The Moonshine Capital of The World: Crime, Change, and Power in Franklin County, Virginia

By Zane Reeb

Edited by Nikhe Braimah, Sabrina Guo, Isabel Kalb, Ami Gillon, Alexia Dochnal, and Zane Reeb

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. What was the Conspiracy?

III. Socioeconomic Levers of Influence

IV. Authority in Question

V. Conclusion

Introduction

My grandma loves to tell a good story, especially when it’s one about her family. Whether she is recounting the horrors of growing up with her notorious brother “Big Ed,” remembering her first date with my grandpa, or reminding my father about his rebellious teenage days, her words breathe life into her eighty-one years. Does she embellish sometimes? Of course. But I don’t mind. Her stories provide a different, often humorous, look into the lives of my close relatives and allow me to come to know members of my family that I never had the chance to meet, but whose legacies led to my life today. 

One particular story has always piqued my interest: the story of my grandma’s maiden name, Shifflette. Born in Danville, Virginia, my grandma was one member of a network of families in the state with the same last name—or, more accurately, with the same sounding last name. While its European origins are not entirely known, the Shiflett family, as it is commonly spelled, settled in central and western Virginia in the 1700s. As the group grew over the years, family members earned their livelihoods by plotting small plots of land on Appalachian soil. It was a hard, modest living. Yet, at some point—likely around the beginning of the twentieth century—many Shifletts took up new professions: moonshining and lawbreaking. 

Numerous accounts found in the Greene County Record detail the exploits of the wild side of this family. In July of 1922, law enforcement “at last” captured Pat Shiflett, known in the county as “the King of Bootleggers,” after a five mile car chase.^[1] After serving six months in jail, Pat was caught again transporting liquor, this time bringing his son Pat Jr. along for the ride.^[2] Another article reports on the judicial proceedings against Morton Shiflett, who was accused of killing Scott Shiflett during an argument. Reportedly, Morton “grab[bed] a stick and [ran] after Scott, and hit him a hard blow on the head,” after which Spriggins Shiflett exclaimed, “Lord-o'-mercy, you have done killed Scott!”^[3] The Shifletts not only fought amongst themselves but also with other families, such as the Morris “dynast[y]” in Greene County.^[4] Records show that Bernard Shiflett and Manuel Morris “shot each other to death in a pistol duel” over a dispute that stemmed from “the illegal liquor traffic.”^[5] These types of stories – of which there are many – developed a not-so-favorable reputation for the Shifletts around the state. As one author wrote, “From its beginnings, Virginia has been a land of two classes – cavalier and indenture, white and black, planter and farmer, Tuckahoe and Cohee, Randolph and Shiflett.”^[6] The Randolph name, “an old, established family in the land,” carried a legacy of political prominence, wealth, and importance in Virginia.^[7] The Shiflett name, to say the least, did not. 

As legend goes, my grandmother’s relatives decided it would be prudent to distance themselves from the family’s legacy of bootlegging, murder, and crime. To do so, an “e” was added to the spelling of their last name, now to be read as “Shifflette.” While I do not carry the Shifflette name myself, the notorious legacy of my long-lost relatives intrigued me. I wanted to know more. So, I looked further into moonshining in Virginia, expecting to find more stories about “the King of Bootleggers” Pat Shiflett and other prominent lawbreaking members of the family. However, I quickly discovered that the Shifletts were not the only liquor making and law-breaking group in the Virginian backwoods; in fact, they are probably not even the most famous of the bunch. That title is claimed by the residents of Franklin County, Virginia, otherwise known as the “Moonshine Capital of the World.” 

Franklin had always been a hotbed for moonshining, but it was not until 1931 when it drew national attention. In 1929, Herbert Hoover organized a task force – known as the Wickersham Commission – to study the effects of the Eighteenth Amendment. Better known as Prohibition or the Volstead Act, the amendment instituted a nationwide ban on the production, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. After two years of research, the Commission authored their final report and a five-volume addendum entitled “Official Records of the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement.” Its findings summarized the many difficulties in enforcing Prohibition laws; in particular, in volume four of the addendum, the Commission mentioned a small county in Virginia – Franklin – where, “it is claimed 99 out of 100 people are making, or have some connection with illicit liquor.”^[8]

While this number was slightly hyperbolic – a local police officer later estimated that only “ten-twelfths” of the population trafficked liquor – it represented moonshining’s deep saturation in the lives of Franklin County’s residents.^[9]It also demonstrated that local law enforcement in Franklin was ineffective in curtailing the illegal liquor trade – a problem that would persist even after the amendment’s repeal in 1933. As untaxed, illegal alcohol production persisted in the area after Prohibition’s end, the statistic alerted the federal government that a county “was depriving it of its revenues.”^[10] In response, in 1934, the Alcohol Tax Unit sent Colonel Thomas Bailey to look into Franklin’s moonshining industry. After months of investigation, Bailey produced a preliminary report claiming that “there exists in Franklin County…an organization which extends its scope into the surrounding counties, which has for its purpose the manufacture, transportation, sale, and possession of non-tax paid liquors and the protection of members of this organization.”^[11] The subsequent indictment listed sixty-eight “overt acts” in which this organization, or “conspiracy,” attempted to or successfully violated the law between 1928 and 1934.^[12] The indictment also charged thirty-five defendants for their involvement in the conspiracy and listed fifty-five others as “co-conspirators.” 

The charges resulted in what came to be known as “The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935,” the longest criminal trial in state history.^[13] The trial’s lengthy proceedings revealed the intricacies of the Moonshine Conspiracy, as well as the extent of its operations. The reported amount of liquor produced by the conspiracy was astonishing: author Jess Carr estimates that,  “If forty-seven entire states on average produced just ten times as much moonshine as that produced by one Virginia county…the total national output would be 1,645,524,050 gallons!”^[14] Franklin, a county of about 25,000 people, was truly the “wettest section in the U.S.A.”^[15] But how did this remote part of Virginia become home to one of the nation’s most prolific illegal distilling networks? In my study of the Great Moonshine Conspiracy of Franklin County, I will examine the social, economic, and political forces that shaped the conspiracy’s formation, organization, and ultimate demise. First, in order to understand the conspiracy and its significance, this introduction will outline the social and historical contexts in which it operated.

While moonshine is now often used as a catch-all term that refers to all forms of illegally produced liquor – whiskey, rum, and brandy alike – throughout history, it has been associated with unaged corn whiskey, or “white lightning.”^[16] Distillers employ a myriad of methods to produce moonshine, but most follow a similar process to arrive at their finished product. First, a moonshiner prepares a mash, which consists of a mixture of grains, water, and yeast. The mash is then heated and stirred to convert the starches in the grains into sugars.^[17] Next, during fermentation, the moonshiner adds yeast into the mash, which consumes its sugars and produces alcohol. Once fermented, the mash is distilled to separate the alcohol from the solids and water: the alcohol evaporates and is collected in a condenser, often referred to as a worm, where it is cooled and converted back into liquid form.^[18] The resulting moonshine is either run through the still again – a process known as doubling, which produces whiskey of a higher alcohol content – or proofed, where the liquor is diluted with water to arrive at the desired strength. The slop, or mash left over after a still is run, can be put back into a mash to be distilled again.^[19] This process, while not unlike other liquor making techniques, stems from an illegal distilling tradition that began centuries ago in the Ulster region of Northern Ireland.

In 1642, King Charles I imposed an excise tax on whiskey to pay for a civil war between rebelling Irish Catholics and the ruling English Protestant government. As a result, many farmers in Ulster began to produce whiskey illegally in small pots within their homes. These distillers termed the liquor poteen, or “little pot” in Irish, and thus became “some of the world’s first moonshiners.”^[20] Like moonshine in Virginia, poteen in Northern Ireland gained popularity not only as a source of income during times of economic hardship, but also due to its quality. As Charles Thompson writes in Spirits of Just Men, “People thought it tasted better than the taxed drink. They also liked the mystique surrounding homemade liquor.”^[21] When police stepped up enforcement efforts to curb illegal whiskey production, many poteen makers began distilling and transporting their liquor by moonlight. Soon, the nickname moonshine was coined to describe the untaxed whiskey.

As famine and drought struck Northern Ireland in the early 1700s, many Protestants in the area departed to find a better life in America, bringing their tradition of liquor making with them.^[22] However, like many other non-English immigrants, the Ulsterites – otherwise known as the Scots-Irish – battled poverty and prejudice upon arriving in America, especially as many had funded their immigration through indentured servitude.^[23] With sparse economic opportunities available in coastal cities, many Scots-Irishmen moved west. Some settled in Western Pennsylvania and later participated in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, a farmer-led revolt over the imposition of a federal liquor tax. While the federal government quashed the rebellion, the farmers’ fierce opposition to the tax demonstrated that the Ulsterites still viewed their ability to make whiskey as an essential part of their basic liberties.

Other Scots-Irish folks traveled south into the backcountry of Virginia, including what would become Franklin County. As their small farms and other ventures failed to compete with large plantations or coastal industry, many turned to their tried-and-true way of making money: moonshining. Although neither the first settlers nor whiskey makers in the region, their arrival cemented the popularity of distilling in the area. Instead of selling bushels of corn, rye, and barley to buyers, local planters “found it easier and often more profitable to distill some of their crops into alcohol.”^[24] Crops could be hauled in greater quantities if distilled into liquor, and whiskey also offered higher profit margins for producers.^[25] As such, brewing spirits became the crutch of economic activity in the isolated countryside: Thompson observes that “[t]he main difference between Blue Ridge settlers’ livelihoods and those of the larger plantation owners to their east was their need to rely so much on the product [moonshine] for their survival.”^[26] The region’s historical reliance on liquor production would position it to later become a hub of illegal distilling activity during Prohibition.

In the eyes of many early American settlers like the Scots-Irish, the idea of Prohibition probably would have seemed ridiculous. Even before its official inception, the United States had been a nation of drinkers. The Mayflower and other passenger ships to the New World “allowed adequate shipping space for a healthy supply of spirits,” and travelers continued to import liquor in large quantities upon settling.^[27] In fact, it is estimated that the average colonist drank 6.6 gallons of pure alcohol a year, which is almost triple the amount the average American consumes today.^[28] Later, British embargos during the Revolutionary War would encourage many Americans to take up homemade distilling, with many gravitating towards corn whiskey. Its savory taste, powerful kick, and ability to be produced by using native crops led many to view whiskey as an American liquor, as opposed to Caribbean rum or European wine. By 1810, the young nation was home to fourteen thousand distilleries, a staggering number for a country of around seven million.^[29]

Despite many Americans’ fondness for drink, many had long voiced concerns over the dangerous effects of alcohol. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most prominent physicians in early America, frequently raised objections to the consumption of “spirituous liquors,” which he believed were both “unnecessary” and “mischievous.”^[30] Decades later, at a temperance meeting in Sangamon County, Illinois, future president Abraham Lincoln observed that “intoxicating liquor” was “used by everybody, repudiated by nobody” and labeled it “the devastator.”^[31] Yet both of these famous Americans – and other early temperance proponents – argued only for moderating one’s alcohol consumption. These advocates believed that excessive consumption of alcohol contributed to many social ills, such as poverty, crime, and domestic violence.

Despite this advocacy, the gallons and gallons of liquor consumed by drinkers increasingly burdened civil life in America. More and more, temperance leaders castigated alcohol as a force that tore apart families and corroded virtue within the nation. Organizations founded in the late 19th century, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Knights of Labor, believed that the true evil of alcohol lay not within the drunkard himself, but rather among the businesses who profited from liquor’s destructive power. As such, temperance reformers increasingly called for Prohibition, which would render the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages illegal.

Prohibitionists – or “drys” – were not a monolith; nevertheless, a large portion of the movement’s support came from rural, white, and evangelical communities. These groups sympathized with temperance leader’s calls for a more “righteous nation,” and often likened themselves to the progressive reformers of the early twentieth century – after all, many suffragists also took up the cause for a dry America.^[32] But, calls for temperance were also often laced with nativist undertones. An influx of new immigrants into urban centers and expanded rights for African Americans alarmed many white Americans, who wished to protect their idea of the American identity. While reformers claimed that Prohibition would help the working class, many also characterized the liquor businesses that were integral to ethnic communities as corrosive, foreign influences on American society. Most immigrant groups found such arguments unconvincing. Still, the temperance movement won enough support – at least among politicians – that the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, taking just half as long as it had taken eleven of the first fourteen states to approve the Bill of Rights.^[33]

Nine years later during his 1928 presidential campaign, Hebert Hoover referred to Prohibition as a “great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.”^[34] Noble its intentions may have been, most historians today consider Prohibition to be a failure in curtailing the social ills associated with alcohol consumption. Scholars have shown that liquor laws prompted the growth of organized crime, allowed dangerous substances to enter the alcohol market, and enabled widespread corruption among law enforcement.

Not only did urban, working-class, immigrant, and black communities reject the temperance movement, but they also viewed liquor laws as an attack on their cultures and lifestyles.^[35] In The War on Alcohol, Lisa McGirr argues that inner-city resentment of liquor laws served as a major catalyst for the growth of organized crime in America. Furthermore, demand for liquor did not magically disappear following the passage of the Volstead Act. Since these ethnic communities were typically poor, illicit distilling and bootlegging provided “obvious new prosperity” to people who before Prohibition “were never prosperous.”^[36] Given the unpopularity of the Volstead Act within cities, “violation of the liquor laws was more acceptable to the public than were the other forms of criminal enterprise.”^[37] Soon, a wave of crime – with a degree of sophistication and organization never before seen in America – would sweep over the country. 

