the bus station and told the manager I would pay for the damages.  He said that he had already  cleaned it up, we had been expecting that.

I  was inside the building when the Sheriff came and the city police officers were behind him.

They said,  "We got a warrant for you>"

"I will pay the fine," I told him.

He said, "You can't pay this,  it is felonious assault, $1,000 bond."

I told him I could post bond and he said that they were going to take me up and let me get cooled off.  We are going to lock you up.

 I said, "I am not going to that jail,"  and I just balled up and said I am not going no place with you."

In a little bit he came back and he said, "Will you go with me and I said, "Yes," I was there about 15 minutes when the doors snapped open there was a crowd of people supporting me; it was bus drivers, school teachers, so I went down and was suppose to go on peace warrant but I didn't intend to go to jail. 

The Chief of Police didn't show up for the hearing.  The JP asked me if I would come back tomorrow and I said, "Yea, I will be there," and the Police Chief  didn't show up the 2nd time.  The JP said that he could shut it down but it could still go to Grand Jury and so I paid him.  I had work the day the Grand Jury met I had to work at the mines, so a friend of mine went and he didn't show.

They had everything in the book going, cathouses, moonshines, the police was involved.  so I got this Fred Combs to run again in 1951 and me and 2 friends we went from house to house and a big write up in the Bluefield,  to elect a new mayor and our 5 candidates for  council members and  all of them were members of the American Legion and had served in WWII. 

The night of the election, when the results came in we looked around and those people had left the country when they found out they had been beaten.

So we got a new  Chief of Police, Roscoe.   George Harman and they wanted me to take the other job as chief deputy and I didn't want it so they got after my preacher.  You are so well liked I think you would make a good one and so I started on it. 

That was in 1951.  This was during the coal boom.  We lacked 3,000 people having 100,000 people in this county.  We used hand loaders and it took a lot of people to load the coal we had.   There was people on these streets all night long. 

I stayed on for three years and  it came up election, statewide and county. They had an executive committee.  I don't remember how many served on it but one of the Democrats got to be a federal judge.  I ran and  some said, "You can't win it."

I said, " I don't know, you can't win a fight unless you start one."

A lot of under table money here too.  I went ahead and ran and was elected.  We were just  trying to change chairmanship of the executive committee.   BM Stone was Chairman of Democratic  Party.  He was a railroad agent  in the Town of English.

They was trying to get  the executive committee chairmanship  from him.

During this time, one night I got picked up on the street and they hauled me up the hollow and pulled off and they were trying to buy my vote.  

They said, "You should not be for them, they was against them."

" I am for Fred Combs,"  I said, "he was personal friend of mine."

A few days they sent a legislator out here, in a Cadillac,  hauled up to the city hall and  they counted out ten 100 dollar bills, offered it to me.  He picked most of it up out of the floor.

 I told them, "There is no used in coming after me. "  I said. " I am sticking with Fred Combs."

After the election, we cleaned this place up.

One night we went in a joint  and we tore everything up that was there.  We couldn't get in one of the joints one night, they were having a big party. We would just light outside the door and when they  would come out and we load them up and haul them off to jail. 

Did you meet any of the "Big" politicians who came to the southern Appalachian coalfields?

Harry Truman came to Welch, County Seat. He was as  country as could be.  He was guest speaker at our Veterans Day Ceremony.  Then he came back when be was President of the United States.

John Kennedy came in and made a dinner speech when he was running for President of the United States.  He spoke in a little place going out of Welch toward Pineville in a little school house building.  He had  2 brothers, Ted had the best personality.  They were always grinning and patting you on the shoulder.

Jay  Rockefeller said, " I am always Jay,"  and I get a Christmas card from him every year..  He speaks at almost all Veteran Day Ceremony and he came here to speak at our high school graduation.

They (the big politicians) were always well received here.  I remember seeing Kennedy in Sam Sullivan's law office.

The movie about Kennedy PT109 was based on actual fact.

Here is my hand to God, I seen this country go down but before John F. Kennedy, was elected, at  Gary where U.S. Steele Coal Company Headquarters was located, there was big hollow as you come this way where they had a mines and they was working one or two days a week.  They were hauling commodities here to feed people to keep them from starving.   We had the police to feed these people. 

I don't know why but the shaft mine at Bartley was working everyday but the men was not making anything.   I will never forget what John Kennedy said before he was elected President, "As much mineral wealth as there is in this country, if I am make it in as President,  I am going to put it on the move.  And he did.  I don't know why. All these mines started producing coal.  I don't know how it happened but it did.

Lyndon Johnson was here for Veterans Day the same month Kennedy  was assassinated.  He was over at Welch for Veterans Day celebration.

The Christian brothers were lawyers and was so well liked, they were good, clean smart people.  They were responsible for bringing those big political boys.

What about the people who live in War?

Most of the people here, raised here, but you had some people to come in here to work from other places.  There was rough necks come to the coal camps.

We didn't miss a grand jury in 1953.  We always had cases.   Stone wanted me to work in juvenile court.   This is called  Big Creek District and it included  English, Yukon, Squire, etc.  We had 22 beer joints right here to work, we didn't miss a grand jury but had 4 to 5 murders; shootings, cuttings, everything you could think of because we had so many people in the coal camps.

I remember some of the cases;  one fellow got a butcher knife stuck in him clear up to the handle.

One man got killed in the woods and it took me 2 months to catch the shooter.  I had a friend of mine to get his gun and that way I could track him down.

You had a lot of people here  with good family.  They would go out drinking, get loaded I would call someone and send them home.

