Baldwin-Felts
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The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency was a private detective agency in the United States, founded in 1900 by William Gibboney Baldwin and Thomas Lafayette Felts and based in Bluefield, West Virginia.
Agents were hired by railroads and other companies to investigate train robberies and other crime, but Baldwin-Felts became best known for being willing to be hired to violently attack labor union members in such places as Ludlow, Colorado and Matewan, West Virginia. Thus, the agency continues to have an extremely poor reputation among labor union members to this day and are thought of as union busters and hired thugs. Seven detectives were killed in Matewan, West Virginia in 1920 during a shootout, two of whom were brothers of Thomas Felts; three townspeople were also killed, including the mayor. Following the events in Matewan, Baldwin-Felts agents assassinated Matewan Sheriff Sid Hatfield on the steps of the Welch, West Virginia Courthouse in retribution for Hatfield's support of the coal miners during the strike.
The agency's most famous case of its day was the capture of the Floyd Allen and his family who were involved in a courtroom shootout in Hillsville, Virginia during which 5 people died and 7 were wounded. This event was the big news in the nation from March 13, 1912 until April 15 that year when the Titanic sank.
Baldwin-Felts Detectives pursued two of the fugitives from Virginia to Des Moines, Iowa before finally capturing them. Hired by the Governor of Virginia due to the fact Virginia had no State Police force, the detectives cut a wide swath through Carroll County in their quest. Confiscating horses, performing illegal searches, tampering with the US Mail and beating witnesses, they managed to capture most of the Allens within a three week time period. Only six months elapsed before the final two were captured in Iowa.
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