However, most scholarship indicates that these criminal enterprises failed – by design – to empower their workers economically. By and large, urban syndicates entrenched the status and wealth of their leaders; the working-class communities from where they recruited shouldered the grunt work. In Chicago, the Genna family paid fifteen dollars a month to the operators of small, at-home stills, which “added up to very little, really, if you consider that the brothers’ operation grossed $350,000 a month.”^[38] Later in the decade, when Al Capone took power in the area, his network consisted of a “complex set of partnerships” whose profits were split by “four senior partners.”^[39] The partnerships’ decentralized nature also decreased the chances of criminal prosecution, further shielding the bosses from danger.^[40]Meanwhile, the lower-class workers who drove the day-to-day operations of the gang primarily bore the enterprise’s legal risks. This was a development not just in Chicago, but across the country: as McGirr writes, “Many Americans, and especially poor men and women, found themselves ensnared in one or more of Prohibition’s webs, arrested, charged, fined, or incarcerated by local, state, or federal agents.”^[41]

Because Prohibition was violated almost anywhere in the country, and a violation of Prohibition was a crime, law enforcement’s presence in American society grew significantly. According to McGirr, interactions between violators and police typically manifested in two ways – corruption within enforcement agencies, and the overextension and expansion of power of varying bodies of governance. Collusion with crime syndicates was commonplace within 1920’s law enforcement, from urban settings like Chicago to rural areas like Franklin County. Officers sought to capitalize on the growing illegal liquor market for themselves by trading protection for a chunk of bootleggers’ profits.^[42] Despite these issues, bureaucrats tried even more urgently to enforce Prohibition laws. Federal creation of the Prohibition Bureau, local passage of invasive and stringent enforcement laws, and the deputization of “citizen warriors” to carry out raids themselves were all ways in which Prohibition enabled the growth of governmental – particularly federal – power and infringed upon constitutional rights of citizens.^[43] Even as support for Prohibition faded, the Hoover administration instituted measures that expanded the federal prison system and levied harsh fines for violations of liquor laws. In short, the federal government's authority grew significantly during Prohibition – a trend that would persist into the 1930’s amid the Great Depression.

As the country entered the Depression in 1929, the already dwindling support for Prohibition reached an all-time low. Enforcing the unpopular law in the midst of economic turmoil proved to be a tumultuous and costly task for the government. Accordingly, on December 5, 1933, state conventions fully ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed national Prohibition. Yet, the effects of the Volstead Act endured even after repeal. Federal authority continued to expand in the following decade: prisons became increasingly overcrowded, and the government expanded its role in promoting general welfare in America, seen especially with the passage of the New Deal.^[44] Furthermore, while losing some steam, the criminal organizations that emerged during Prohibition did not disappear overnight. Such was the case for the Great Moonshine Conspiracy of Franklin County, Virginia. 

Aside from its rich tradition of moonshining, Franklin County may first appear an unlikely place for the development of a prolific criminal organization. Public memory and historical scholarship have generally centered on urban syndicates and mobsters who ruled the underground markets of big cities. Furthermore, white, rural communities like Franklin typically supported temperance movements, whereas opposition to Prohibition is usually associated with immigrant groups in metropolitan areas.  These historical incongruencies present an intriguing challenge for Prohibition scholarship; however, this is perhaps part of the reason why the Great Moonshine Conspiracy largely dwells outside the focus of many historians’ work. 

While general scholarship on Prohibition has often overlooked the conspiracy, two historians have contributed significantly to the understanding of this illegal enterprise: T. Keister Greer and Charles D. Thompson. Greer, a lifelong resident of Franklin, produced a recreation of the transcripts from three trials related to the conspiracy, as the original copies are long lost. Greer compiled local newspaper reports and court documents in his book The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, which serves not so much as historical commentary but rather a comprehensive account of the trial’s proceedings. His research has laid the groundwork for further scholarship on the topic, including Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World by Charles D. Thompson. Thompson, another native son of the county, paints a vivid picture of not only the trial, but life in Franklin during the 1930’s. Employing the work of Greer and the journals of Franklin residents, Thompson focuses on the agency of poor farmers that served as the lifeblood of the conspiracy, offering a descriptive, sympathetic account of their lives in the mountains. 

While authors like Thompson and Greer do well in describing the socioeconomic climate of Franklin County at the time, the “Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial” still often operates in a historiographical vacuum. This may be partly attributable to a relative dearth of primary sources surrounding the trial. In addition to the trial record being lost, the defendants, many of whom were illiterate, did not produce accounts of their experiences of the conspiracy or trial. Thus, while third party sources – such as federal correspondence and newspaper reports – are available, they do not provide a complete view of how the conspiracy operated. As a result, historians have often opted to focus their studies on areas, such as urban centers, that offer more accessible sources relating to the enforcement of liquor laws. I provide a deeper analysis of the trial and conspiracy to explain its broader historical significance, beyond detailing the economic constraints that remote southern areas like Franklin County faced. In particular, my research focuses on how the conspiracy began, why it ended, and what forces in particular propagated these developments. 

I address this task by drawing primarily from Greer’s collection of sources, now housed in the special collections of Ferrum College’s Stanley Library. In particular, I rely heavily on newspaper reports of the trial from the Roanoke Timesand Roanoke World News, as well as using thirteen volumes of transcripts of witnesses’ testimonies taken as evidence during discovery. In the absence of a trial transcript, these documents provide the closest accounts of the conspiracy available.

Using these sources, I argue for the significance of the conspiracy on three main fronts. In my first chapter, I provide a detailed, organized portrait of the criminal network, examining how bootleggers sourced materials, distributed their final product, and worked hand-in-hand with law enforcement to protect their operations from prosecution. This section provides the most complete, nuanced account of the conspiracy as a criminal organization to date and demonstrates the network’s high degree of complexity. I then examine the socioeconomic motivations behind moonshiners’ decisions to participate in the conspiracy, and how the leaders of the network exploited power imbalances to serve their own interests. I also discuss how the emergence of the conspiracy, a modern criminal network, transformed the county’s tradition of moonshining. Finally, I look at the local, formal power structures that protected the conspiracy for years – and how ultimately, the expansion of federal authority eroded these levers of influence. My account of the development and demise of the conspiracy – all of which took place in a geographically isolated, economically excluded, and culturally insulated area of the country – adds a crucial perspective to studying the growth of crime and central power that defined Prohibition and its aftermath.

What Was the Conspiracy?

On July 1, 1935, after forty-nine days of testimony from over 200 witnesses, a grand jury in Roanoke, Virginia returned verdicts for twenty-three defendants charged with participation in the Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy. Twenty were found guilty – in addition to a corporation and eleven other individuals who pleaded guilty or no contest. The decision culminated the second longest trial of any kind in state history, subordinate only to Aaron Burr’s trial for treason in 1807.^[45] While major papers like the Washington Post occasionally covered the proceedings, the most intense source of interest was local – especially after Jeff Richards, a deputy sheriff and prominent figure in  the conspiracy, was killed just weeks before he was to testify as a star witness before the grand jury. From its April beginnings to its July finale, the case’s twists and turns dominated the pages of local newspapers like The Roanoke Times and The Roanoke World News. The courtroom itself was often “packed to the doors,” its hallways “jammed with spectators, unable to get inside.”^[46] The jury’s verdict settled not just a months-long judicial procedure; it would discipline key figures in a criminal organization that touched almost every aspect of life in this rural Virginian county.

While smaller moonshiners were listed as “co-conspirators,” the prosecution mainly sought and won convictions for the most prominent members of the conspiracy. Among these were merchants, sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, state and federal Prohibition officers, politicians, and more. Notably absent from the convicted was Charles Carter Lee, the Commonwealth’s Attorney of Franklin County. Carter Lee was also a grand-nephew of Robert E. Lee, former General of the Confederate Army. The punishments for the guilty totaled eighteen years in prison, subsequent probation, and $54,500 in fines.^[47] This was, perhaps, a small price to pay for the estimated $5,500,000 in taxes dodged by Franklin County distillers, an amount worth around $120 million in today’s dollars.^[48]

While the verdict was undoubtedly important, especially to Franklin County’s residents, to reduce the grueling, lengthy proceedings of United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al. to the jury’s decisions of “guilty” or “not guilty” would be to overlook the importance of the evidence collected and revealed throughout its proceedings. The testimonies found in newspaper reports and pretrial transcripts of evidence reveal not only how the conspiracy functioned, but also the factors that contributed to its reach within the community. The conspiracy’s beginnings, influence within law enforcement, and systems of transportation demonstrate that Franklin County, while far away from the places often associated with Prohibition-era crime syndicates, was home to a sophisticated, complex, and historically significant criminal network. This section will piece together evidence from the grand jury testimonies and newspapers to better understand the nature of the conspiracy.

In grappling with this illegal enterprise, it is helpful to begin with the court’s understanding of conspiracy as used in the trial. As stated by special prosecutor Sterling Hutchenson, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, a conspiracy exists “when two or more persons agree to commit an unlawful act”, and that only one “overt act” must be proven in order to convict the charged participants.^[49] Furthermore, the members of a conspiracy neither need to know each other, all the details about its operations, nor agree to participate at the same time.^[50] Presiding Judge John Paul affirmed this definition, adding that “It is not necessary…that the persons involved should themselves have called it a conspiracy and it is not necessary that they should get together and enter into any formal or definite agreement.”^[51]

This was the type of “conspiracy” that prosecutors claimed had taken root in Franklin in the fall of 1928. As will be discussed in the next section, Franklin County had long been a hotbed for moonshining and lawlessness. Earlier in 1928, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that Chicago had shed its label as the world’s crime capital and “cheerfully pass[ed] on that title to Franklin county, Virginia.”^[52] Indeed, Franklin’s per capita murder rate—which was “supplemented by assault and prohibition cases”—was higher than that of the midwestern metropolis.^[53] Law enforcement in Franklin County certainly faced a formidable challenge in curtailing both violent crimes and Prohibition violations. The seeming futility of these officers’ task, coupled with financial motivations, led them to devise a plan to improve their fortunes – a plan that would become known as the Moonshine Conspiracy. 

The specific circumstances that drew individual officials into the conspiracy varied. For instance, Pete Hodges, the Franklin County sheriff in 1928, was quoted as stating he wished to recoup the $2,000 he spent on his reelection campaign.^[54] Deputy sheriffs, on the other hand, had no base salary and only received compensation for successful raids and arrests.^[55] Yet, especially during a period of national financial hardship, the common theme was cash. As a former sheriff’s deputy testified, state Prohibition officer Edgar Beckett assured him “we can make a barrel of money if we will all work together in this thing.”^[56]

The “thing” to which Beckett referred was the essence of the conspiracy: law enforcement would collect payments from moonshiners, and local police would turn a blind eye to the stills of those who paid. Wilson Hodges, sheriff of Franklin County from 1929-1931, offered the jury some of the most intricate views of this organization. Although Wilson Hodges was not a part of the conspiracy at its inception in 1928, he “knew of the liquor operation that had been carried on from his father,” Pete Hodges, whom Wilson had succeeded as sheriff after his death.^[57] Upon assuming office, Wilson saw firsthand how the system worked: the county, he testified, was “marked off in what they called districts; each district they had a deputy sheriff; that deputy sheriff done the raiding in his district, except…the raiding squad, which had a right to raid in any of the sections of the county they wanted to.”^[58] A moonshiner would pay either the sheriff’s deputy in his district or a member of the raiding squad to avoid prosecution; that payment would be recorded by Jeff Richards, the conspiracy’s treasurer.^[59] Richards would then distribute the collected funds, splitting the money six ways.^[60] The raiding officers, the sheriff, and “another fellow…at the courtroom,” who remained unidentified at the end of the trial, each earned a cut.^[61] The deputy sheriffs assigned to one district only received payments from their own subjects. These deputies also received instructions to not invade the sections assigned to other officers.^[62]

For Wilson Hodges and other law enforcement officials, the conspiracy provided a huge personal financial boost: he began receiving payments from Richards “as soon as he went into office.”^[63] While the sheriff’s monthly salary was just $100, money from moonshiners could “amount up to $200 or more a month” even in the conspiracy’s earliest years.^[64]  While Franklin County was already home to several prolific distillers willing to pay the fee, officers would later encourage other members of the community to produce liquor to grow their income. One witness testified that deputy Jeff Richards suggested that he “‘pick up these apples lying around the yard and make some brandy, which he told them would be “all right.”^[65] Richards encouraged another witness to pay off a debt on his farmland by making alcohol.^[66]While these officials were not the first to engage in the liquor business, they were the first to create a structure which enabled more moonshiners to produce more liquor, all while receiving protection from law enforcement. This network of corruption would transform Franklin County distilling from localized, fragmented operations into an organized and prolific criminal enterprise.

The moonshiners’ payment for protection from the law was commonly referred to as a “granny fee.” Etymologically, the term referred to the payment given to a “midwife, or ‘granny’ in the mountains” that cared for a newborn baby; later, distillers applied it to describe “the fee when the ‘still baby’ is ushered into the world and protected.”^[67] Within the conspiracy, fees were paid on a per-still basis, typically amounting to $10-$50 a month depending on the size of the still operated. Protection agreements between officers and moonshiners were usually not absolute: local law enforcement knew they had little influence over most federal and state Prohibition officers, so they were unable to promise safeguarding from all raids. 

Despite the lack of a formal agreement, protection purchased by a granny fee was generally  reliable. As one witness stated, he had “good luck” when he worked with a partner who took out money for the fee.^[68] Another distiller reported that even though he operated fifteen to twenty stills, he “never lost a one” to county officers while paying protection.^[69] Communication was key, though: moonshiners had to inform the officer they were paying when and where the liquor would be made; otherwise, they risked being cut up. One witness recalled his relationship with a deputy sheriff in the following way: “If you didn’t let him know, if he found out, and you hadn’t paid him, he would come right straight and catch you.”^[70]

As more payments from distillers rolled in, it became much easier for law enforcement to identify bootleggers who did not join the conspiracy. This created an environment in which it was almost impossible to operate without paying the granny fee. When asked whether or not he paid off law enforcement, a Franklin county moonshiner explained that “a fellow had to do that, if he wouldn’t he could not operate much.”^[71] Echoing this sentiment, a witness not involved in the conspiracy reported that “his still was cut up by Federal, State and county officers twice almost before he could get started.”^[72] Sometimes, officers would threaten distillers with a raid in order to extract the fee. One witness recalled that Jeff Richards claimed to have a “report” on his still and threatened that “he would have to go down and cut it up” unless the distiller paid Richards the twenty-five dollars “it ought to be worth.”^[73] As stated by a former deputy sheriff, the officers continued to make raids on stills – “but only those that were not paying.”^[74]

Bootleggers from outside Franklin County fared even worse than locals who refused to pay up. When one outsider who was caught transporting moonshine recalled his arrest by Franklin county police, he stated that Charles Carter Lee, the Commonwealth’s Attorney, chuckled at him and said, “[Y]ou needn’t think you will haul all our liquor away and never get caught.”^[75] Another deponent testified that the police “would catch everybody from West Virginia” who attempted to drive through the county with a car loaded with liquor.^[76] This selective policing was commonplace among criminal networks: by arresting outsiders, officials would appear to uphold their duties to deter allegations of corruption.^[77] If questioned about their integrity, Franklin county officials could easily refer to the myriad of raids, seizures, and arrests they had made against outsiders.

