By this time, the third brother, Howard, has arrived at the Maggodee Creek Bridge. Data Central; Bridge Inspections; U.S. Virginia; Franklin; Naff Rd. [e][7] The turnpike was built immediately afterward, following the route over Simmonds Gap that eventually has become State Road 613 (Naff Road and Merriman Road). Grandpa Jack was the real thing. But it was not to be. Why else would you want to drink something like that? ", This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. He is also licensed by both the federal government and the state of Virginia to operate a distillery, which, of course, was not true of his grandfather and great uncles' stills. Firewater. He plans for the distillery to be a living history lesson that includes the manufacture of a "prohibition style beverage" using the prohibition style processes. We know much of this is apocryphal, or half-true, or embellished, and yet we still celebrate them and their spirit, and I think thats whats going on to some degree here., If the Bondurants are the heroes or anti-heroes of the piece, then Charley Rakes is the villain. Piedmont Mill Historic District in Franklin County features the water-powered Martin-Piedmont-Clements mill, built around 1866 by Albert G. Martin on Maggodee Creek, and two dwellings from about the same period. What is also certain is that the "Bondurant filling station" was as infamous for drinking and violence as it was for moonshining. Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. But, in 1935, he was indicted in a corruption trial The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy Trial as it came to be known which exposed a massive system of kickbacks and bribes enforced by local officials on moonshiners. For a few minutes we swapped the jar, taking tiny sips and going into exaggerated hacking and coughing fits like some kind of vaudeville act. Both armies pushed forward with all the speed they could muster. In Jack's account, his father and uncles, who began producing moonshine in 1928, paid Franklin County Deputy Sheriff Henry Abshire between $25 and $30 each month to keep state and federal revenue agents away from their stills. He died when I was a teenager, and I regret that I never had an actual conversation with the man. Some say it was the recession that caused a few states, such as Tennessee, to relax their distilling regulations, creating an opening in the market for these faux moonshiners. So, sugar is a key ingredient for making hooch. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. But Musgrove said he is not prepared to spend several thousand more dollars to get the permit. The Piedmont Mill Historic District, is located along the creek. Package the story, feed the legend, make some money. I prefer chowder to gumbo, Melville to Faulkner. Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement updated 7/1/2022). Jack died in 2001, and in 2008 Matt published a fictionalised version of the bloody events of his grandfather's life, The Wettest County in the World, which has now been turned into the brutal half-western, half-gangster movie, Lawless, starring Shia LaBeouf as Jack and Tom Hardy as Forrest. According to Chuck Angier, a friend of the Poffs, Tommy and Helen Poff had purchased the farmhouse and roughly 100 acres on Maggodee Creek in Boones Mill in 1949. In 1935, after an indictment of Franklin County officials, the brothers testified against them in a . WebPolice said the shooting was not random and there was no further threat to the public after a brief lockdown. The men drank eggnog and white lightning, and as the day went on, things got a bit loose. Header image: Blue Ridge Institute & Museum of Ferrum College, Earl Palmer Collection. Through research, Robert said he developed a recipe and process that will replicate that western Virginia prohibition era moonshine. & Naff Rd.) THE WEATHERED GRIST mill towers above Maggodee Creek, whose waters sluiced into a mill race and once spun the mills waterwheel. The last four years, Ive been living (in my head) in the far northeastern corner of New York, in a fictional town where people work in supermax prisons and run snowmobiles across the frozen Canadian border with a million dollars of ecstasy strapped to their backs. Casey previously wrote for Virginia is for Lovers and is excited to share her enthusiasm for family fun, outdoors, and culinary delights found in Virginia's Blue Ridge. Threats of harming another Maggodee Creek is a creek in Franklin County in the United States state of Virginia. and get 15% discount, Books Similar To The Unrequited By Saffron A Kent, all i want for christmas market niagara falls, beaverton school district retirement benefits. Explore Rocky Mount, and consider traveling The Crooked Road: Virginias Heritage Music Trail to appreciate more of the culture of the area. 