(country guitar music) - [Walt] This week on
Mississippi Roads we'll head down south to
Kiln for a moonshine trail. We'll look inside
Mississippi's catfish industry and learn why we're called the
catfish capital of the world. Then we'll roll along
with some skate boarders making their own way
in Mississippi ... ♪ Down Mississippi Roads ♪ Mississippi Roads ♪ Mississippi Roads Hi, I'm Walt Grayson. Welcome back to
Mississippi Roads. It looks like we're in
a very remote location. But in all honesty, we're inside
the city limits of Jackson. This is Mayes Lake, inside the
LeFleur's Bluff State Park. We're about a quarter
mile from Lakeland Drive, one of Jackson's
busiest streets. Right down the
Pearl River from us was one of Jackson's busiest
areas back in prohibition days. They called it the Gold Coast. That's where you went
to get your liquor. But the Gold Coast
couldn't hold a candle to the town of Kiln
in South Mississippi. Back in that day, Kiln was
a bootlegger's paradise. But a long time before Brett
Favre ever put Kiln on the map, bootleggers already
had it there. Author Al Saucier tells us a
story and gives us the tour. (twangy guitar music) - Howdy folks, welcome
to Kiln, Mississippi. Moonshine capital of
the nation in 1910. (twangy guitar music) I have moonshine tours
in Kiln, Mississippi. I've written seven
books on the 300 years of history of moonshine
in Kiln, Mississippi. I also have tours
that match the book. And this is all about Old Time Moonshine
in Kiln, Mississippi. Moonshine started back in 1699. (upbeat harmonica music) Moonshine came from Europe and our family
brought it over here. There's 15 core families
that brought moonshine into Hancock County. All the stories that I tell
you today, they're not fiction. These are actually
based on True Life. This particular building
you're looking at was built in 1915 as the
moonshine supply warehouse by the three Curette brothers,
George, Fred, and Camille. And they had friends
up in Chicago in need of a boxcar load of
moonshine every month. And it all happened right
here, with this building, right here. Moonshine started in Kiln
on a smaller basis in 1840 when all the sawmill workers
got here need'n moonshine. But as the years went on,
we got up to 1900, 1950, it got to be a big operation. This moonshine operation was in business
for less than ten years. And what happened is
the revenuers came in with three sets of handcuffs
and put George and Fred and Camille into jail
on a technicality. And the technicality they
got 'em on was moonshining. We're standing at
the actual spot of the moonshine
boxcar side track. It was right here
across this way. And it came right in here. They parked the moonshine
boxcar right on a spur, right here which
ended in those woods. And then, after a month, we'd ship all that out as a boxcar load of
moonshine whiskey for friends in Chicago. (upbeat country music) We're down at Kiln, Mississippi at the 1915 sawmill site, for Edward Hines
Lumber Company. The sawmill brought moonshine
customers, thousands of them, to Kiln, Mississippi. So sawmills are very
important to us. (upbeat country violin music) This particular fire
box here was the base for a 10,000 gallon
steam boiler. And it supplied steam for
everything in the sawmill. The sawmill ran from
here a mile that way and two miles this way, through
the huge, big operation. All these thousands
of sawmill workers needed moonshine whiskey so we
were here to make them happy. (laughing) Years ago, one of the
main characters in my book had a whiskey still across
the river, 20 feet inland. Okay, and a flowing well. Everybody wants
to have their still over where people
can't find them. You know, no roads, they
can't walk through there. You've got to get
there by boat. And most moonshiners
come in at night by boat. This Logtown Island here has
had a whiskey still on it for well over 100 years. Probably 150 years. It mostly had wood-fired
whiskey stills in it. The reason it had
a whiskey stills 'cause there's a
flowing well in the middle of the island. Every whiskey still
has to have cold water in a flowing well to
make good whiskey. We're in downtown
Kiln, Mississippi at the world
famous, Broke Spoke. Over here in this part
of the Broke Spoke is a Jack Lott's whiskey still. The first thing that you
have with a whiskey still of course, is a barrel
to ferment the mash in and then you take
the buck out of it. The liquid, you know,
leave the grain in it. And you pour it into the cooker. Then you fire up the cooker
and make whiskey steam. This still is a very nice still. It's got a cooker, it's got a
thumper, which is a doubler, and it had an authentic
Jack Daniels barrel for the condenser coil. Now the whiskey steam comes
out the top of the cooker and goes over to
the little barrel. The little barrel is
known as a thumper. The reason they call
it a thumper is because you can hear it from way
off over yonder going, thump, thump, thump,
as it operates. The condenser coil had cold
water running over that steam. When the cold water hits
the steam, it turns it back to a liquid and moonshine comes
