In a time when state and national police agencies had not yet been formed, William Gibboney Baldwin and Thomas Lee Felts created a firm of private detectives that became widely known and respected among law abiding citizens, and despised and feared by criminals and rabble rousers of all sorts.

The hundreds of men in the Baldwin-Felts agency were thorough and fearless. Ready to go on a moment's notice, they responded instantly whenever a train was robbed, a coal mine strike erupted into violence, or a murderer fled the scene of a crime. More often than not, they conducted their investigation, got their man, and protected him from angry mobs until a jury delivered its verdict.

William G. Baldwin was born on May 26, 1860 and spent his childhood in Tazewell County, Virginia. He joined the Eureka Detective Agency of Charleston, West Virginia at an early age and developed his investigative skills under founder Alf W. Burnett. He later created Baldwin's Railroad Detectives and placed his headquarters in Roanoake, Virginia, where the firm was employed by the Norfolk and Western Railroad and several others lines as their private police force. State police had not yet been formed, so Baldwin's private firm handled problems in much the same manner as today's public police forces.

In 1900, Baldwin enlarged his company by forming a partnership with Thomas Lee Felts, one of his best employees. They changed the firm's name in 1910 to Baldwin-Felts Detectives, Inc. Felts moved to Bluefield, West Virginia to handle coal mine security and Baldwin remained in Roanoake to continue his railroad work.

Baldwin-Felts detectives carried out many dangerous and thankless tasks, the worst of which usually surrounded coal mine strikes. Often they would be asked to peacefully evict striking miners from company-owned houses that the miners rented, and which the miners had agreed in writing to vacate when they stopped working for the mining company. These evictions often resulted in violence. The most notable eviction occurred in Matewan, West Virginia on May 19th, 1920, when seven unarmed Baldwin-Felts detectives were shot and killed by citizens under the control of chief-of-police Sid Hatfield.

In books and movies about Matewan, Baldwin-Felts agents have often been portrayed as thugs and goons. In this book, author John Velke revisits Matewan and other notable places in order to set the record straight. His work will soon take its place among the classics of law enforcement and railroad history.

John A. Velke is a private security professional specializing in retail loss prevention. Considered an expert in his field, Velke has served on the Illinois Attorney General's Task Force on Computer Crime, the Food Marketing Institute's Loss Prevention Committee, and the Oregon Private Security Council. In recognition of his efforts to further professionalize the private security industry, in 1996, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber appointed Velke to the State's Board on Public Safety Standards and Training. A native of Virginia, Velke has had a lifelong interest in history and the development of law enforcement techniques. This is his first book.