856 ft. (261 m.) Topographic Map US Topo Map The USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) publishes a set of the most commonly used topographic maps of the U.S. called US Topo that are separated into rectangular quadrants that are printed at 22.75"x29" or larger. Maggoty Gap lost its economic importance when the paved highway US-220 was completed directly from Roanoke through Murray Gap to Rocky Mount, Virginia around 1930. Those indicted included Franklin County Commonwealth's Attorney Charles Carter Lee (the great nephew of Robert E. Lee), plus a former county sheriff, four deputies and a federal revenue agent. He teaches literature and writing at the University of Mississippi. This wasnt hard to accept. (MLSRV) Vacant land located at 0 Maggodee Creek Dr, Boones Mill, VA 24065 sold for $45,000 on Aug 3, 2008. beaverton school district retirement benefits, Subscribe to newsletter A witness told FOX 2 that the victim was an 18-year-old male, hit in the Share with Us. Click here to learn how to pitch for Gravy. Its the smell that gives it awaypure corn whiskey is an olfactory sledgehammer. [2] [b] The other is at the end of Wild Turkey Road (branching southwest from Boone's Chapel Road) and passing just below and east of Milner Place, where it crosses the Franklin County line and descends to Maggodee Creek at the junction of State Road 852 (Guthrie Rd.) It is located on 2.8 acres in Boones Mill, Virginia. WebJack stressed that he was not present at the shooting, which took place on a bridge at Maggodee Creek in Franklin County. Sign up for our monthly e-newsletter to keep up with all the exciting things in Virginia's Blue Ridge! They could have--and should have--restored the original bridge. There is privacy, yet the access is good. Be Nice. Was this the same bridge that the shooting in 1930 (I believe) took place? The deep red clay of the roadcuts, the ripple of tobacco leaves in the afternoon. Yeah, shot me there, he told his son, and lifted his shirt to show where the bullet had passed. VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register Jack, Forrest and Howard Bondurant, like many of the farmers living in the hills of western Virginia, turned to moonshining as a way to sustain their family during the Great Depression. He said a consulting engineer told him he did not need a permit for the work because he owned the property along the creek. And there was this big article about the shoot-out at the bridge in December of 1930, where my grandfather was shot." When he was discharged from the Navy, he hitchhiked from Norfolk across the state to Franklin County in his Navy dress whites, Dixie-cup hat akimbo, wearing the mad grin of the free man. Please donate now to help SFA make more Gravy. But I havent had any real interaction with anyone on the Rakes side. When he first opens, Robert said he will not be able to serve or sell any of his product on site. The land behind the store has been cleared and leveledlike a lot of Oxford recentlyand a new mixed-use shopping center is coming soon. I remember the silent truck cab in the darkness before dawn, the wheel wells mucked with red clay, straw, and tobacco. He had a rich and violent past, and with his brothers formed the Bondurant Brothers, the infamous crew of moonshiners in Franklin County, Virginia, the Moonshine Capital of the World. I learned that Bondurants have been living in that little corner of the Appalachian foothills since the early eighteenth century, eking out a subsistence living growing tobacco, raising a bit of cattle and corn, and making untaxed liquor. One history suggests construction likely occurred in 1866. They took him as far as Roanoke, and I imagine that my father, hat in hand, watching those ladies roar away in a cloud of dust, began to think that college seemed like a damn good idea. Maud Carter Clement, An Abbreviated History of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, chapter 5, Chatham, VA, 1952, per. But we do know that the road was covered with snow, and that Rakes raised his gun and shot Jack in the chest; that when Forrest went to aid his brother, Rakes shot him in the gut; and that he was making to shoot Howard, too, when deputy Abshire knocked his gun off target. He carried a gun for much of his life. One group of Loyalists armed with Highland Broadswords, a traditional weapon of the Highland Scots, moved around the encampment to the Moores Creek Bridge. But he knew nothing of his grandfather's past when he was growing up. Arriving there, their way is blocked by a car, beside which stand two sheriffs deputies, The 17-year-old driver was not struck in the shooting, police said. That fireplace is massive! Josiah Martin issues this order while in exile, on board a British naval vessel in the mouth of the Cape Fear River near present day South Port, North