One time I got these 2 fellows out of a joint, one named Bandy and the other Bowman.  They had been drinking.  The people here were bad to fight.  Well, I locked Bowman up and took Bandy home.   They asked me, "Why did you lock up Bowman up and take Bandy home, when Bowman wasn't half as drunk as Brandy?"

Well, I knew these people and I had a reason to do what I did, Bowman was going to start a fight and Bandy would just sleep it off.

War was a boom town.  There was money all over the streets.  I was a policeman and we needed band uniforms and the American Legion.  We had a bar,  they all had them at that time.  All the money that was taken in was supposed to be spent for charity.

We are going to get those uniforms one way or another, I told them.   I went over and hit County Court, funeral home, grocery store and put on road stops had cards made, so when we got done, Big Creek High School Band had new uniforms and we had  money left over.  We had emblem made and they wore them on their shoulders.

I had  set up.  I would pick people for example for the executive committee.   I could appoint anyone I wanted for positions.  I could appoint poll clerks and get jobs for people.  If you had connections, you could do that and I had connections. 

This is my second marriage.  We had a couple of boys and they were in Little League. Big Creek didn't have one.  The Romeo Brothers  had a store in Welch and one was running for County Court.  He wanted to know if I would help him in the election.

I told him, "Now, I am  going to talk to the people and I am going to give you precincts and if we don't have a baseball team at Big Creek don't come back here."

I had another road stop cause to make money so I went in to the bank one day because they had called and said that  had money for me.  It was Moak Deterso, bank president,so we can have Little League and Big League. 

I said, "If you can  keep 150 boys off the streets you can keep them from getting into menace."   I helped get 6 Little League teams and 4 Senior League teams started.

We had a Mary Jane Bruuster, a friend of mine, got killed in a car wreck next to Bishop and they got the rescue squad out of Tazewell County.  At that time we had a store building and people was bringing money in to buy her flowers and stuff and Lyle was over the water company here and me and him usually got together to drink coffee.  I was telling him about the money I had and I told him. "I think Mary Jane would appreciate if I just donated the money toward a rescue squad."

 Hatcher was in the Legislature.  Hatcher  and I made so many trips to Charleston.  I was the one who started it but he helped me , Glen Hatcher died of cancer, I hated that so bad.  I made many a trip to his house.

I always like to help people and they  would say, "You always locked me up but if I needed help you would help."

w always said that Buck Wright could be anything he wanted.

I always just wanted them to like me.

From 1951 to 74 I never had the first black jack in my pocket.    That was a common practice in War back in those days.

One time the Chief of Police had me to go with him, I got under the wheel and drove and I got out and opened the door and he had hit that man and I told him you don't have to hit him.  We had 2 witnesses and they fired him.  I told the Mayor I am not going to work for anybody that beats people.

Every breaking and entering, liquor store robbery, I stayed on the case until I got something.  I had a trooper Dave Moyer, lives next to Beckley, made me feel good, for him to say, Sgt. Dye said to come over get with you and you done a good job that made me feel good. He made a good one too, we stayed on it until we got something.

Drug problems started a little before I quit.  The lady up here who  works at the library we tried to get something done.  We couldn't get anybody in here to help.

I have 5 kids. 

My Joyce lives Homestead, Fla

John lives Raven, VA

Jennifer, Bristol

Nancy, Bristol

Haven Patrick Wright, Blountville, Tn

coal operators -  we never had any rules in this country

We had a road started coming off Welch Mountain, turn off 16, it was a 3 lane job and came over across the mountain and stopped. Arch Moore stopped the road over toward Coalwood. He said that it was costing the state too much money. He was going to have it contracted out.  I didn't vote for him.

They got all the coal off of these shaft mines they claim, but there is still coal in these mountains.  They are core drilling, same seam that goes into Buchanan County, Virginia. . Up these hollows they put in punch mines and truck it out,  the only mines working.

Mechanization hurt the coal field, when they 28 to 30 men to a section when they hand loaders, 12 to 16 places, little cars would take the coal to the tipple.  Mechanization cut it down to maybe 6, 7, 8 that was another thing that hurt the coal fields.

Coal operators didn't care about the men, just coal.

Overweight coal trucks should not be allowed because they tear the roads up.

Bush is only interested in the oil country and this place went for him and spending all the money on security not giving one thought to the people here in this country who might be hungry. 

I grew up in Republican Administration - gun thugs days.

The first Sheriff I worked for told me about the gun thugs. He said, You made a good policeman and you have a good reputation. I served on the election polls.

When Roosevelt was elected in 32, this county went Republican and the state went Democrat.  I was on a community.  The gun thugs were wearing deputy sheriff badges.  Stone was on the committee who went to Charleston  and  when they told the people in Charleston about the deputy sheriff badges being worn by the gun thugs, 224 of them, total, they found out only 9 were licensed to carry a gun..

They turned them all in and after that they were no longer allowed to wear badges .  Her daddy, my father-in-law, lost a hand in mines.  He got a compensation check at the company store.  They got script most of the time.  Come down where you could get your grocery cheaper going up the hill.   The manager of the company store said, "Where did you get those groceries?  If you got any money you are to spend it at the company store."  

After I got active in the politics we had 2 delegates from 1932 to 55, one term a piece.  Then we had five delegates.  Second biggest district in the county.  It took me between  10 and 12 years but I had Bill Dickerson in Bartley, Corbit Church in Yukon and Fred Wooten from Coalwood, all three in the Legislature, House of Delegates and Hatcher in the Senate from this area. 

They said, "You run that county don't you?"   and I said, 'No , I just do the figuring."

end of interview -

I packed up my laptop, told everyone bye, thanked Buck and Lorraine for the great story and headed back to Summersville.