Matewan, WV - 01 by Steve Beckelhimer

Canon 50D Digital SLR

This image was taken from near the railroad in the town of Matewan, West Virginia.

Matewan is now a town of less than 500 people although in the boom days of coal it was a thriving community. The town is best known for the Battle of Matewan, an important conflict in the movement to unionize coal mines in West Virginia and across the nation.

This photograph is of the area that was the main part of the town in 1920 when the Battle of Matewan occurred. Although most of the property is vacant, the buildings remain much as they were nearly 100 years ago.

The area is also well know as the site of much of the activity surrounding the Hatfield-McCoy feud in the 1880s.

This image was not shot with GigaPan equipment but rather with a handheld Canon 50D digital SLR with a 24-105 lens. The 58 individual photos were stitched together with Adobe Photoshop CS4.

The image was shot from N 37.622928 W 82.164783