Tar Heel Lightnin': How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World

312 Pages·18.213 MB·English

by  Daniel S. Pierce

TAR HEEL LIGHTNIN’

tar heel
lightnin’
How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made
North Carolina the Moonshine Capital
of the World Daniel S. Pierce

The UniversiTy of norTh Carolina Press Chapel Hill
Publication of this book was Portions of chapter 1 originally appeared
supported in part by a generous gift in Daniel S. Pierce, Corn from a Jar:
from Vicki and Porter Durham. Moonshining in the Great Smoky Mountains
(Gatlinburg, Tenn.: Great Smoky Mountains
© 2019
Association, 2013). Reprinted here with
The University of North Carolina Press
permission.
All rights reserved
Portions of chapters 9, 10, and 13 originally
Designed by Richard Hendel appeared in Daniel S. Pierce, Real NASCAR:
Set in Miller and TheSerif White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill
by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. France (Chapel Hill: University of North
Manufactured in the United States Carolina Press, 2010).
of America Portions of chapter 15 originally appeared in
Daniel S. Pierce, “Jim Tom Hedrick, Popcorn
The University of North Carolina Press has
Sutton, and the Rise of the Postmodern
been a member of the Green Press Initiative
Moonshiner,” in Modern Moonshine: The
since 2003.
Revival of White Whiskey in the Twenty-
Jacket illustration by Derek Anderson and First Century, edited by Cameron D. Lippard
Joel Anderson of Anderson Design Group, and Bruce E. Stewart (Morgantown: West
Nashville, Tenn. Virginia University Press, 2019). Reprinted
here with permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-
Publication Data
Names: Pierce, Daniel S., author.
Title: Tar Heel lightnin’ : how secret stills and
fast cars made North Carolina the moonshine
capital of the world / Daniel S. Pierce.
Description: Chapel Hill : The University
of North Carolina Press, [2019] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019014008 |
ISBN 9781469653556 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781469653563 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Distilling, Illicit—North
Carolina—History. | Alcohol trafficking—
North Carolina—History. | NASCAR
(Association)—History.
Classification: LCC HJ5021 .P54 2019 |
DDC 364.1/33209756—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc
.gov/2019014008
This book is dedicated
to Andy Griffith, whose
appreciation of the essential
goodness, creativity, and
folk genius of the people of
North Carolina—including
its moonshiners—inspires
me to this day.

Introduction. White Lightnin’ 1
1 Whiskey’s “Golden Era” in North Carolina 8
2 From Distiller to Blockader to Moonshiner 23
3 Normalizing the Moonshiner 46
4 A “Dry” State 64
Contents
5 Modern Moonshine 81
6 North Carolinians “Hard at Work Making That
Stuff That Splits the Heads of Many” 96
7 Chasing the Moon 110
8 National Prohibition in North Carolina 130
9 Moonshine Kingpins and Moonshine Capitals 149
10 Prohibition, Moonshine, and North Carolina Culture 168
11 1941 to 1970—The Heyday of the Moonshine Syndicate 187
12 The Road to Thunder Road 210
13 North Carolina Moonshine, NASCAR, and the
“Bootlegger Tracks” 230
14 The End of an Era 243
15 Moonshine Revival 256
Epilogue 275
Acknowledgments 281
Notes 283
A Note on Sources 297
Index 299
SiDebarS
The North Carolina Moonshine
Hall of Fame (and Shame) 5
Brandy 12
All in the Family 16
Amos Owens 27
Lewis Redmond 34
What’s in a Name? 48
Rhoda Strong Lowry 59
Baptists and Booze 68
Carrie Nation in North Carolina 74
Liquor Lingo 86
Elizabeth “Betty” Sims 104
On the “Man’s” Land 114
Aquilla “Quill” Rose 124
Unique Stills 136
Howard Creech 151
Alvin Sawyer 159
Moonshine and Tourism 174
Ada Thompson 180
Moonshine Humor 193
Percy Flowers 204
Tripper Cars 219
The Moonshiners of The Andy Griffith Show 226
Ralph “Puff” and Grafton “Tuff” Burgess 235
Robert Glenn “Junior” Johnson 240
Jerry Rushing 251
A North Carolina Moonshine Playlist 253
Jim Tom Hedrick and Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton 259
A North Carolina Moonshine Tour 271
IntroduCtIon White Lightnin’
Well in North Carolina way back in the hills lived my old pappy
and he had him a still
He brewed white lightnin’ till the sun went down
Then he’d fill him a jug and he’d pass it around
Mighty mighty pleasin’ pappy’s corn squeezin’ (whew white lightnin’)
Well the G- men, T- men, revenuers too, searchin’ for the place where he
made his brew
They were lookin’ tryin’ to book him but my pappy kept on cookin’
(Whew white lightnin’)
In 1958, rockabilly star J. P. Richardson (better known as the Big Bopper
of “Chantilly Lace” fame) wrote the classic moonshine song “White Light-
ning.”1 We will never know exactly why the Texan located his “pappy’s still”
in North Carolina. Richardson tragically died on 3 February 1959 in the in-
famous “Day the Music Died” plane crash along with Buddy Holly and Ritchie
Valens. Perhaps the words “North Carolina” just fit into the rhyme and rhythm
of the song better than “Tennessee” or “Georgia” or the names of any of the other
southern states where moonshining was common. He probably chose North
Carolina, however, because by 1958 the state had a longtime, and well- deserved,
reputation as one of the top producers of illegal alcohol in the United States.
Indeed, the art and craft of distilling grains and fruits into liquor runs deep
in the DNA of North Carolina—and not only “way back in the hills.” Whiskey
making was one of the first commercial enterprises in North Carolina, and the
first European settlers to the Albemarle Sound region in the 1650s brought with
them the skills and equipment necessary for distilling. English settlers in Vir-
ginia had already adapted their liquor making to New World conditions, most
notably through the discovery that the maize grown by the Indigenous Ameri-
cans could be effectively, and tastefully, distilled. Migrations in the eighteenth
century into the Piedmont of Highland Scots up the Cape Fear River and a
horde of Scotch Irish, folks with long whiskey- distilling traditions, reinforced
1