Fee collection was not the only source of these officers’ revenue streams, however. A number of officials also engaged in reselling seized liquor and distilling equipment. Resold alcohol typically came from captured automobiles, as quantities were ready for consumption and bottled in portable containers. Similar to the granny fee, money collected from reselling moonshine “would be evenly divided” among members of Franklin County’s raiding squad, as Wilson Hodges testified.^[78] Henry Abshire, one of the deputy sheriffs, appears to have played a central role in this liquor resale market. One witness testified that he bought fifty gallons at “$1.00 a gallon, or $1.25” at the deputy’s house; another stated that he knew people who “would go over there to Henry Abshire’s, there at Boone Mill, and when he would catch a load of liquor, bootleggers would go there at night time and buy it off him.”^[79]

While some witnesses claimed to hear of captured moonshine being sold from the Rocky Mount courthouse, most reports stated that these transactions occurred away from government premises, especially after “the board of supervisors considered a resolution ordering the destruction of whisky kept in the old clerk’s office.”^[80] Additionally, in many cases, a former sheriff’s deputy revealed, liquor taken from cars “was frequently sold back to the person from whom it was seized.”^[81] After all, the police did not wish to compromise Franklin county’s burgeoning alcohol export market: they wanted their cut.

Distilling equipment was also resold, often to help moonshiners start operations. However, unlike liquor sales and granny fees, the resale of still parts appears to have been decentralized among the officers. In other words, individual agents acted independently to sell parts and collect their own profits, as law enforcement officials did not testify to dividing profits amongst themselves. One distiller stated he bought back seized equipment at Henry Abshire’s house, and at least three moonshiners testified that they bought a “cap and worm” for $20 from Jeff Richards, a man known to encourage distilling around the county. ^[82] Another account links Wilson Hodges to reselling equipment: a witness testified he paid the former sheriff for “some copper that was seized.”^[83] Although granny fee collections far exceeded the reported instances of reselling still parts to community members, these transactions further evidence how law enforcement promoted the expansion of the conspiracy to improve their own financial position.

The police played a critical role in almost every aspect of the conspiracy, with the notable exception of actually producing moonshine. Perhaps they wished to avoid being seen as competitors to the moonshiners from whom they collected payments, or maybe sought to avoid the extra risk associated with operating stills. Ultimately, their motives are not totally clear. Yet, while such reservations may have prevented officers from making liquor themselves, law enforcement still exercised significant influence over the distilling process. In particular, they encouraged moonshiners to source ingredients from the Ferrum Mercantile Company. 

Because the owners of Ferrum Mercantile pleaded no contest and did not testify in court, the accounts of the trial do not detail the specifics of the relationship between the company and law enforcement. However, moonshiners’ testimonies do indicate that distillers received benefits after purchasing materials from the business. One witness stated Jeff Richards suggested he buy his ingredients from Ferrum Mercantile if he wanted “to have good luck.”^[84] Echoing a similar sentiment, a merchant whose store competed with Ferrum Mercantile lamented that “It was general opinion that some places had protection, that they didn’t have if they bought from me.”^[85] The competitive advantage of protection, coupled with the fact that “there were not so many stores selling meal” in Franklin County, enabled Ferrum Mercantile to dominate the market.^[86] As a former deputy remarked, “[T]hey furnished practically the whole county in grain and sugar.”

To avoid detection from law enforcement outside of Franklin county, the Ferrum Mercantile Company frequently bought moonshining materials – primarily grain, sugar, and malt – under the fake name of the “Cooks Knobb Milling Company.”^[87] The prosecution reported that this “non-existent” company alone received over 65,000 pounds of meal, 196,000 pounds of sugar, and 1,239,000 pounds of feed during the life of the conspiracy.^[88] The corporation also attempted to retain a veil of ignorance when distributing ingredients to moonshiners, not delivering product directly to the stills. A delivery man for the company stated he would instead “carry it there to the house, some to the barn” and “never did carry much to any still place.”^[89]

Despite these attempts to remain covert, the operations of Ferrum Mercantile were known throughout the county. After all, the company received deliveries of moonshining ingredients “by the carload.”^[90] Even a ‘dry’ – someone who supported Prohibition and was thus not involved in the liquor trade – observed that “materials for moonshining are unloaded at Ferrum in large quantities” for “the leading merchants there, generally the Ferrum Mercantile Company.”^[91]As such, the company’s revenue was almost entirely driven by the illegal liquor market: while offering other products, “the main thing” that customers “came for would be meal and sugar.”^[92] By offering protected and reliable sourcing for alcohol production, Ferrum Mercantile enabled moonshiners to start, sustain, and expand their operations, fueling Franklin County’s illegal liquor industry.

By nature, such “liquor operations”, as one witness remarked, “were wholesale and not retail.”^[93] Finished moonshine needed to be exported for producers to turn a profit, rendering transportation as one of the most important aspects of the conspiracy – and one of the riskiest. Liquor was moving out of the familiar, police-protected hollows of Franklin County and onto highways and bigger markets. Thus, the conspiracy’s distribution system required coordination between law enforcement, producers, and rum runners, as well as strategic and technological innovation. Further witness testimony – especially from Willie Carter Sharpe, a prolific female bootlegger – offers a detailed look into the underpinnings of this transportation network. 

Conspiracy members typically had little trouble avoiding detection from law enforcement when transporting liquor within Franklin County. Officers told bootleggers that they “won’t be bothered between here and the Roanoke County Line.”^[94] Some sources indicate that protection could even have been extended to Lynchburg and Newport News – over 200 miles away from Franklin County.^[95] However, these accounts are sparse and do not explain how local police could have reliably made such guarantees far away from their jurisdiction. Of course, within Franklin, protection was conditional: to ensure a successful journey, rum runners needed to pay out of pocket to police or transport liquor for specific members of the conspiracy. Out of pocket payments appeared to have occurred primarily when law enforcement caught bootleggers. A rum runner who estimated he hauled 145,000 gallons out of Franklin country during a five-year period recalled three times in which he was pulled over by Jeff Richards; each stop resulted in a $40 payment to the deputy to allow the liquor through. ^[96]

However, a one-time payoff was not an economical option for most bootleggers, who worked primarily as employees for producers and averaged between ten and fifteen dollars per load transported.^[97] Instead, rum runners traveled for free if they knew for whom they should transport moonshine. As Willie Carter Sharpe testified, producers who were members of the conspiracy assured her that she “wouldn’t have any trouble” as long as she “bought whiskey from them, with the law.”^[98] Conspiracy members would speak with law enforcement “and tell them not to bother certain cars that passed.”^[99] By effectively forcing bootleggers to buy from specific, granny-fee paying customers, law enforcement further entrenched the conspiracy as the dominant entity in Franklin County’s liquor market.

While enjoying some benefits of limited protection, bootleggers still faced formidable challenges when transporting liquor – especially outside of Franklin County. To combat the risk of seizures, bootleggers often traveled with a ‘pilot’ car. Formally, as defined by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a pilot car “was an automobile used to interfere with officers in pursuit and otherwise assist the heavily loaded liquor car.”^[100] Informally, as a bootlegger put it, a pilot was sent in front of a car with a load of moonshine and “kept the law off of you.”^[101] Pilots would often drive the route to be taken ahead of time to identify any law enforcement camping out and ride ahead of the liquor cars en route, offering a further layer of protection. Within Franklin, pilot cars would even “stop and talk to ‘raiding officers’” to clear the roads.^[102] Sometimes, multiple pilots would be used, often when a large “liquor caravan” would attempt to move moonshine from Franklin county into a bigger city such as Roanoke.^[103] The best pilots were experienced, skilled drivers who made liquor runs nearly every day: Willie Carter Sharpe estimated she hauled or piloted over 220,000 gallons of whiskey from Franklin county between 1926 and 1931.^[104] As a state Prohibition officer testified, many pilots like Sharpe also often avoided prosecution because it was “necessary to prove that the pilot car was using its power to assist the liquor car.”^[105]

While pilots were skilled drivers, the automobiles used to transport moonshine were also a key determinant of a shipment’s success. Since most officers reportedly had “no trouble telling when a car [was] loaded with liquor,” the most important dimension of a liquor car’s design was its capacity for speed.^[106] As one witness opined, when an automobile hauling or piloting liquor was being pursued by law enforcement, “speed was all the protection they needed.”^[107] And protect it did: a state Prohibition officer admitted that the vehicles used by his “crew of men on the road…just could not compete with the rum cars” that were “far superior.”^[108]

Other bootleggers also experimented with different modes of innovation to improve their chances of success when transporting: Willie Carter Sharpe reported that she often drove a special “roadster ‘pilot’ car” with a custom rear and “steel fenders” that cost 700 gallons of whiskey.^[109] Bootleggers modified automobile designs not only for speed, but to protect the vehicle from damage. After all, cars piloting or transporting liquor could “knock your car off the road or anything,” as one deputy sheriff testified.^[110] Additionally, law enforcement frequently shot at the bootleggers evading them, prompting one pilot to drive an “armored” car.^[111] Yet, many rum runners tried to avoid these dangerous interactions and attempted to move liquor as discreetly as possible. Carter Sharpe stated that hauling was often done at night, and another witness reported that bootleggers bottled moonshine in “so-called ‘noiseless’ sanitary tin containers” to “prevent gurgling sounds when liquor is hauled.”^[112]

Within Franklin County, rum runners typically retrieved moonshine ready for transportation away from the stills, as many producers hid whiskey in places like barns, churches, and smokehouses to protect themselves in the case of a raid.^[113] These pickups often occurred at ‘filling’ (gas) stations, many of which came to be primarily known as marketplaces for illegal liquor transactions. One deponent humorously described working at a filling station that “never had any grease and ‘some gas once in a while.’”^[114] Again, producers in the conspiracy typically employed rum runners like Carter Sharpe, who were paid a flat rate to move liquor out of the county. But filling stations were not only pickup depots. They also served as a place for both the “handling” and “selling” of liquor.^[115] There, bootleggers acting as middlemen bought liquor at a low price in Franklin County to mark it up and distribute elsewhere. One witness not listed as a co-conspirator recalled asking a “bunch of boys” at a station if they had any liquor, and shortly thereafter purchased a carload’s worth of moonshine from them.^[116]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

The newspaper reports and transcripts of evidence contain largely scattered information relating to where liquor was delivered. While Roanoke and, to a lesser extent, Lynchburg appear to have been many rum runners’ primary destinations, testimony includes accounts of moonshine being taken to West Virginia, as well as Danville, Norfolk, and other cities in Virginia.^[117] Some evidence exists of agreements between conspiracy members and their customers: for instance, a notorious “liquor baron” in Lynchburg testified that he telegraphed a producer in Franklin county to coordinate delivery instructions.^[118] He even exchanged the instructions in code, with times corresponding to the amount of moonshine requested: “Meet me in Roanoke at 2 p.m.” meant an order of 200 gallons; “6 p.m.” was for 600 gallons.^[119]Other evidence suggests that producers in Franklin county had “arrangements” with “the bootlegger in Roanoke and other places of distribution…by which credit was extended.”^[120] However, as demonstrated in testimony and given the wholesale nature of the Franklin liquor industry, producers distributed to many customers, likely offering different deals based on with whom they interacted. As such, an overarching conclusion regarding conspiracy members’ customers remains elusive.

While the conspiracy began primarily as a means to line the pockets of disgruntled law enforcement agents, it grew into a complex and massive system of production, protection, and distribution. The prolificness of the conspiracy, the prosecution argued, lay not only in its pervasiveness in the social structure of Franklin County, but also in its economic output. To contextualize the scale of Franklin’s liquor industry, the prosecution introduced several key statistics and figures about shipments of ingredients used to make moonshine.

A government witness reported that between 1930 and 1933, thirty-five tons of a single brand of yeast were sold in Franklin county, a number “nine times that amount consumed by the city of Richmond in a similar period.”^[121] Such a figure is shocking, especially considering that Richmond had a population of 189,000 compared to a mere 24,000 in Franklin, and indicates that Franklin consumed around 70 times more yeast than the state capital on a per capita basis.^[122] These figures should be met with reasonable skepticism: the Richmond consumption number was “exclusive of bakeries,” unlike the Franklin number.^[123] Removing deliveries to the Rocky Mount Bakery, per capita consumption was only 63 times higher; excluding deliveries to businesses or individuals not mentioned in testimony, consumption was 51 times higher.^[124] Additionally, Richmond businesses may have also bought other brands of yeast, further altering the true metric. Yet, even conservative consumption estimates indicate a massive usage of yeast – a key distilling agent – within Franklin.

The government continued to rattle off similar numbers to “prove the far-reaching scope of the whisky conspiracy” in Franklin.^[125] Other “chief ingredients of moonshine whiskey” shipped into Franklin between 1928 and 1935 included nearly 34 million pounds of sugar, over 15 million pounds of corn and rye meal, 30,000 pounds of hops, and more than 15 million pounds of miscellaneous feed products.^[126] Like yeast consumption, the sugar consumption per capita in Franklin was “many times that for the average county in Virginia.”^[127] More than one million 5-gallon tin cans made “especially for transporting whiskey” were also sold during the life of the conspiracy, further demonstrating the size of this rural county’s liquor industry.^[128] Author Sherwood Anderson, who attended many of the trial’s proceedings, estimated that during its life, the conspiracy produced more than 3.5 million gallons of “moon liquor.”^[129]

As demonstrated by the massive, yet intricate, system of cooperation between law enforcement, distillers, rum runners, and other agents, the Franklin County ‘moonshine conspiracy’ was an incredibly successful criminal network during its life. The core group of sheriffs created an apparatus that not only enriched themselves, but one that commercialized a longstanding tradition of liquor making in Franklin. During the conspiracy, moonshining flourished: as law enforcement protected and encouraged everything from sourcing materials, distilling liquor, and exporting the finished product, distillers scaled up production and standardized processes. The conspiracy’s existence, sophistication, and prolificity debunk any notion that illegal enterprises only could exist in cities and provide a unique view into rural criminal networks. But what were the historical forces that seeded the inception and survival of such an extensive liquor-producing operation? I now turn to this subject and examine the socioeconomic factors that shaped life within Franklin County.

