Normally, when I think of historic preservation efforts, I think of architectural gems, and places where major events happened.

Not "tacky motels" in Wildwood, New Jersey. Tacky ain't tacky no more, so I guess I should get over it. The National Trust for Historic Preservation insists. They care about history, and they know more about the history of tacky motels than I do!

They also know more about the Blair Mountain Battlefield.

Huh? I like to think I know my history, but I scratched my memory, and the place just didn't spring out at me. I figured it must have been a Civil War battle that never received as much attention as it should have.

Wrong. Blair Mountain was the scene of a nasty 1921 clash involving a coal miners' strike in West Virginia:

May 12 - On Aug. 30, 1921, along a rocky ridge near this hamlet, more than 6,000 union coal miners clashed with sheriff's deputies, the state police and coal company guards in the climactic battle of the West Virginia coal wars. Dozens died during five days of trench warfare.

Now, a new battle for Blair Mountain is flaring. But this time, the warriors are not miners toting rifles, but historians armed with artifacts. And the fight is not about organizing the coalfields, but saving the battlefield.

Being added to the register would also be a crucial first step toward the preservationists' goal of making Blair Mountain a landmark or park, which could stop mining there altogether.

"This is a breakthrough nomination in terms of taking a chink out of the power of coal companies to dominate our land," said Frank Unger, a part-time preservationist who helped prepare the Blair Mountain application.

The coal companies have threatened legal action. Although the listing would not prohibit mining, it could cause the federal government to delay or modify permits, potentially affecting hundreds of jobs, including about 100 held by union workers.

"We're going to resist vigorously any attempts to take away our property rights," said Greg Wooten, vice president of Dingess Rum Properties Inc., which leases land on the ridge to mining companies. "We have a right to exercise our lawful and legal right to mine coal, remove timber and drill oil and gas wells on our property."

There are no historic buildings involved here, of course. Just land. I'm trying to be logical about this, because I think it's fraught with emotion (why that is, I'm not sure; these events took place 85 years ago and the participants are no longer alive). The issue seems to be this: should the fact that a historically significant event took place on land be allowed to interfere with the rights of the property owner? Should there even be a right to own property where important things happened?

I do not mean to make light of history. The NYT account is scanty on details, but the events are fascinating, and include the origin of the word "redneck," the famous Mother Jones reading a forged telegram from President Harding, and World War I vets battling each other. A dozen strikers were killed, and the only reason they finally called it off was that they didn't want to fight U.S. soldiers.

Here's an excerpt from a West Virginia site:

As a result of the Matewan Massacre, Hatfield had become a hero to many of the miners. On August 7, a crowd varyingly estimated from 700 to 5,000 gathered on the capitol grounds in Charleston to protest the killing. Among others, UMWA's leaders Frank Keeney and Bill Blizzard urged the miners to fight. Over the next two weeks, Keeney travelled around the state, calling for a march on Logan. On August 20, miners began assembling at Marmet. Mother Jones, sensing the inevitable failure of the mission, tried to discourage the miners. At one point, she held up a telegram, supposedly from President Warren G. Harding, in which he offered to end the mine guard system and help the miners if they did not march. Keeney told the miners he had checked with the White House and the telegram was a fake. To this day, it is uncertain who was lying.

On August 24, the march began as approximately 5,000 men crossed Lens Creek Mountain. The miners wore red bandanas, which earned them the nickname, "red necks." In Logan County, Don Chafin mobilized an army of deputies, mine guards, store clerks, and state police. Meanwhile, after a request by Governor Morgan for federal troops, President Harding dispatched World War I hero Henry Bandholtz to Charleston to survey the situation. On the 26th, Bandholtz and the governor met with Keeney and Mooney and explained that if the march continued, the miners and UMWA leaders could be charged with treason. That afternoon, Keeney met a majority of the miners at a ballfield in Madison and instructed them to turn back. As a result, some of the miners ended their march. However, two factors led many to continue. First, special trains promised by Keeney to transport the miners back to Kanawha County were late in arriving. Second, the state police raided a group of miners at Sharples on the night of the 27th, killing two. In response, many miners began marching toward Sharples, just across the Logan County line.

The town of Logan was protected by a natural barrier, Blair Mountain, located south of Sharples. Chafin's forces, now under the command of Colonel William Eubank of the National Guard, took positions on the crest of Blair Mountain as the miners assembled in the town of Blair, near the bottom of the mountain. On the 28th, the marchers took their first prisoners, four Logan County deputies and the son of another deputy. On the evening of the 30th, Baptist minister John E. Wilburn organized a small armed company to support the miners. On the 31st, Wilburn's men shot and killed three of Chafin's deputies, including John Gore, the father of one of the men captured previously. During the skirmish, a deputy killed one of Wilburn's followers, Eli Kemp. Over the next three days, there was intense fighting as Eubank's troops brought in planes to drop bombs.

On September 1, President Harding finally sent federal troops from Fort Thomas, Kentucky. War hero Billy Mitchell led an air squadron from Langley Field near Washington, D.C. The squadron set up headquarters in a vacant field in the present Kanawha City section of Charleston. Several planes did not make it, crashing in such distant places as Nicholas County, Raleigh County, and southwestern Virginia, and military air power played no important part in the battle. On the 3rd, the first federal troops arrived at Jeffrey, Sharples, Blair, and Logan. Confronted with the possibility of fighting against U.S. troops, most of the miners surrendered.

There is no question that coal miners were treated dreadfully, and when I read this account, my sympathies were on their side. But what was the strike about? What did they die for? Why, their jobs! They were coal miners. (Doh!) They didn't want to stop coal mining at Blair Mountain; they wanted better working conditions for the miners.

Amazing as it may sound, today's coal miners are on the side of the company that owns Blair Mountain, and against the so-called "preservationists."

Back to the New York Times:

The fight has created an awkward alliance between the United Mine Workers of America and the very coal industry it battled atop Blair Mountain 84 years ago.

Many union miners view the mountain as a shrine to their movement's struggles. But because union coal jobs could be lost if mining is prohibited there, the union has refused to support listing Blair Mountain on the National Register.

Instead, it is calling for preserving a small piece of the mountain so that surface mining can proceed along the rest of the ridge. Coal company lawyers said they have supported similar proposals in the past, and might again.

....At the state commission's meeting on May 6, scores of miners - including Mr. King's brother - loudly protested the preservation plan. One argued that the mountain had become a dump for discarded furniture and appliances.

I'm thinking that this second Battle of Blair Mountain might not really be over miners or even historic "preservation" -- any more than the battle to save the tacky motels in Wildwood really involves loving the motels. True, when the motels are gone, they're gone, but Blair Mountain isn't really going anywhere. I'm thinking that the goal is to stop something called "development" -- another ill-defined word most often invoked to limit the rights of property owners to use land they own as they see fit.

If enough people want to preserve something, I don't see why they can't either buy it and preserve it, or have the government buy it and preserve it. For all I know, an important Indian treaty was once signed in my yard. Runaway slaves might have slept here. If a historian makes such a discovery, and it actually has value, should the public receive the benefit at my expense?

I can't think of a reason why.

Something is just not logical about the idea that properties of no historic value are more valuable than properties with historic value.

(But then, what's logical about communitarian politics?)

AFTERTHOUGHT: How come no one's saying anything about easy access to firearms as the cause of all that Blair Mountain "gun violence"? (Just askin'.)