The Kingdom of the Happy Land
After the Civil War, as the South lay in ruins, a group of freedmen decided to depart the Mississippi plantation on which they had been held as slaves in search of a promised land. They found it...in ...
17 Helmi 202412min
Billy Dean Anderson: Appalachia's Most Wanted Outlaw
Billy Dean Anderson was born in Fentress County, Tennessee, and, by all accounts, lived a normal law-abiding life as he grew up, even becoming a volunteer preacher in his church.Then it all went horri...
10 Helmi 202412min
Amos Owens: The Cherry Mountain Moonshiner
After the Civil War a young man bought Cherry Mountain in Rutherford County, North Carolina and used the wild cherries found there to add flavor to his distilled product, illegal of course, that becam...
3 Helmi 202418min
Dr. John R. Brinkley: The Goat Gland Doctor from Appalachia
John Romulus Brinkley was born in Burnsville, North Carolina, to a former Confederate medic and his housekeeper. From those humble beginnings young Brinkley grew up to become a traveling "Quaker doct...
27 Tammi 202438min
The Tragic End of Outlaw Joe Brown
Joe Brown was a hell-raiser, thug and violent alcoholic who terrorized the town of Whitmer, West Virginia at the turn of the 20th century. He did, that is, until he went a step too far.That, folks, is...
20 Tammi 20249min
The 1921 West Virginia Capitol Fire
On January 3, 1921, a massive fire broke out at the West Virginia state capitol in Charleston. Not a big deal, you might be thinking, fires happen all the time. This one, though, had a twist or three,...
13 Tammi 202413min
Bettie Simms, The Queen of the Moonshiners
In the early 1900's a young mother in Polk County, North Carolina, had a decision to make. She had separated from her abusive husband and had several young children to feed, house and clothe, with ve...
30 Joulu 202313min