Socioeconomic Levers of Influence

Through the years, Franklin County moonshine took on many different forms: traditional corn-based ‘white lightning’ whiskey, brandy made from fruit, and sugarcane rum were all part of the area’s alcoholic offerings. Personal preferences varied among consumers: one witness raved over “doubled and twisted” apple brandy, which was run through a still twice and considered “the best you can get.”^[130]Another remarked that molasses-based rum made in Franklin “sure is good ‘lasses.”^[131] As such, instead of being known for one type of liquor, moonshine brewed in Franklin County was known for its quality – a reputation that was well deserved. Generations of moonshiners had refined a centuries-old tradition of illicit distilling that traced back to Northern Ireland, seeking to master the art of still design, ingredient mix, and fermentation timing. 

To be sure, distilling was not a sacred cultural tradition that was always treated with the utmost reverence. After all, moonshining was illegal, produced with the intent to intoxicate its drinkers, and often made solely for commercial purposes. Yet, Prohibition and the emergence of the conspiracy changed the very composition of the product and the social relations upon which it was built. Moonshiners built larger stills to accommodate higher demand, rendering it more difficult to control liquor quality.^[132] Liquor was no longer “doubled and twisted” and was instead “single-foot,” having only been distilled once.^[133] Single distillation may have produced moonshine at a faster rate and with a higher alcohol concentration, but the product lacked the same taste. Additionally, distillers in the ‘20s and ‘30s frequently added a “thumper keg” – an extra barrel of mash – “through which the steam in stills was run in order to increase the volume of whiskey per batch.”^[134] Corn was used instead of sugar for the sake of convenience in whiskey production, albeit resulting in a sacrifice of flavor.

The decline in the quality of liquor signaled how the longstanding tradition of moonshining was operating within a new structure of incentives and constraints. No longer were distillers rewarded for a carefully crafted batch of ‘hooch’: their objectives had shifted towards speed, cost efficiency, and volume. The county’s distilling heritage had been reconfigured to serve economic interests – but not those of the common, struggling mountaineer. Instead, it served as a foundation upon which the Moonshine Conspiracy grew. Network leaders would organize production and transportation to minimize personal risk and reap the bulk of the profits from the illegal enterprise, cementing the socioeconomic gaps that served as the very impetus for many to begin moonshining in the first place. Overall, the conspiracy transformed Franklin moonshining, a once entrepreneurial, traditional line of work, into a mere means to line the pockets of its leaders.

In the decades between initial European settlement and Prohibition, the financial benefits of whiskey making – in addition to federal attempts to regulate liquor production – sustained moonshining’s prevalence in the Blue Ridge. Although the federal government ended its initial attempt to tax whiskey in 1802, it tried again during and after the Civil War. The tax “climbed to $2 a gallon,” leading to “an outbreak in illicit distilling” not only in the Blue Ridge, but also in urban areas.^[135] Southern farmers in particular felt the whiskey tax unfairly targeted their livelihoods as a way to pay for the war, forcing them to either produce corn at worse profit margins or pay the cumbersome fee on whiskey. Many chose a third option, the one their ancestors had chosen years ago in Ulster: continue making whiskey without paying the tax. While often profitable, this line of business was now illegal and was met with heightened scrutiny from law enforcement. In the years that followed, moonshiners in Appalachia frequently clashed with federal revenue officers to protect their operations. Yet, even with this danger, distilling endured as an integral part to rural communities, in large part due to cooperation among moonshiners.

Although “only a few precise details of how the business of moonshine ran in its early days” exists, evidence indicates that moonshining largely remained a decentralized enterprise throughout the late 19th century.^[136] However, when the “revenuers” came to town looking to bust some stills, distillers in Franklin and across Appalachia often banded together to evade the authorities. In his annual report in 1877, the commissioner of the IRS stated that “when occasion occurs,” moonshiners “come together in companies of from ten to fifty persons, gun in hand, to drive the officers from the county.”^[137] These crews abided by “the code of the mountains” and felt an obligation to alert other moonshiners and band together when their operations were endangered.^[138] Even though these moonshiners would have competed against one another to market and sell their liquor, their cooperation to protect their livelihoods reveals a strong degree of solidarity among distillers in the mountains. 

Even those not directly involved with moonshine production tended to protect distillers. Members of rural communities hesitated to become informants to the government over fear of being cast out as “Judases” or worse: having their stock slaughtered or barns burned by those they betrayed.^[139] Just voicing opposition to the liquor trade was enough to make enemies out of local bootleggers, as a Franklin County minister discovered in 1905. One Sunday, Reverend E.V. Goad preached a sermon “denouncing the evils of the liquor traffic.”^[140] Later that day, Goad was greeted by three moonshiners wielding pistols, demanding that he repeat his sermon or die. The pastor evaded the gunmen after he jumped through a window and escaped “through the mountains,” but his experience demonstrated why Blue Ridge locals – and institutions – rarely spoke out against the evils of alcohol or joined temperance movements en masse.^[141] Outside of Goad’s sermon, most rural Baptist churches, while condemning drunkenness, “refused to attack alcohol manufacturers, many of whom contributed generously to the churches from their distilleries’ profits.”^[142] Indeed, people in small, rural communities like Franklin “were either afraid of moonshiners or sympathized with them,” keeping liquor flowing in the Blue Ridge.^[143]

The late 19th century also saw a movement that encouraged more whiskey makers to register their operations, and in that way, make them legal. This was met with relative success: in Franklin County, for instance, seventy-seven distilleries had purchased Virginia licenses to produce and sell liquor.^[144] Most of these distilleries were small, farm-based operations managed by individual families. For a county of only around 25,000, this was a large number – and one that did not even include illegal moonshining. Whether operating legally or not, distillers were far from being outcasts in the community. Instead, many were seen as regular, upstanding members of the community: as an eighty-two-year-old witness at the trial testified, “liquor has been made in Franklin by good, honest people since he could remember.”^[145]

Eventually, though, the temperance movement gained support across the state – and later, the nation – leading to the enactment of Prohibition. Virginia and other southern states helped lead the charge towards the ratification of the Volstead Act; in fact, the commonwealth passed the Virginia Prohibition Act in 1916, three years before the amendment’s passage. But support for Prohibition was not held by all of the commonwealth’s constituents.^[146] While some organizations, such as the Sons of Temperance, won some of approval among mountain folk, many local institutions refused to take a hard line against alcohol consumption. Even if the passage of the Volstead Act upset moonshiners at first, many quickly realized the opportunity the law presented: a shock to the supply of alcohol across the country. In greater force than ever, illegal distilleries in Franklin did what they had done for years: they fired up their operations and went to work. 

It was not until the emergence of the conspiracy that moonshining was completely transformed in Franklin; however, Prohibition’s passage itself altered various aspects of the industry. These changes would later help lay the groundwork for the rise of the infamous criminal network. One witness indicated that the quality of liquor in Franklin County “decreased over time” after the beginning of Prohibition, showing that producers had already cut corners before the conspiracy’s inception.^[147] This decline in quality may also have been the result of new distillers trying their hand at whiskey making: one witness estimated he had “been in the liquor business” since “1919, 1920, somewhere along there.”^[148] Another witness observed that “since the advent of nation-wide prohibition in 1919, whiskey-making in the county has been decidedly on the increase.”^[149] Prohibition had led more people to take up moonshining in Franklin, and conspiracy leaders would use the popularity of distilling as a foundation to grow their criminal network.

Furthermore, since moonshine is defined as illegally produced liquor, the county’s tradition of untaxed distilling also meant it claimed a similar legacy of crime. Accordingly, many members of the conspiracy hailed from families with long traditions of lawbreaking. For instance, one witness admitted that his mother had been charged with murder, his father had been a “frequent offender” of the law, and his brother “had been prosecuted twenty times.”^[150] Another co-conspirator on the stand quipped that he was “raised in Franklin county” and thus “started making and hauling liquor like nearly everyone else.”^[151] Even children worked in the moonshining industry: one witness stated that he began hauling liquor out of Franklin County when he was only twelve years old, while another recalled starting when he was fourteen.^[152] Although bootleggers were frequently caught – especially outside of Franklin County – legal prosecution often did little to deter continued involvement in the illegal liquor trade. One of the liquor pilots assured the jury that he had been arrested “only 64 times in Roanoke” for violating Prohibition laws, and even this had not stopped him from hauling over 35,000 gallons of liquor into the city.^[153] Indeed, moonshine and crime were saturated within the cultural fiber of Franklin County. Conspiracy leaders would have faced little moral resistance from residents in their efforts to recruit them into their illegal distilling network. 

Moonshining was not only popular because of the county’s history and the new opportunity presented by Prohibition, but also because of a lack of other avenues for advancement. In the decade between Prohibition’s passage and the start of the conspiracy, the socioeconomic conditions faced by occupants of Franklin County either remained the same or worsened. Farming, the second most popular profession in the area, particularly suffered. Most farms in the region were small, family-based operations that merely sought to support themselves. In fact, in 1929, Appalachia contained one third of "self-sufficing" farms in the United States, while occupying just three percent of the country’s land area.^[154]However, “self-sufficiency” – if it can even be called that – was not by choice. Farmers in Franklin struggled to transport their products without roads and infrastructure in the county, let alone bring their crops to markets miles away. Although six million Americans left their farms at the beginning of the 1930’s, many in the Blue Ridge stayed “in greater numbers than anywhere else in the country,” as “their region had no industries to go to.”^[155] Kit Brandon, a Sherwood Anderson novel inspired by the life of the rum runner Willie Carter Sharpe, poetically captures the grim reality of life in the mountains:

They hung on up there in their hills, a quite isolated, a strong enough people, in the very heart of America, sticking tight to their barren hills, “like fleas on a dog,” she said.

To the earth – clinging to it, to their barren enough earth, clinging.^[156]

Although the federal government became more involved in stimulating agricultural activity over time – especially during the era of the New Deal – even then, the county’s small farms usually did not reap the benefits of government subsidies. While as a whole, New Deal initiatives like the Agricultural Adjustment Act helped galvanize Virginia’s agricultural sector, they offered “no assistance to the state’s small, independent farmers who were losing the battle to the new agribusinessmen.”^[157] Programs prior to the New Deal also focused on commercial agriculture, meaning that Franklin’s economic development was already behind the rest of the country.^[158] Cultivation of legal crops took a further hit during a “severe drought” that swept the region from 1930-32, significantly depressing crop prices.^[159]However, making liquor had already been a more lucrative endeavor than cultivating small plots of land on “unproductive soil.”^[160] Its hilly landscape made it the “perfect” place to moonshine: cool springs and creeks provided convenient water sources for distilleries, which were often hidden deep into the county’s wooded terrain and far away from the wandering eye of the law.^[161]

As a result, even as the penalty for getting caught grew more severe, the county turned further away from agriculture and fully embraced moonshining. One witness stated that the county was now “hardly” self-sufficient, as much of the “raising of grains for food and livestock” had mostly disappeared.^[162] Another testified that while “there was a considerable amount of farming” when he moved to the county in 1913, it was “largely discontinued” in favor of the “liquor traffic” that “controls everything” in the county.^[163] Indeed, as Thompson writes, “it was not that the Virginia mountains lacked economic activity, but that in the absence of roads, schools, and jobs, people had used their skills to invent an economy from scratch, without outside help.”^[164] The conspiracy would use the financial necessity of moonshining in the county as another base to grow the network.

Distilling was not only necessary because of the decline of farming, but also because education offered little to no hope of social mobility, either. In 1920, 14.2% of people in Franklin County were illiterate, over 6% higher than the proportion in the neighboring county of Roanoke.^[165] This fact is reflected in the trial’s testimonies, as several witnesses were unable to read their own rights. For instance, when asked to confirm that he signed a waiver of immunity before testifying, one witness replied, “I have signed something; I can’t even write.”^[166] Another mentioned during testimony that “I can’t read anyway; I haven’t got no education.”^[167] It seems reasonable, as a different witness suggested, that when “the principal business of a county is not taxed, naturally they haven’t any money to educate the children.”^[168]Thus, many Franklin children grew up without the schooling necessary to work in many jobs – moonshining excluded, of course.

Unsurprisingly, the dearth of educational and legal economic opportunities pushed many in Franklin into financial distress. The conspiracy encouraged even more people in the county to take up distilling, including those who had little to no prior experience. One co-conspirator explained that he only started “liquor operations” in order to “help support his family of wife and 13 children and pay off the debt on his farm.”^[169] Others in the area also reported that when they had trouble finding consistent work, they decided to try to make “some money running liquor” or firing up stills themselves.^[170] Yet, joining the conspiracy often did not equate to improved economic standing. Regarding his involvement in illegal distilling, one witness testified, “I just worked a little, to help my wife and children; I bought some land; thought I could pay for that; never did get it paid for.”^[171] Another stated that even though he “might have gone into it to make money,” he “came out $100 in the hole.”^[172] However, a failure to turn a profit moonshining in the 1930s often was not due to mere bad luck. Rather, such economic outcomes were the product of the organization of the conspiracy – an organization that cemented socioeconomic divisions between its leaders and its workers. 

The conspiracy’s leaders were not only the officers who accepted “granny fees” from distillers, but also moonshiners who controlled large-scale distilling operators. Although moonshine might have been everywhere in Franklin, not all liquor makers shared an equal footing. The names of Walter “Peg” Hatcher, Roosevelt Smith, and John Turner – among others – echo throughout the newspapers’ coverage of the trial and the transcripts of evidence collected by the grand jury. These men were known as the “big fellows” of the illegal liquor industry, largely responsible for the production and distribution of the county’s infamous export.^[173] However, these leaders of the conspiracy often did not directly engage in distilling or transporting moonshine. Instead, they often served as the financiers of the liquor trade, providing equipment, pay, and protection to smaller moonshiners and liquor pilots. By doing so, these leaders limited their personal risk of being prosecuted while also establishing “partnerships” that provided them with multiple sources of income. On the other hand, many “cobwebs,” or smaller moonshiners, were left to bear the grunt work that drove the moonshining industry.^[174]

Several witnesses tell an almost identical story regarding their relationship with the big blockaders of Franklin County. They formed a partnership with one of the large producers, who then would furnish the supplies needed for distillation. Usually, the big players’ employees would drop off the ingredients and equipment at the still site.^[175] After the small moonshiners in the partnership finished the batch of liquor, it was hauled back – typically either by the moonshiner himself or an employee – to the farm of the big blockader.^[176] The liquor was then stored on the farm until it was carried away by a rum runner, and the moonshiner was paid a fraction of the proceeds from the sale.^[177] While this process may seem simple, and perhaps even beneficial to the smaller moonshiner, a closer look reveals the imbalances that existed between the owners and operators of the liquor industry.