Carolina. Love this! Those men refusing to do so would have their guns taken from them and be placed in jail. It was very exciting, he says. Bondurant also remembers a pair of rusty brass knuckles hanging from the gun rack in his grandfather's utility room. None (no additional concrete thickness or wearing surface is included in the bridge deck). Musgrove shrugged when asked why he dreams of restoring the mill property. A prosecutor called it a Munchausen-by-proxy case. Debris is restricting the channel slightly. Id ride along with him in a truck for hours, says Bondurant, and we wouldnt say a word. Their tasting room in downtown Rocky Mount is a great spot to visit for a cocktail before catching a concert at the nearby Harvester Performance Center. [d] His sketch showed the road continuing due north down to the cultivated fields of Starkey. Rather than shy away from the brutality that seemed to surround his ancestors, Bondurants prose pulses with it. Liquor legality has been off and on again like a bad relationship. The true history of the Bondurant boys only came to light in the late Nineties, when Andrew took up the gentle hobby of genealogy. He isnt a fan of the restaurant idea but he thinks the restored mill would draw visitors. According to Jack and Robert, the elder Jack and Forrest were each driving a vehicle filled with moonshine when they were stopped by Abshire and Deputy Charlie Rakes at the Maggodee Creek Bridge. We didnt talk. Inventory Route Total Horizontal Clearance: Minimum Vertical Clearance Over Bridge Roadway: 4.99 metric tons(Load and Resistance Factor (LRFR)), 3.81 metric tons (Load and Resistance Factor (LRFR)). The first time they attempted to haul liquor the phrase used to describe the transportation of the liquor from the still to a buyer Jack and Forrest were shot, after refusing to pay additional protection money in the form of a carload of moonshine. Was this any different? With hard economic times, though, comes moonshine. He takes Jack to the hospital in Rocky Mount, and Abshire drives the wounded Forrest into town where they meet with Lee. 41 talking about this. Inspired by the Roanoke River flood control project, Musgrove and a helper cut back the bank on that stretch of creek and used river rock as well as rip rap he hauled in to stabilize the bank and provide high water room to spread. We'll send breaking news and news alerts to you as they happen! Jack recalls when he first realized what his father was doing to earn a living, "I was a very inquisitive kid, so I probably realized what my father did, when I was 9 or 10." He never tried to bring his children into the moonshine business. All survived and, in a way, got their revenge on the crooked law enforcement officers. But I could give free labor.. Prohibition has been around for a decade and the Great Depression is just beginning: the market for illegal liquor is booming. According to members of the Bondurant family, the Bondurant Boys Forrest, Howard, and Jack - bucked the idea of paying additional protection money and were thus involved in a 1930 shoot-out with police at Maggodee Creek Bridge. I dont make that kind of money, he said. The inventory route is not part of the national network for trucks. These are reached from Starkey, Virginia via Starlight Road (State Road 615) and Boone's Chapel Road (State Road 614). Records introduced during the Great Moonshine Conspiracy trial, list shipments of nearly 34 million pounds of sugar, 13 million pounds of corn meal, 1 million pounds of malt, 30,300 pounds of hops and 35 tons of yeast making their way to Franklin County during a five-year period. Youre never ready for that. And they ought to know, as the Bondurants of Franklin County remain one of the most notorious moonshining families in Virginia history. Michael Pulice, an architectural historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, said he considers the grist mill on rural Alean Road and companion buildings to be a significant historic resource. Hed been shot at least once, under his left arm on a snowy morning at the Maggodee Creek Bridge in December of 1930, and never told anyone about it. Murray Gap is at 37.140N 79.972W Elevation 1250 feet. Signup today! Jack recalls when he first realized what his father was doing to earn a living, "I was a very inquisitive kid, so I probably realized what my father did, when I was 9 or 10." Sluiced into a mill race and once spun the mills waterwheel past when he opens. Leaves in the bridge in December of 1930, where my grandfather was shot., chapter,... A teenager, and Abshire drives the wounded Forrest into town where they meet with Lee up for our e-newsletter! To surround his ancestors, Bondurants prose pulses with it the culture of the roadcuts, the brothers testified them. 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