An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series Al Capone, the infamous American gangster of the 1920s, is widely known for his involvement in Chicago’s organized crime and bootlegging during Prohibition. What’s rarely discussed is that his liquor distribution network spread far beyond his base in Chicago: It went well into the mountains of…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series You stand on the creaking deck of the paddlewheel riverboat, a relic of a bygone era. The wheel churns the water beneath you, its rhythmic thump echoing through your chest. The bell clangs as you round an island, and calliope music erupts from the steam whistles….
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series Stompin’ 76 was a landmark festival that, for one long weekend in 1976, made Bluegrass the center of the musical universe. Like New York’s iconic Woodstock festival in 1969, the event is legendary. Over 100,000 attended the event. Most attendees parked miles away—some on Interstate 77,…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series The Euro-centric history I learned in school in the 1960s was woefully inadequate. I suppose that’s the best they could do. After all, the world is a big place with lots going on. There was only enough time to cover the Big Picture. That’s why I…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series Background: The Saltville Muck Dam broke around eight o’clock on Christmas Eve,1924. The dam held back a pond filled with 27 years of chemical waste released by the Mathieson Alkali Works. When the dam broke, a 100-foot-high wall of toxic sludge cascaded down the Holston River,…
An installment in our Blue Ridge Travel series. The moonshine still’s cook pot sits down the hill by the creek, mounted atop a stone furnace. The copper tubing leading to the cooling barrel is green with verdigris. The wooden chute that carried water to cool the steaming moonshine is green with moss, but the mash…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series It started with a kiss and ended with a courtroom shootout. Five people died, and seven were wounded. A year and two weeks later, Floyd Allen and his son Claude were executed in Virginia’s electric chair for the courthouse murders. The kiss lit the fuse on…
An installment in our Blue Ridge Travel series. King Kudzu is on the move. A Kudzu vine can grow a foot a day, sixty feet a season. Residents of Georgia have been warned to close their windows at night to keep the dastardly weed out of their houses. Left uncontrolled, it will grow over any…