First, the terms of the partnership between “big fellow” and “cobwebs” were often unclear. One witness claimed that he, Peg Hatcher, and Roosevelt Smith “all was partners” in the operation of a still, but he “could not tell whether I was getting my part or not getting my part” and “just took what they give [sic] me.”^[178] Others understood the fraction of money they were owed – usually, the conspiracy leader took out a third for himself – but were often left in the dark as to how much of their cut went to paying off law enforcement.^[179] One co-conspirator testified that the granny fee “was taken out, but I don’t know how much;” another knew that fifteen dollars was in fact going to a “granny fee” but that Peg Hatcher “did not say” how exactly the fee worked or which police officers it would pay off. ^[180]

Clearly, the “big fellows” did not treat their so-called partners as equals and thus were not always incentivized to uphold their end of the agreement. As such, the protection offered through the partnerships’ granny fees did not always guarantee the safety of a still operation. One moonshiner stated that shortly after he began working in a partnership with the “big fellows,” a police officer cut up his still and emptied the fermenting liquor. The still being shut down was bad enough, but to make matters worse, the operator bore responsibility for covering the cost of the destroyed equipment and ingredients.^[181] After paying Roosevelt Smith for the still, the “cobweb” thought he only “made enough to come out even,” revealing how difficult it often was to turn a profit as a smaller player in the conspiracy.^[182]

Meanwhile, the “big fellows” of the network lined their pockets without getting their hands too dirty. These blockaders played a key role in acquiring protection from law enforcement, obtaining materials, and facilitating sales with customers – but they often distanced themselves from the actual process of making moonshine. For example, while one deputy sheriff affirmed that members of the Turner family were “known as big blockaders,” he stated that when it came to distilling, “Of course, they have it done, they don’t do it themselves.”^[183] Instead, their “partners” and employees were left to bear the risk of operating active stills and transporting the finished products. Unlike partners, who had at least some claim to the profits of the operation, employees were paid “mighty little of nothing,” receiving a flat monthly payment and board for their labor.^[184] These workers – many of whom were black – often spent their days hauling materials from Ferrum Mercantile to still sites, loading and unloading finished liquor from storage, and, perhaps most importantly, shielding their bosses from the labor and risk that served as the foundations of any moonshining operation.^[185]

While little is known about how most conspiracy leaders acquired their high status in mountain society, evidence does indicate that they benefited greatly from their positions in the distilling network. One of the “big fellows,” Willard Hodges, was said to have a house that “was the best in the town” – and one that was erected during the conspiracy’s heyday.^[186] Edgar Beckett, the state Prohibition officer indicted in the conspiracy, admitted to buying a house for $9,000 in 1931.^[187] While house pricing data at the time of his purchase is sparse, the first housing census in 1940 reported that the median price for a home in Virginia cost $2,633.^[188] This proxy – albeit imperfect, and possibly depressed from the 1931 median prices – shows that Beckett’s wealth was likely well above that of the average Virginian, even though his salary was only “$50 to $100 a month during the eight years he was on the state force.”^[189] Beckett also testified that he was supporting his second son through college – an ability not held by many in rural Virginia. The wealth of these conspiracy leaders, let alone amid a nationwide depression and local economic stagnancy, reveals that the conspiracy was designed to benefit its leaders first and its workers last.

The conspiracy also destroyed the solidarity among moonshiners that had defined Blue Ridge distilling for years. Long gone were the days of a “small guerilla band” of moonshiners coming together to defend stills from federal agents – now, blockaders went directly to inform county and state law enforcement about their competitors’ operations.^[190] The “big fellows” in particular enjoyed close relationships with police that cemented their role in the conspiracy. The trial accounts do not specify how such connections were formed; however, they do contain other details that demonstrate strong communication between police and the big blockaders. 

First, working in several partnerships at a time meant that the “big fellow” would pay more protection money than an average bootlegger, rendering him a crucial stream of income to the lawmen. Second, betraying the whereabouts of other moonshining operations allowed the deputy sheriffs to earn raiding fees and appear as if they were fulfilling their policing duties. Motivations for informing may have been somewhat personal: one witness believed those in the “big liquor business” who informed on smaller operations “never get anything except the satisfaction of getting even with the people they are mad at.”^[191] However, reporting the activity of competitors to law enforcement also reduced competition in Franklin’s liquor market. Willie Carter Sharpe stated that she helped a Prohibition officer catch several cars belonging to her “rivals in the business,” rendering her services as a liquor pilot more valuable.^[192]

However, Sharpe would have known that informing went two ways – if she didn’t play by the rules of the big distillers, she would also be in trouble. Another rum runner recalled that whenever he hauled liquor for another operator, he was caught on “several” liquor runs after Roosevelt Smith “put the law” on him.^[193] Indeed, at the end of the day, the “big fellow” still had the upper hand. Their close relationships with law enforcement pushed many “cobwebs” into partnerships with the key players of the conspiracy, ensnaring them into a network whose complexity far exceeded that of traditional liquor operations. While occasionally, small bootleggers could pay off the raiding officer in their district, working with a powerful moonshiner was often their best bet for protection.^[194] One witness recalled that the conspiracy’s treasurer Jeff Richards warned him that “the law wouldn’t bother the big bootlegger like the little one” and to “get in with Hatcher…he was to keep the law off us.”^[195] With the power of the “big fellow” entrenched through their financial standing and influence over law enforcement, the conspiracy prevented the “cobwebs” from experiencing moonshining as the entrepreneurial, traditional endeavor that had sustained the practice for years. 

Perhaps as a sign of gratitude for helping catch smaller moonshiners, big producers appear to have received warnings before outside Prohibition officers made raids in the area. One state officer asserted that “signals would be fired” to alert moonshiners of incoming raids, and another witness claimed that John Turner detailed a system in which “When somebody makes a report they tip us off, we all get out of the way, and then they don’t get nothing but a cheap still.”^[196] The forms of such communications are unknown and likely varied based on the situation: although the prosecution alleged that there was an elaborate tip-off system using telephones, evidence about this is inconclusive.^[197]What is known, though, is that the warnings to the big blockaders got through: a federal Prohibition officer recalled that he cut up eleven stills in one day and, despite the fact that “half of them were running,” he apprehended none of their operators.^[198] The flow of money and information between the “big fellows” and police officers kept the conspiracy’s operations – and the power wielded by its leaders – secure.

Times had certainly changed. In his closing remarks, presiding Judge John Paul remarked that “The younger defendants represent a new era in crime,” as they “purchased materials in staggering quantities, organized their communities and drove people around them into the business.”^[199] In a region with a rich history of liquor making that offered few opportunities for economic advancement, and facing pressure from leading community members, many in Franklin County turned to the conspiracy out of financial necessity. But they often found little luck turning a profit, risking much for little reward. Furthermore, moonshining in Franklin “became tightly organized and coordinated,” as the once isolated Blue Ridge liquor industry was transformed by the wave of syndicated crime that swept through the nation.^[200] As such, the conspiracy represented the conflict between local traditions and national, modern developments. I discuss this clash through an examination of the conspiracy’s use of formal political power – and how the expansion of federal authority eroded that same power.

In his closing remarks, defense counsel Stephen D. Timberlake reminded the jury of the obvious: Charles Carter Lee was no ordinary Commonwealth’s Attorney. Rather, Timberlake declared, Carter Lee “comes from the most distinguished ancestry in America. His grandfather was the elder brother of Robert E. Lee, the gentlest, noblest figure in American history, who stands with Washington.”^[201] In the eyes of the defense, to convict Lee as a member of the conspiracy would be to believe that the testimonies of “thieves, rogues, and even murderers” combed from the “very dregs of the underworld” outweighed the reputation of Carter Lee.^[202]

Lee had served as the Commonwealth’s Attorney of Franklin County since he was twenty-two, succeeding his father in office.^[203] Despite having no college degree, Carter Lee passed the bar examination at age nineteen and, by most accounts, was a highly respected and competent prosecutor. T. Keister Greer, who practiced under Lee in the late 1940’s, asserted that “His knowledge of the law was encyclopedic, and his pleadings were so high a standard that Judge Hopkins, who didn’t like him, considered that they should be preserved as models.”^[204] But Lee also understood the power that his last name carried. It had gotten him the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office. It allowed him to expand the power wielded by the position, making him the most important man in Franklin County. And, during the trial, it served as an impregnable defense of character that kept Carter Lee out of jail and in office.  

The prosecution’s main effort to implicate Lee directly in the conspiracy was through the testimony of Tom Cundiff. Cundiff claimed that he had paid $10 a month in protection money to Lee, which was to allow him to make liquor without trouble from the law. Two of his workers testified that they had delivered payments to Lee, and Cundiff even produced a check for $39 made out to Lee as evidence for his claims. But, as Cundiff claimed Lee told him, “No matter what you tell, nobody will believe it” if they compared the truthfulness of “a man of my standing and you a bootlegger.”^[205] As harsh as the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s supposed words were, he was right; Cundiff’s testimony failed to convince the jury. 

A convicted criminal serving a sentence for assault with an attempted prison break and a stint in a mental hospital on his record, Cundiff had a less than stellar reputation.^[206] Whether or not Tom was mentally ill is unknown, but he was sent to the facility shortly after a dispute with Lee. He also may not have been telling the truth: he and Lee had bad blood, and Lee would have had little reason to concern himself with the small ten-dollar payments when he made upwards of $7,200 a year.^[207] But, even with his story corroborated by others, his shaky reputation could not compete with that of the judges and politicians who came to defend Lee’s character. Judges Herbert Gregory and Henry Holt of the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed that Lee “has the full confidence of our court” and state senator George Layman, known as “the father of the dry law” in Virginia, testified that Lee was a “vigorous prosecutor” of Prohibition cases.^[208] Even though the presiding Judge John Paul suggested to the jury that “evidence of reputation for truthfulness and untruthfulness in a great many cases, in my opinion is…of little value,” Lee’s reputation trumped all. He walked out of the courtroom acquitted on all charges. 

Lee’s defense strategy – one heavily reliant on attacking the veracity of the prosecution’s witnesses while asserting the strength of his own character – reveals the importance of local power and status in Franklin County. Lee understood this and used his position as Commonwealth’s Attorney to further cement his own importance in the county. He took control by bypassing formal court sessions to levy fines instead of jail time, directing the resale of seized liquor cars, and influencing elections and appointments of state Prohibition agents. One witness summarized the situation well: “He was the court.”^[209] While the legality of his actions can be debated, I do not aim to determine whether or not Carter Lee was a part of the Moonshine Conspiracy. Rather, I seek to demonstrate how the formal positions of power in Franklin County – in particular, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office – protected the criminal network for years. 

From car seizures and still raids to theft and even murder, Franklin County’s docket in the 1920’s and early 30’s was never empty. As the Commonwealth’s Attorney in the “Moonshine Capital of the World,” Carter Lee had his hands full, processing thousands of cases and even securing 473 convictions for Prohibition violations during his tenure.^[210]However, Lee’s procedures were often peculiar; he frequently bypassed formal court hearings, opting to levy fines and suspended jail sentences to violators instead. The regularity and legality of this practice was a point of contention during the trial; the prosecution asserted that Virginia’s legal code clearly defined minimum penalties set forth for Prohibition violations, and that Carter Lee’s lenient practices were unusual, if not improper.^[211] Even a circuit court judge called as a character witness for Lee admitted that “he knew of no cases where the Commonwealth’s Attorney fined an offender and permitted to go without bond or having to appear in court.”^[212] Lee’s defense argued that he did so at the instruction of the Virginia Governor. They read a letter from Governor John Pollard to all Commonwealth’s Attorneys which “suggested that cases be settled without trial wherever possible and recommended suspended sentences and probations for prisoners if practicable in order to cut jail maintenance.”^[213] Carter Lee evidently took the Governor’s recommendation to heart. Whether usual or not, his preference for light sentencing, fines, and avoidance of official hearings enabled more liquor makers to stay out of prison and sustained the manpower of the conspiracy.

Former Sheriff Wilson Hodges outlined the typical process Carter Lee employed when dealing with a Prohibition violator: “Lee would compromise the case, give him a thirty-day jail sentence suspended, $50 fine and the costs… He never came back to court.”^[214] The speed at which this process moved may have helped decongest the local jails, but it also kept moonshiners at work. When asked about his experience with Carter Lee and the Franklin County courts, one bootlegger recalled, “I never seen no judge, not when I went over there to be tried. I ain’t never been in front of a judge.”^[215] After being fined, the witness returned to transporting liquor between Franklin and Roanoke. Others echoed similar experiences: another moonshiner said he “compromised” two cases with Lee, stating that his business partner “paid $93 to Carter Lee, to turn him loose.”^[216] As a result, Lee’s sentencing patterns not only affirmed his place as the “King Bee” of Franklin County – a title he reportedly called himself – but also kept moonshiners out of jail and at work at their stills.^[217]

Of course, making moonshine in Franklin County was only a profitable endeavor if it could be transported to buyers. But, as discussed, transporting gallons of liquor across county lines was no easy task for rum runners. While some drivers were skilled enough to evade police, others were not as fortunate. When these liquor pilots were caught, their vehicles were seized and held in police custody. But in Franklin County, they usually didn’t stay there long. Instead, captured cars were auctioned off days after a seizure, often at low prices and back to their original owners. 

J.P. Hodges, brother of Wilson and a former Sheriff’s deputy himself, detailed the vehicle resale process under Carter Lee. Acting as auctioneer, Lee would sell the car to a deputy sheriff who was a part of a “gang or club” who “bought all the good cars and returned them to the bootleggers.”^[218] The bootleggers would buy the car at a higher price than what was paid for by the deputy sheriff, meaning the club “always made a profit” on resales.^[219] The profits were then split by the members of the group – Carter Lee included. However, the term “auction” is perhaps not the best way to describe the process: Lee would declare at “auction sales” that “the gang or club was going to buy this car;” thus, the sheriffs faced no competition for their bids, maintaining profitability for the group.^[220] Furthermore, the bootlegger communicated in advance the price he could pay for the automobile, so the club always knew what price they could bid to turn a profit. 

