Two thirds of Mingo County, West Virginia is owned today by five out-of-state coal and land companies. The Forestland Group controls over three and one half million acres of land in the US. Seven Hundred twenty-three thousand acres are in West Virginia and Kentucky. As the map shows, it is not a great overstatement to say that they “own West Virginia.” http://www.forestlandgroup.com/about.html
From the company’s website, we see:
Craig R. Kaderavek
Senior Director of Forest Operations-Appalachian Region
According to Dean King, Mr. Kaderavek and one of his associates (p.348) took the intrepid explorer/writer on a tour of the Valley in the summer of 2009. At the mouth of Thacker Creek, the group was fired upon by the barbaric descendants of the feudists. (p.xii)
This essay, in its entirety, can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977716814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511238586&sr=1-1&keywords=Lies%2C+Damned+Lies%2C+and+Feud+Tales