The Doors of the Hatfield and McCoy Experience depicts the two feuding families battling it out. Inside is an interactive museum filled with artifacts and family heirlooms.	Jack Hatfield, the third great-grandson of Devil Anse Hatfield, is the creator of the Hatfield and McCoy Experience interactive museum.

The Hatfield and McCoy Experience is now open in Pigeon Forge. The new attraction is an interactive museum featuring artifacts from the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud. The museum contains numerous artifacts, including a gun owned by William Anderson Hatfield, also known as Devil Anse Hatfield. The museum was the brainchild of a direct descendant of Hatfield, Jack Hatfield.

Jack Hatfield is the author of three books about the famous feud. The notorious feud began on August 30, 1863, and resulted in numerous skirmishes between the two families, resulting in numerous deaths. Though the hostilities ended in 1891, the peace treaty that officially ended the feud was finally signed in 2003, 140 years after the first killing.

Stepping into the museum, visitors encounter a souvenir shop where they can purchase various Hatfield and McCoy-related items, including keychains, commemorative knives, T-shirts, jellies, caps, magnets, flasks, and snacks.

At the back of the souvenir store is the museum, which contains artifacts dating back to the 1860s, including the gun of Devil Anse Hatfield, old family photos, commemorative guns, centuries-old newspaper clippings, Interpretation boards, and old family heirlooms.

Jack Hatfield enjoys regaling visitors with stories about his infamous great-great-great-grandfather, including stories of how he befriended bear cubs as a child.

“Devil Anse befriended three bear cubs that we know of,” Hatfield said. “Occasionally, as a child, he would go out into the forest and find a bear cub and begin playing with it, and before you knew it, he made it a pet.”

The museum is an interactive museum that provides visitors with a set of headsets so they can take a self-guided tour. The tour is intended to educate, inform, and dispel myths about the two famous families. One prevailing myth is the long-standing belief that the feud started over a stolen pig. As Hatfield points out, the pig trial was just one chapter in a long, sordid epic story of violence and vengeance.

“The story for the Hatfield and McCoy feud actually goes all the way back to the Civil War,” Hatfield said. “One family, the Hatfields, from West Virginia, aligned with the Confederacy, and the McCoys, from Kentucky, aligned with the Union forces.”

In 1863, Confederate home guards ambushed and killed William Francis, who was an ally of the McCoy family. Devil Anse Hatfield took credit for the killing. The next incident leading up to the feud took place on December 24, 1864, when Asa McCoy was killed by Confederate forces. He was killed near his home 13 days after leaving the Union army. McCoy family tradition implicates James “Jim” Vance, an uncle of Devil Anse Hatfield, as the culprit.

At the conclusion of the Civil War, the hostilities between the two families seemed to simmer. The next dispute between the two families came in 1878 over the ownership of a hog. Floyd Hatfield claimed he owned the hog, but Randall McCoy claimed the hog belonged to him. The matter was taken to the local justice of the peace, who was a member of the Hatfield clan, who, predictably, ruled in favor of the Hatfields based upon the testimony of Bill Staton, who was related to both families. In June of 1880, Staton was killed by two McCoy brothers, Sam and Paris, who were later acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.

Most people don't realize the significance of the hog,” Jack Hatfield said. “Living in a remote region, as the two families did, food could be in short supply. So, a hog represented a family's food for the winter as well as their oil for their lamps.”

Over the years, numerous movies have been made depicting the infamous feud. Most have been embellished for dramatic purposes. Hatfield tries to separate the myths from the movies. Movie props, such as a hat from the Hatfield and McCoy mini-series starring Kevin Costner, are also on display. Of all the movies made about the notorious feud, Jack Hatfield says the miniseries starring Costner was probably the most accurate he's ever seen. On a scale of one to 10, he rates it at seven for accuracy.

Over the years, numerous other skirmishes between the two families occurred, including murder at a county election and a triple execution carried out by vigilantes. Following that incident, the feud intensified, and eventually, the governors of Kentucky and West Virginia intervened, and the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling regarding the war between the two families. By the time the feud ended, an untold number of family members on both sides had been killed.

The Hatfield and McCoy Experience is located at 107 Old Mill Ave in Pigeon Forge. For more information, visit the website www.hatfieldmccoyexperience.com.

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