Because Franklin “sold more cars than any other county,” and most of the money was paid to the government, this practice avoided detection and scrutiny for years.^[221] Even during the trial, it was not a key point of the prosecution’s arguments. However, the practice of reselling bootleggers their cars quite literally kept the wheels of Franklin’s moonshining industry running. As Willie Carter Sharpe testified, many bootleggers who had their cars seized “don’t have any trouble getting them back, I don’t think, when they get caught…you would see the owner with it back in a day or two.”^[222] Carter Sharpe also testified that “very seldom anybody lost cars that was in with Roosevelt [Smith] and them,” indicating that members of the conspiracy likely received preferential treatment in these so-called auctions.^[223] These rum runners, who had already avoided jail time by paying fines to Carter Lee, quickly resumed their illegal activities. Penalties and car payments were just the cost of the moonshining business – hardly a deterrent for most in Franklin.

To keep their interests secure and power intact, county officials in Franklin also conspired to influence the results of local elections. The officials’ preferred candidates typically promoted relaxed enforcement of liquor laws, which would allow the officers in the conspiracy to continue profiting off Franklin’s moonshining industry. Although these conspiracy members did not alter voting results or prevent people from voting, they used their authority as lawmen to influence party nominations and the voting decisions of the county’s residents. Such manipulation can be understood as another dimension of how the success of the criminal network depended on the use of formal authority to protect its operations.  

Franklin County was no stranger to violence during the Prohibition years; however, testimony reveals that conspiracy leaders did not often rely on physical threats to coerce residents into doing their will. Instead, their scare tactics targeted the most common livelihood in the county: moonshining. One witness recalled that Edgar Beckett “asked me was I going to vote for Jeff [Hodges], or something like that; I told him I didn’t know, something like that; I understood him to say: “You won’t have good luck if you don’t.’”^[224] This loosely veiled warning about “luck” – a term used frequently throughout witness testimonies – referred to a moonshiner being able to operate without interference from law enforcement. Of course, this threat left the moonshiner with little choice about his vote. He complained that Beckett’s message “made my wife mighty mad because he told me that,” as the witness had “always voted Republican ticket, they was voting Democrat,” which “looked like he was taking my privilege away from me.”^[225]

Another witness reported that J.P. Hodges was later charged on a variety of counts stemming from his coercion tactics, including “instructing the blockaders up there if they didn’t vote for Judge Lee that he would destroy their still property.”^[226] These were not mere empty threats: one moonshiner testified that “Rakes and Beckett made a series of raids for “revengance [sic]” against those who voted for D. Wilson Hodges” in another election.^[227] Clearly, conspiracy officials understood that the best source of political leverage resided in their ability to threaten the occupations of their constituents. 

County officials also influenced nomination processes to ensure their preferred candidates would be working alongside them. In particular, Lee and several deputy sheriffs allegedly nominated a new party candidate for sheriff over the incumbent, Wilson Hodges, because the new nominee promised that “his office would not make any raids that were not based on bonafide complaints.”^[228] Lee claimed he backed the other candidate because Hodges “did not attend to all the duties of the office;” regardless of his motivations, the challenger defeated Wilson in the election.^[229] Interestingly enough, Wilson had previously benefited from the backing of Lee and the others. In 1929, he was encouraged by Jeff Richards to accept the appointment as county sheriff in order to protect the “system they had been using,” otherwise known as the conspiracy: “Jeff said if he didn’t appoint me ... then he was going to appoint Charlie Greer, and it would ruin all of them if he did, and to help them out for God’s sake to take it.”^[230] By controlling elected offices and determining who possessed formal authority, Franklin officials solidified their control over the conspiracy – and the county as a whole.

Even though Carter Lee already played a key role in practically any important judicial or political proceeding in the county, his influence didn’t stop there. Lee also served as the defense counsel for Franklin residents charged with Prohibition violations in federal court; often, he defended the same individuals he prosecuted in county court. While at the time this practice drew the attention of some legislators – one told Lee that “Carter, it looks a little odd for you to be coming over here in the Federal Court representing Prohibition violators, and then prosecuting them at the same time in Franklin County,” – no one stopped it.^[231] Lee’s exact motivations for defending Prohibition violators in federal court are unknown; however, this practice furthered his control over law enforcement in his county. Another judge reported that Lee successfully removed a Prohibition case from federal court to Franklin County; in county court, the accused “drew fines and suspended jail sentences.”^[232] Lee also admitted to representing the Ferrum Mercantile Company in court, but maintained that he “never accepted any employment that could in any way conflict with his duties as Commonwealth’s Attorney.”^[233] Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that Lee’s involvement in federal cases helped protect moonshiners, many of whom were connected to the conspiracy.

Lee evidently despised not being in control in his county; after all, he saw himself as its “King Bee.” He took special exception to meddlesome state Prohibition agents who made unannounced raids on stills in Franklin. To Lee, these raids were a direct attack on his authority – of course, they also attacked the moonshining industry that he frequently sought to protect. So, to insulate Franklin from outside interference, Lee used his personal connection with the Virginia attorney general to remove from their posts Prohibition officers whom he deemed too aggressive. One of these officers reported that he was told that “Carter Lee at Rocky Mount…had been down to him and wanted me put off, said that I was doing crooked work in Franklin County.”^[234] The officer continued, stating that Lee had also indicted him “in Franklin County for violating the prohibition law;” despite receiving “fifty or sixty endorsements” defending his character and his record of cutting up “very near a thousand stills,” the officer was forced to resign his post.^[235] Another officer stated “the Commonwealth’s Attorney told me I wasn’t needed down there” and that he “received word several times not to come in there, they was going to frame me.”^[236] However, despite these removals, Lee’s power outside of the county would ultimately prove to be limited.

Although Lee was able to control some of the state Prohibition posts, these positions disappeared following the Volstead Act’s repeal – and so did much of his power outside of Franklin. Once the federal government was made aware of the rampant production of untaxed liquor in the county, they acted swiftly. The Alcohol Tax Unit sent special investigator Colonel Thomas Bailey to Franklin in January of 1934. After a few months undercover, Bailey produced a preliminary report that both detailed the nature of the conspiracy and recommended indictments for several of its suspected leaders – including Carter Lee. As Sherwood Anderson observed, this was nearly inconceivable: “Carter Lee, a grandnephew of Robert E. Lee, was up there, facing a forcible prison term, and the South was shocked.”^[237]

By the end of the year, a grand jury had convened to hear the testimonies of hundreds of witnesses, and the trial began the following spring. Despite the reported attempts of its leaders to “intimidate all perspective [sic] witnesses throughout the county,” the investigation and trial dealt a decisive blow to the criminal network.^[238]  Even though Lee was acquitted, the speedy nature of the conspiracy’s takedown demonstrated a new reality in both Franklin and America at large: traditional local power structures had started to give way to the new, expanded authority of the federal government. As such, the later part of this chapter examines conspiracy’s limitations and demise to illustrate the expansion of the American state. 

In explaining the shortcomings of the conspiracy, it is important to distinguish between state and federal authorities, as the two words were often used interchangeably in witness testimonies. Although moonshiners often referred to all agents outside of the county as “federals,” many of these officers were members of the Virginia Prohibition Commission, an agency created in 1916 when statewide Prohibition went into effect. As of 1929, about one hundred agents worked in the force.^[239] However, even though Virginia had established this “state enforcement machinery,” the federal government sent agents of their own around the county to investigate Prohibition violations.^[240] Upon the passage of the Volstead Act, the task of enforcing liquor was taken up by the Prohibition Unit, an arm of the Bureau of Internal Revenue; in 1927, it became an independent agency and changed its name to the Bureau of Prohibition. After Prohibition’s repeal, the Alcohol Tax Unit was tasked with enforcing liquor laws, ensuring that any alcohol made for commercial purposes was taxed. It was this unit – specifically, its special investigator Thomas Bailey – that “rid Franklin County of a stain that had been placed upon its good name” by dismantling the conspiracy.^[241]

However, even before Bailey’s investigation, the activity of state and federal officers in Franklin revealed the limits of power that could be wielded by Franklin County officials. True, Carter Lee had removed from the county a few state Prohibition agents. A federal agent, S.O. White, and state agent Edgar Beckett were also convicted for their roles in the conspiracy. But despite this – and receiving “no cooperation or no welcome” from local police on raids – trustworthy federal and state agents often made their way through Franklin, cutting up stills along the way.^[242] As a result, Franklin police knew they could not guarantee full protection from prosecution when state Prohibition officers made raids in the area. One moonshiner recalled that county sheriff Pete Hodges told him that “He couldn’t do anything except for the county officers. He would handle them. He did not have anything to do with the federal officers.”^[243] Another witness reported that his still had been cut up by state Prohibition agents, but “none of the county bunch did, as I know of.”^[244]The “granny fee” could only keep the county law away.

Despite these setbacks – of which there were many – the conspiracy survived for years, outlasting Prohibition itself. This was largely because federal and state officers struggled to apprehend moonshiners: while stills were often “in plain sight of the public road,” their operators often escaped after receiving notice that officers were raiding the area.^[245]Because all cars “had to go through Rocky Mount” to reach the county’s moonshining hotspots, “the bootlegging places all down the Rocky Mount highways” would signal ahead to distillers that a raid was going to take place “the minute that the Government car passed.”^[246] As such, the interactions between local and outside authorities revealed two things: one, that Franklin county officials could not completely control outside law enforcement, and two, a more intentional, concentrated use of federal force would be required to take down the criminal network.

In 1931, the Wickersham Commission agreed: stronger enforcement of Prohibition laws – specifically on the federal and state levels – was needed to curtail the rampant lawlessness seen in places like Franklin. Broadly, its findings aimed to “reduce local control over criminal prosecution,” arguing that “the influence of politics in criminal enforcement…was tantamount to corruption.”^[247] While not as well-known as crime ridden urban areas like Chicago or Detroit, the situation in Franklin County served as one of the commission’s prime examples of why local authorities ought not to be trusted to prevent crime. As such, the report asserted that “In the industrial and mechanical order of today, liquor control is more imperative than ever. If it is to be effective, the federal government must be authorized to do a large part in the program and do it efficiently.”^[248] Furthermore, the commission believed that “small fines or trivial imprisonment” served as “feeble deterrent(s)” of crime and advocated for stricter punishments for law violators.^[249]

Even though the commission’s specific recommendations “did not trigger widespread changes in practice,” lawmakers expressed a shared preference for expanding federal authority and imposing heavier sentencing both during and after Prohibition.^[250] The Bureau of Prohibition expanded in both size and capability throughout the 1920’s; even after repeal, federal agents from the Alcohol Tax Unit enjoyed the power to make some searches without warrants. As the United States Commissioner of Roanoke stated in testimony, “A federal officer does not have to have a search warrant if he has cause to believe the law has been violated; if he catches a man violating the law, he can make any search he pleases.”^[251] Furthermore, in 1930, Herbert Hoover pressed congress to expand the federal prison administration to account for an influx of inmates from Prohibition violations. The Supreme Court, under Justice William Howard Taft, also widened the scope of federal police power, with its decisions backing aggressive enforcement practices.^[252] Overall, these developments, among others, created a framework that equipped the federal government with the power to forcefully pursue criminals across the country, “tilting it toward policing, surveillance, and punishment.”^[253] After Wickersham, Franklin county became a target of this expanded authority, and its local power structures soon crumbled under federal pressure.

It was not just the fact that the conspiracy fell, but also the nature of its demise that revealed the superiority of federal power over local influences. After a few months of investigation, just one man, Special Investigator Colonel Thomas Bailey, “more than any other” dismantled a criminal organization that controlled an entire county for years.^[254]The fact that Bailey himself wielded enough power to uncover the inner workings of the conspiracy and indict the most prominent people in the county demonstrated that a new era had dawned in Franklin: an era in which local leaders now had to answer to a bigger authority than their own. 

Bailey’s efforts were successful for two main reasons. One, as a federal agent, he possessed the ability to surveille the conspiracy legally, which for years had avoided detection and prosecution from outside authorities, state and federal alike. Two, Bailey, unlike county or even state officials, was not influenced by the reputations and politics that governed county life. The defense branded him as a “federal sleuth sent here from Pennsylvania” – he did not care about the legacy of Carter Lee or the other social hierarchies at work in Franklin.^[255] Bailey, a decorated veteran, viewed his mission in Franklin as a service to his country. He was to serve by investigating the illegal liquor industry, and nobody in the county carried the ability to stop him.

To be sure, Bailey’s investigation was not met without resistance, especially after he left the county and submitted his report. As part of his work in Franklin, the Colonel looked into telephone tolls to see if operators had received calls prior to raids in the area. This drew the ire of Carter Lee, who happened to also be the co-owner of the Lee Telephone Company.^[256] Lee later went to the manager of the telephone office and asked “if there had been anyone checking the tolls,” warning the manager that she “should be careful” who checked.”^[257] While the evidence Bailey found was not entirely conclusive, the records were discussed at trial – much to the displeasure of Lee. The episode represented another way in which local authority failed to control federal action. 

Another time, Lee complained to the United States Commissioner of Roanoke that “Bailey was going over there and making searches, and the people resented it;” this also was to little effect.^[258] Soon after Bailey submitted his report, federal officers made one of the biggest raids in county history: they cut up a thousand-gallon still – described by one agent as “the largest I ever saw in Franklin county, in Virginia, in fact,” – belonging to John Turner, one of the “big fellows” of the conspiracy, and arrested him on the spot.^[259] Following the raid, Lee, Turner, and the other leaders were indicted for their participation in the network – the same leaders whose power in the county had gone unchallenged for years.

Even after the indictments, the defendants attempted to use their fading authority to influence witnesses before the trial. Willie Carter Sharpe reported that defense attorney Samuel Price warned her that if she testified, “she was a co-conspirator and might be convicted”, causing her to “become worried” and leave the county for St. Louis, Missouri.^[260]It required a subpoena to apprehend Carter Sharpe and “bring her before the Judge of the Court, there to be placed under bond or otherwise restrained.”^[261] Two other witnesses reported that an indicted officer told them “just before they went to Harrisonburg to appear before the grand jury…that ‘the main thing is not to know anything’ when they got to Harrisonburg.”^[262] The efforts of the defendants to sway the outcome of the trial placed them in even more trouble. On March 31, 1936, a grand jury indicted twenty-four individuals on account of “an organized effort to influence certain jurors by the payment of money;” of the twenty-four charged, fifteen had been defendants in the conspiracy trial.^[263] All were found guilty in the jury tampering case, serving as yet another example of the futility of conspiracy leaders’ efforts to shield themselves from the brunt of federal authority.

