The Hatfield-McCoy Feud -- A Modern Day Morality Play

Updates

June 3, 2012: Here's an update in the Minneapolis-St Paul StarTribune.
June 1, 2012: this is quite a coincidence. Tonight, while reading the LA Times on-line, I came across this story: 'Hatfields and McCoys' is a History-Changing Success. When I wrote the "story" below, I had no idea that the History channel is currently showing a miniseries based on the feud. Purely coincidental that this post was written and posted at this time.

Original Post

Once upon a time there were two feuding families, let's call them the Hatfields and the McCoys.

The McCoys had a huge amount of oil on their side of the border. It was a thick, sludgy, dirty oil but they had lots of it. What they needed was a pipeline to get it where it could be refined into useful products.

Meanwhile the Hatfields had the refineries and the demand for these useful products. There was even a shovel-ready plan to lay an extra large pipeline through Hatfield's territory, where it would provide thousands of jobs for the Hatfields at a time when the Hatfields were desperate for jobs.

But for some reason the Hatfields did not want the McCoys thick, sludgy, dirty oil. The Hatfields told the McCoys to "pound dirt," i.e., the Hatfields said "no" to the McCoy extra large pipeline.

The Hatfields had their own light, sweet oil. They were producing so much of this wonderful oil they couldn't keep up with shipping it. They were shipping it any way they could: truck, pipeline, rail, barge, and the occasional mule. Finally, the Hatfields came up with an idea similar to the McCoys pipeline: the Hatfields would build an additional pipeline, called the Huge Pipeline, that would take all this wonderful oil to another terminal in their territory. How fortuitous: there was already an oil receiving terminal on their side of the border.

But, that terminal -- funny how things work out, and the reason for the story --  belonged to the McCoys. Yes, the very McCoys who had all that thick, sludgy, dirty oil, but no place to take it.

Now, the McCoys may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they have a pretty good memory. And a pretty good memory was all that was needed. After all, it was just a few weeks earlier that the Hatfields refused to let the McCoys build a pipeline through Hatfields' territory.

The decision seemed petty to the McCoys.

The McCoys were understandably miffed when they were told they could not build their pipeline. So when the Hatfields asked to connect their proposed pipeline to the McCoys' terminal, what do you think they said?

Yup: no deal. That terminal, the McCoys said, is reserved for the thick, sludgy, dirty oil from the McCoys' own oil field. Which is kind of funny, because up until now, everyone thought that terminal was taking light, sweet, oil from the Hatfields.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud may be a myth, but apparently there is a true-life story which sounds vaguely familiar playing itself out in court.