On the surface, the acquittal of Carter Lee challenges the notion that local authority had eroded away; in fact, he would go on to be reelected as Commonwealth’s Attorney a month after he was discharged.^[264] Ultimately, the importance of Lee’s status and reputation could not be divorced from the trial’s proceedings: the defense made sure to remind the jurors of this fact. But Lee’s clearance was a product of other factors, not just his own local power. First, Lee stayed away from actions that would directly implicate him in the conspiracy. Only a few defendants connected him directly to an “overt act;” of those who did, their reliability and reputations were often shaky at best. Most of Lee’s actions that protected the conspiracy were done legally through his position as Commonwealth’s Attorney, making it somewhat difficult for the prosecution to prove his direct involvement in the criminal network. 

More importantly, the court made a large mistake in both their selection and handling of the jury. Unlike many trials, the identities of the jurors were not sequestered: their names and counties of residence were published in the Roanoke Times at the beginning of the trial.^[265] Furthermore, one of the twelve jurors selected had a son who was a bootlegger, a fact not discovered by the court in its selection proceedings, or voir dire.^[266] This juror, L.E. Marshall, was the only one on the panel who refused to convict Lee. The foreman of the jury – along with the ten other jurors – produced an affidavit following the trial explaining that Lee’s acquittal “was entirely due to the stubborn attitude of juror Marshall,” and felt “that it resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”^[267] Marshall’s exact motivations for demanding to exonerate Lee remain unknown: Colonel Bailey believed that Lee had colluded with other moonshiners and proposed to “juror Marshall a proposition to free Lee, regardless of what happened to the other defendants.”^[268] However, had the jury selection process been carried out correctly or even if the jurors had remained anonymous, perhaps the trial’s outcome would have been different.

Even though Carter Lee avoided jail time, the investigation still succeeded in its main objective: bringing down the Great Moonshine Conspiracy. The Attorney General of the United States even wrote a letter to government prosecutor Sterling Hutchenson, commending him for his effort: “I wish to congratulate you upon the successful outcome of this case and express my appreciation for the valuable service rendered by you to the Government in this matter. This case was an important one.”^[269] Furthermore, the fact that Lee was even convicted in the first place demonstrated that his power was far from absolute. The government’s case against Lee had been clear and thorough, and his reputation in Western Virginia took a hit: one juror lamented that he had “been subjected to much criticism by my friends on account of the jury’s failure to convict Carter Lee.”^[270] Although Lee was reelected, local Democrats soon chose new politicians to head the County committee to “replace what seemed to have been a self-perpetuating body…that action may prove to be Franklin County’s declaration of independence.”^[271] At the very least, the trial showed that the deployment of one federal agent had upended the power dynamics and politics of the county – and that Carter Lee was no longer Franklin’s “King Bee.”

Conclusion

In Kit Brandon, Sherwood Anderson described the mountaineers of Appalachia as a “quite isolated” people.^[272]Yet, as isolated as they were, the actions of the federal government had a profound effect on the region, especially in Franklin. The enactment of nationwide Prohibition transformed a centuries-old tradition in profound, ugly ways, birthing a criminal network that engulfed the county into its operations. The conspiracy used formal and informal power structures to exploit the social and economic struggles that had burdened the county for decades, enriching a few members at the top. This was a familiar story to many around the country, as the structure of the conspiracy resembled how many Prohibition-era criminal networks formed and organized themselves. But it was federal intervention that took down the conspiracy, too: the discovery of the rampant levels of moonshine production in Franklin led to Colonel Bailey’s investigation. The investigation led to the indictments, the indictments to the trial, and the trial to the convictions and sentences. The trial may have taken forty-nine days, but it toppled an organization that had controlled the county for six years. The developments in Franklin from Prohibition’s passage in 1919 to the trial’s final verdict in 1935 revealed that no matter how small, remote, or insignificant the county may have seemed, it was no longer home to a completely isolated people.

Yet, after the trial, many in the county returned to the hills to make moonshine as they had always done. Some distillers turned a little profit, but most “made just enough to keep

them going for the next batch, just making a little to tide them over.”^[273] Farming remained largely unprofitable, and other jobs were still sparse. Even the convicted conspiracy leaders went back to their old ways before starting their jail sentences. In his motion denying the appeal of several conspirators, Judge Paul wrote that “another matter…which has come to the attention of the Court, which is sufficient to suggest very strongly, at least, that a number of these defendants have not ceased their illegal activities during this interval.”^[274] For those living in Franklin, the draw of moonshining remained stronger than fear of jail time or further punishment. During the trial, Carter Lee quipped that “if they hanged everyone they caught making it up there, they’d still make it.”^[275] His words may have been an exaggeration, but they also captured the reality faced by the county’s mountaineers.

As such, the conspiracy case revealed another truth: one about the effects of federal power in the 1930’s. Both Prohibition and the federal investigation into the conspiracy profoundly impacted the county, but these developments largely did not serve the best interest of the residents of Franklin. Prohibition, which was created as a social reform to benefit the citizens of the United States, ultimately resulted in numerous people engaging in unlawful acts that had devastating consequences for the county, just as it did across the nation. The conspiracy’s growth exacerbated socioeconomic power imbalances, subjugating the common mountaineer to the demands of big blockaders and bootleggers. The solidarity among moonshiners and the long tradition of liquor making were discarded in favor of serving self-interest. Although the federal government put a stop to the conspiracy, nothing was done to change the day-to-day reality of living in the mountains. The county’s economic status – a “universal environment of poverty” that allowed the conspiracy to take root – remained the same.^[276] The small farms of western Virginia were overlooked in New Deal initiatives, and the county’s infrastructure and other industries remained underdeveloped.^[277] The illegal liquor industry was arguably less oppressive after the trial, but little else changed.  The government had focused its efforts on punishment, neglecting the myriad of factors that enabled the criminal network to grow. 

While economic opportunities in Roanoke or elsewhere nearby increased after World War II – leading many to give up bootlegging – moonshine never disappeared from the county.^[278] For instance, in 1960 alone, the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control conducted 912 investigations into illegal distilleries in Franklin, seizing hundreds of stills from the county’s moonshiners.^[279] Evidently, residents still saw moonshining as a better job than what else had been offered around them, especially during periods of economic downturn – and low sugar prices. As one resident in 1978 put it, “That’s the way those young boys are looking at it today. They make $3 an hour in the furniture or textile factories around here, and they got to take a lot of punishment from their bosses. You don’t have to take nothin’ back in them woods.”^[280]  Even though most in the county gave up moonshining long ago, “a lot of folks in Franklin County have a moonshiner somewhere in their family tree and they tend to view ‘shining as a petty tax violation and not a major crime;” accordingly, the practice has remained ingrained in the county’s identity.^[281]

While the likes of Wilson Hodges, Roosevelt Smith, and Willie Carter Sharpe no longer roam the backroads of Franklin, a few remnants of the conspiracy can still be found in the county. Unaged corn whiskey is now legally produced in Franklin County Distillery, the first licensed distillery in the county in one hundred years.^[282] Ferrum Mercantile, once the primary supplier of sugar and yeast to Franklin’s moonshiners, sits alongside Franklin Street – although now it is paired with Blue Ridge Burgers, a local eatery. The Franklin County Courthouse in Rocky Mount – once home to Carter Lee and his dubious judicial practices – still stands today, as the county “continues to contend with its title of ‘Moonshine Capital of the World.’”^[283]

As I stood atop one of Franklin County’s many hills, I was amazed by the beauty of the countryside landscape. A setting sun peeked through the puffy white clouds that hovered over the leafy mountain ridges that envelop the town of Rocky Mount. Yet even here, the memory of the Moonshine Conspiracy endured. A light fog had formed around part of the hillside – or was it really a fog? Was it instead smoke from a moonshine still, running all these years after the days of Prohibition and the conspiracy? Perhaps my imagination had gotten the better of me – or perhaps some bootleggers were just doing what those in Franklin had always done, once again hoping to get the best of the law.

[1] “PAT SHIFLETT LOSES RACE IN ALBEMARLE,” Greene County Record, July 20, 1922, https://www.shiflett-klein.com/shifletfamily/PS/hotgreene.html.

[2] “SHIFLETT CAUGHT AGAIN,” Greene County Record, May 3, 1923. https://www.shiflett-klein.com/shifletfamily/PS/hotgreene.html.

[3] “MORTON SHIFLETT SENT ON TO GRAND JURY,” Greene County Record, October 26, 1922, https://www.shiflett-klein.com/shifletfamily/PS/hotgreene.html.

[4] “The Mountain People,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 26, 1984, https://www.klein-shiflett.com/shifletfamily/HHI/Culture/mountain.html.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ronald L. Heinemann, Depression and New Deal in Virginia: The Enduring Dominion (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 1.

[7] Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, the Whale (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851), 4.

[8] George W. Wickersham, Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws: Official Records of the National Commission on Law Observance; 71st Cong., 3d Sess. Senate. Doc. 307 (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1931), 1075, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010439785.

[9] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XXII, 2229, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905, (W.D. Va. 1935).

[10] T. Keister Greer, The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, 1st ed. (Rocky Mount.: History House Press, 2002), 23.

[11] “Preliminary Report to Acting Deputy Commissioner, Alcohol Tax Unit,” Case No. 2933-M, July 31, 1934, at 41 in Greer, The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, 30.

[12] Basic Indictment, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905, (W.D. Va. 1935).

[13] Greer, xx. 

[14] Jess Carr, The Second Oldest Profession: An Informal History of Moonshining in America (Hoboken: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 119.

[15] Sherwood Anderson, “City Gangs Enslave Moonshine Mountaineers,” Liberty, November 2, 1935.

[16] Carr, 28, 121.

[17] Joseph Earl Dabney, Mountain Spirits: A Chronicle of Corn Whiskey from King James’ Ulster Plantation to America’s Appalachians and the Moonshine Life (Asheville: Bright Mountain Books, 1985), 4.

[18] Dabney, xx – xxii.

[19] Dabney, 6.

[20] Jaime Joyce, Moonshine: A Cultural History of America’s Infamous Liquor (Osceola: Quarto Publishing Group USA, 2014), 13.

[21] Charles D. Thompson, Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011), 70.

[22] Thompson, 71.

[23] Thompson, 75.

[24] Bruce E. Stewart, Moonshiners and Prohibitionists: The Battle over Alcohol in Southern Appalachia (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), 13.

[25] Stewart, 21.

[26] Thompson, 83.

[27] Carr, 11.

[28] Joyce, 24.

[29] Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, (New York: Scribner, 2010), 8.

[30] Benjamin Rush, Directions for Preserving the Health of Soldiers: Recommended to the Consideration of the Officers of the Army of the United States, (Lancaster: John Dunlap, 1777; Ann Arbor: Text Creation Partnership, 2005), http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N12711.0001.001.

[31] Abraham Lincoln, “Abraham Lincoln’s Temperance Address of 1842,” Sangamon County, Illinois, February 22, 1842, Abraham Lincoln Online,https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/temperance.htm.

[32] Lisa McGirr, The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 12.

[33] Okrent, 106.

[34] Herbert Hoover, “Letter to Senator W. H. Borah,” February 23, 1928, quoted in Oxford Essential Quotations, ed. Susan Ratcliffe, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), https://shorturl.at/jxFV4.

[35] McGirr, 41.

[36] McGirr, 57.

[37] Humbert S. Nelli, “American Syndicate Crime: A Legacy of Prohibition” in Kyvig, David E., Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985), 125.

[38] Okrent, 128.

[39] Marc Mappen, Prohibition Gangsters: The Rise and Fall of a Bad Generation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2013), 14. 

[40] Michael Woodiwiss, Double Crossed: The Failure of Organized Crime Control (London: Pluto Press, 2017), 36.

[41] McGirr, 71.

[42] McGirr, 53, 77.

[43] McGirr, 120.

[44] McGirr, 191.

[45] “Treason Trial Was Longer,” Roanoke Times, June 9, 1935.

[46] “Change Pleas,” Roanoke Times, April 23, 1935.

[47] “Important Case,” Roanoke Times, June 22, 1935.

[48] “Taxes Not Mentioned,” Roanoke Times, July 11, 1935.

[49] “Sprenger Called,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[50] “Sprenger Called,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[51] “Important Case,” Roanoke Times, June 26, 1935.

[52] “We Shed One Title,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 16, 1928, 10. http://www.proquest.com/hnpchicagotribune/docview/180889722/abstract/2AA740F7AFC1468FPQ/1.

[53] Ibid.

[54] “Crowd Gets Laugh,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[55] “Explain Fees,” Roanoke Times, June 7, 1935.

[56] “Crowd Gets Laugh,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, at 462, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905, (W.D. Va. 1935).

[59] Ibid.

[60] “Knew of Operations,” Roanoke Times, April 25, 1935.

[61] “‘I Get My Part,’” Roanoke World News, April 25, 1935, 1.

[62] “Called In Deputies,” Roanoke Times, May 28, 1935.

[63] “Crowd Gets Laugh,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[64] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, 462, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905, (W.D. Va. 1935).

[65] “Had Stills Cut Up,” Roanoke Times, April 27, 1935.

[66] “Never Mentioned Beckett,” Roanoke Times, April 27, 1935.

[67] Brief in Behalf of the Appellee as to the Sufficiency of Evidence Involving S.O. White, Earle Easter and Charles Guilliams, White et. al vs. United States, No. 3956 (4th Cir. 1935), at 3.

[68] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1838, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905, (W.D. Va. 1935).

[69] “Never Lost A Still,” Roanoke Times, May 3, 1935.

[70] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IV, 619, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[71] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIII, 1336, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[72] “Caught with Liquor,” Roanoke Times, May 3, 1935.

[73] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XVI, 293, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935). 

[74] “Crowd Gets Laugh,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[75] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IX, 1686, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[76] Transcript of Evidence, vol. V, 816, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[77] Mark Haller, “Illegal Enterprise: A Theoretical and Historical Interpretation,” Criminology 28, no. 2 (1990): 207–36,https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1990.tb01324.x.

[78] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, 528, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[79] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IV, 657; vol. V, 812, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[80] “Stored At Garage,” Roanoke Times, June 8, 1935.

[81] “Named Deputy,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[82] “Lengthy Examination,” Roanoke Times, May 4, 1935; “Put Money In Bank,” Roanoke Times, April 26, 1935.

[83] Transcript of Evidence, vol. V, 915, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[84] “Getting Education,” Roanoke Times, April 26, 1935.

[85] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IX, 1677, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935). 

[86] “Bought Sugar and Meal,” Roanoke World News, April 26, 1935, 10.

[87] Ibid.

[88] “Other Witnesses,” Roanoke Times, May 7, 1935.

[89] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1921, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[90] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, 493, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[91] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2593, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[92] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1925, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[93] “Never Tried ‘Business’ Group,” Roanoke Times, May 2, 1935.

[94] Transcript of Evidence, vol. V, 808, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[95] “Denies Motions,” Roanoke Times, May 17, 1935.

[96] “Admitted Trips,” Roanoke Times, May 24, 1935; Transcript of Evidence, vol. VI, 1063, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[97] “Admitted Trips,” Roanoke Times, May 23, 1935; “Averaged $10 a Load,” Roanoke Times, May 25, 1935. 

[98] Transcript of Evidence, vol. VI, 959, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[99] Transcript of Evidence, vol. V, 809, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[100] Brief in Behalf of the Appellee as to the Sufficiency of Evidence Involving S.O. White, Earle Easter and Charles Guilliams, White et. al vs. United States, No. 3956 (4th Cir. 1935), at 4. 

[101] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XV, 2785, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[102] “’I Got My Part’,” Roanoke World News, May 24, 1935.

[103] “No Competition,” Roanoke Times, May 10, 1935.

[104] “Woman Pilot of Whiskey Cars Is Placed On Stand,” Roanoke Times, May 24, 1935.

[105] “Captured Car,” Roanoke Times, June 13, 1935.

[106] Transcript of Evidence, vol. V, 810, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[107] “Not a Member,” Roanoke Times, May 9, 1935.

[108] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XV, 2943, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[109] “Piloted Liquor Cars,” Roanoke World News, May 24, 1935, 8.

[110] “Had It in For Him,” Roanoke Times, June 8, 1935

[111] “Shot Down Tires,” Roanoke Times, May 9, 1935.

[112] “Helped Load Car,” Roanoke Times, May 24, 1935; “Noiseless Cans,” Roanoke Times, May 4, 1935.

[113] “Hid Whiskey in Smokehouse,” Roanoke World News, May 24, 1935, 8.

[114] “Amuses Court,” Roanoke Times, May 23, 1935.

[115] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2619, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[116] “Motion Denied,” Roanoke Times, May 10, 1935.

[117] “No Competition,” Roanoke Times, May 10, 1935.

[118] “Rosser Takes Stand to Tell of His Liquor Operations,” Roanoke Times, May 11, 1935.

[119] “Had Secret Code,” Roanoke Times, May 11, 1935.

[120] Brief in Behalf of the Appellee as to the Sufficiency of Evidence Involving S.O. White, Earle Easter and Charles Guilliams, 3, White et. al vs. United States, No. 3956 (4th Cir. 1935).

[121] “Franklin County Used 35 Tons of Yeast in 4 Years,” Roanoke Times, May 4, 1935.

[122] “Nine Tons A Year,” Roanoke Times, May 4, 1935.

[123] Ibid.

[124] Ibid: Multiples are calculated from figures reported in the paper.

[125] Ibid.

[126] “List of Purchases,” Roanoke Times, May 7, 1935.

[127] “Carried On Conspiracy,” Roanoke Times, July 2, 1935.

[128] Ibid.

[129] Anderson, “City Gangs Enslave Moonshine Mountaineers,” Liberty, November 2, 1935

[130] “Worked on Commission,” Roanoke Times, May 2, 1935.

[131] “Saw Crows,” Roanoke Times, May 17, 1935.

[132] Carr, 102.

[133] “Worked on Commission,” Roanoke Times, May 2, 1935.

[134] Thompson, 169.

[135] Joyce, 46.

[136] Thompson, 161.

[137] Green B. Raum, Report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1887, (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1877), https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/1877dbfullar.pdf.

[138] Carr, 31-33.

[139] Dabney, 77.

[140] “PASTOR DRIVEN AWAY,” The Washington Post, August 30, 1905, 4, http://www.proquest.com/docview/144618569/abstract/8E6335D6075A4F63PQ/1.

[141] Ibid.

[142] Stewart, 39.

[143] Joyce, 55.

[144] Thompson, 15.

[145] “County Law All Right,” Roanoke World News, April 26, 1935, 10.

[146] Map of Virginia – “Wet” and “Dry,” Library of Virginia, https://www.lVa.virginia.gov/exhibits/mapping/geography/wetdry.htm.

[147] “Paid by Checks,” Roanoke Times, May 11, 1935.

[148] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1865, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[149] “Big Gain Since 1919,” Roanoke World News, April 26, 1935, 1. 

[150] “Unusual Performance,” Roanoke Times, April 30, 1935.

[151] “Not Threatened,” Roanoke Times, April 25, 1935.

[152] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1975, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[153] “Moves for Mistrial,” Roanoke Times, May 9, 1935; “Hauled 35,000 Gallons,” Roanoke Times, May 8, 1935.

[154] Paul Salstrom, Appalachia’s Path to Dependency: Rethinking a Region’s Economic History, 1730-1940, (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994), 101; Heinemann, Depression and New Deal in Virginia: The Enduring Dominion, 121: “self-sufficing” applied to farms where “value of the farm products used by the family was 50 percent or more of the total value of all products of the farm.”

[155] Thompson, 136.

[156] Sherwood Anderson, Kit Brandon (New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1936), 5.

[157] Heinemann, 128.

[158] David E. Hamilton, From New Day to New Deal: American Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt, 1928-1933 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).

[159] “Sutherland Testifies,” Ronaoke Times, June 21, 1935; Heinemann, Depression and New Deal in Virginia: The Enduring Dominion, 24, 197.

[160] Alice Louise Kassens, “The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935: Volstead Incentives” (Presentation, 2020 Southern Economic Association, New Orleans, LA, November 2020), https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alice_Kassens/publication/346630425_The_Great_Moonshine_Conspiracy_Trial_of_1935/links/5fca4e3692851c00f84d4a1d/The-Great-Moonshine-Conspiracy-Trial-of-1935.

[161] Abraham Gibson, “The Moonshine Capital of the World: A Visual History of Untaxed Whiskey in Franklin County, Virginia,” Environmental History 24, no. 3 (2019): 585, https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emz003.

[162] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IX, 1679, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935). 

[163] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2607, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[164] Thompson, 59.

[165] Kassens, “The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935: Volstead Incentives”

[166] Transcript of Evidence, vol. X, 1846, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[167] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1981, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[168] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2601, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[169] “Employees Get Drunk,” Roanoke Times, May 3, 1935.

[170] “Not Threatened,” Roanoke Times, April 25, 1935.

[171] Transcript of Evidence, vol. X, 1831, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[172] “Not Threatened,” Roanoke Times, April 25, 1935.

[173] “Just Returned,” Roanoke Times, April 26, 1935.

[174] Ibid.

[175] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 2126-27; vol. XVI, 3003, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[176] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1956, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[177] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1975, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[178] Transcript of Evidence, vol. X, 1848, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[179] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1964, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[180] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIII, 1471, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).

[181] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIII, 1353, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[182] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XVI, 3004, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[183] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 2217, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[184] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIII, 1409, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[185]  Transcript of Evidence, vol. XV, 2778; vol. XI, 1920, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[186] “Reputation Not Good,” Roanoke Times, May 31, 1935.

[187] “Beckett Enters Denial To All Government Charges,” Roanoke Times, June 8, 1935.

[188] U.S. Census Bureau, “Median Home Values: Unadjusted,” 1940 – 2000, https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/tables/time-series/coh-values/values-unadj.txt.

[189] “Beckett Enters Denial To All Government Charges,” Ronaoke Times, June 8, 1935. 

[190] Carr, 33.

[191] “Gives Names,” Roanoke Times, June 14, 1935. 

[192] Transcript of Evidence, vol. VI, 1013, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[193] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XVI, 1063, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[194] Brief in Behalf of the Appellee as to the Sufficiency of Evidence Involving S.O. White, Earle Easter and Charles Guilliams, White et. al vs. United States, No. 3956 (4th Cir. 1935), at 3: “If they worked for the big operators there would be less danger of being molested.”

[195] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 2132-33, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[196] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2944, vol. XV, 2678, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[197] “Identifies Book,” Roanoke Times, May 16, 1935.

[198] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2944, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[199] “Feet Cut from Under,” Roanoke Times, April 26, 1935.

[200] McGirr, 77.

[201] “Distinguished Family,” Roanoke Times, April 28, 1935. 

[202] Ibid.

[203] “Lee Astonished Over Sugar Shipments to County of Franklin,” Roanoke World News, June 18, 1935, 1.

[204] Greer, xx.

[205] “Tried To Get Paper,” Roanoke Times, May 21, 1935.

[206] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 1168 United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[207] “Reached Peak in 1932,” Roanoke Times, June 18, 1935: Lee reported that he made $3,580 as the Commonwealth’s Attorney, as well as between $3,600 to $7,000 a year in private practice.

[208] “Never Brought Money,” Roanoke Times, June 18, 1935; “Hurt Enforcement,” Roanoke Times, June 14, 1935.

[209] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2624 United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[210] “Points to Record,” Roanoke Times, June 18, 1935.

[211] “Timberlake Protests,” Roanoke Times, May 9, 1935.

[212] “Never Brought Money,” Roanoke Times, June 18, 1935.

[213] “Prosecutor Astonished,” Roanoke Times, June 19, 1935

[214] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, 540, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[215] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, 818, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[216] “Cut Up by Cash,” Roanoke Times, April 27, 1935.

[217] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IV, 700, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[218] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, 419-420, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[219] Ibid.

[220] Ibid.

[221] Ibid.

[222] Transcript of Evidence, vol. VI, 1009, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[223] Ibid.

[224] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IX, 1624-25, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[225] Ibid.

[226] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XI, 1787-88, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[227] “Told To Be Careful,” Roanoke Times, May 25, 1935.

[228] “Preliminary Report to Acting Deputy Commissioner, Alcohol Tax Unit,” Case No. 2933-M,, July 31, 1934, 41, in Greer, The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, 30.

[229] “Was Found Guilty,” Roanoke World News, June 17, 1935, 15.

[230] Transcript of Evidence, vol. III, 460, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[231] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IV, 696, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[232] “Released Them to Lee,” Roanoke Times, June 13, 1935.

[233] “Represented Company,” Roanoke Times, June 19, 1935.

[234] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2688-89, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[235] Ibid.

[236] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 2262-63, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[237] Anderson, “City Gangs Enslave Moonshine Mountaineers,” Liberty, November 2, 1935. 

[238] “Preliminary Report to Acting Deputy Commissioner, Alcohol Tax Unit,” Case No. 2933-M, July 31, 1934, 41, in Greer, The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, 30.

[239]  Wickersham, 1059.

[240] “Franklin and Wickersham,” Roanoke World News, July 2, 1935. 

[241] “Investigator Bailey,” Roanoke World News, July 2, 1935. 

[242] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 2275, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[243] Transcript of Evidence, vol. V, 912, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[244] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 2160, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[245] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XII, 2260, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[246] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XV, 2645, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935). 

[247] Ronald F. Wright, “The Wickersham Commission and Local Control of Criminal Prosecution,” Marquette Law Review 96, no. 4 (Summer 2013): 1200, https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.library.nd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=89878893&site=ehost-live.

[248] Wickersham, 126.

[249] Wickersham, 101.

[250] Wright, 1208.

[251] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IV, 701, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[252] Okrent, 282.

[253] McGirr, 221.

[254] “Investigator Bailey,” Roanoke World News, July 2, 1935. 

[255] “Sprenger Called,” Roanoke Times, April 24, 1935.

[256] Transcript of Evidence, vol. XIV, 2559, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[257] “Attack Woman’s Character,” Roanoke World News, May 25, 1935.

[258] Transcript of Evidence, vol. IV, 701, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935). 

[259] “Describes Still,” Roanoke Times, May 16, 1935.

[260] “All Seats Taken,” Roanoke Times, May 25, 1935.

[261] Subpoena of Willie Carter Sharpe, United States vs. Edgar A. Beckett, et. al., No. 2905 (W.D. Va. 1935).  

[262] “Says He Paid Officers,” Roanoke Times, May 4, 1935.

[263] Greer, 640-641.

[264] Greer, 627.

[265] “Here Is Jury Trying Conspiracy Case,” Roanoke Times, April 23, 1935.

[266] Greer, 58. 

[267] E.H. Charlton, “Statement of E.H. Charlton,” in Greer, The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, 601. 

[268] Hugh Rakes, T. Keister Greer Interview with Hugh Rakes, March 1992, Ferrum College, Stanley Library Special Collections.

[269] Homer Cummings, “Letter to Sterling Hutchenson, Esq.,” August 1, 1935, in Greer, The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, 625.

[270]  E.H. Charlton, “Statement of E.H. Charlton,” in Greer, The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, 601. 

[271] Roanoke Times, September 3, 1935, as quoted in Greer, 632.

[272] Anderson, Kit Brandon, 5.

[273] Thompson, 228.

[274] White et. al vs. United States, No. 3956 (4th Cir. 1935).

[275] “Admitted At 19,” Roanoke Times, June 18, 1935.

[276] Greer, 859.

[277] Salstrom, 96.

[278] Thompson, 231.

[279] Morris Stephenson, A Night of Makin’ Likker: Plus Other Stories from the Moonshine Capital of the World (United States, 2012), VI. 

[280] Blaine Harden, “Va. County’s Moonshiners Have Stills Going Strong,” The Washington Post, May 28, 1979, C1, http://www.proquest.com/docview/147023285/abstract/9FB6801A29A349C8PQ/1.

[281] Peter Carlson, “Blood and Whiskey: Bullets Break Up a Family Business in Virginia’s Moonshine Capital,” The Washington Post, May 24, 1998, F1, http://www.proquest.com/docview/1640102731/abstract/7B142375B3D94FAFPQ/1.

[282] Nicole Del Rosario, “How Did Franklin County Become the Moonshine Capital of the World?,” WSLS, July 16, 2021, shorturl.at/vKOSX.  

[283] “Franklin County Courthouse,” Virginia.org, https://www.virginia.org/listing/franklin-county-courthouse/4495/.

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