out this money piece here. This is a jug here, that's
where the money piece dumps into it. There's a lot of
stories that can be told about what happens
when you start drinking that good moonshine whiskey. Those were the
good ole days, huh? - Wonder if there's any
catfish in that lake. Who am I kidding? All I'm worried about is the
number of catfish on my plate. You know, catfish has
become a big industry in Mississippi. For exactly how big, let's
travel up to the Delta. (twangy guitar music) - Right now, we're at
Five Mile Fishery. That's what we call this
operation over here, which is part of
Simmons Catfish. They'll cut it with that
low motor, couple them in, pull the net up and
squeeze the fish tight and then load 'em up. We have a schedule that
goes through the week and we'll know each day
we're on the schedule for X amount of pounds. Today we're on a schedule
for 25,000 pounds. With feedin' and maintenance
and grass cuttin', it's a lot that goes in it. (twangy guitar music) - Catfish has always
been a popular local item all up and down the Mississippi
River drainage system. It was so popular, that's
kind of what gave some people the ideas to go look. You know there's a
market for this product, let's see if we can find
a way to cultivate it. Late 2015, there's probably
about 70,000 acres nationwide and we've got about 37,000
acres in Mississippi. We're at the pond facility
here at the Delta Research and Extension Center. This is the largest
aquaculture research facility, certainly in the U.S.,
if not the world. We've got probably
300 acres here. All 300 acres, except for
what's being reconstructed is in some type of experiment. This is kind of the
technology that was thought of and tested out here. We just keep adding
enough aerators 'till we can hold the kind of
level of oxygen in our pond. You're not making money
if you're not feeding fish. So we're trying to get
feed into 'em every day. (big band music) - This is our clean
building where we maintain all of our research stock. These fish are used for
various programs in research. Fish health work, nutrition. This is really the only
place I ever wanted to go 'cause it's right here in
the middle of the industry and it gives you a great
opportunity to have impact. - One thing that's different
about catfish production in Mississippi is that we value
add so much to that product because we build equipment
here, we process it here, our feed is manufactured here, so you look at the kind
of economic impact. It's an important component
in Mississippi. (rumbling truck engines) - Early 70s, started
growing catfish. Sold the first catfish in '76. I really didn't know what
I was getting into. We started off with just
a few acres of water, seeing if we could grow
catfish, what took to grow 'em. And then from that, we just
expanded to where we are today. - We brought in about 70,000
pounds of catfish today. We're going through
our process at Simmons. Clean the fish, skinning
them, filletin' them, coming to trim 'em. Ice pack, frozen, and then
on the delivery truck, to grocery stores and
restaurants across the country. We have about 180
employees here at Simmons. Most of them have worked
longer than I've been here. Five years or more. A lot of our supervisors
have been here 20 to 30 years so each one of these
people behind me are an integral process
in our operation. We're doing 70,000 to 80,000
pounds a day, 365 days a year during the week,
Monday through Friday. - In 1980 there was likely
10,000 acres in the country and by 1990, there was over
150,000 acres in Mississippi alone. So pretty rapid growth. But with rapid growth
there were some problems. Our industry actually
shrank from 2005 to where we are today. But producers are
much more productive, higher quality catfish now. What I say to these people,
if you're not willing to spend part of your
paycheck to buy this product, we're not doing a good job. - I grew up on Hayden Street. Being a small town,
it's always you know, everybody knows you
and you know everybody. That's what makes the festival
so original, it really does. (mellow electric guitar music) I was at the first catfish
festival 41 years ago. It kind of blossomed and
grew into what it is now. They've got a map
with a stick pin so people, you know,
where they're from. We have people from
all over the world. - All over the place. Yeah, they come
from everywhere. Matter of fact,
we have the name The Catfish Capital
of the World. - [Sam] The catfish
festival's always on the first Saturday of April. So we have good weather. - [Wanda] They've
always had Miss Catfish, and they appear at
different places during the year to promote
the catfish industry. - [Sam] We wanted to have
country music represented, rock and roll
represented, the blues, it was fantastic, absolutely
fantastic, had a good day. - [Wanda] It's a lot
like a homecomin'. When people come, it brings
back a lot of people. - And you'll be
full when you leave. - People in Mississippi
have averaged eating almost five pounds per capita. - [Wanda] And you can cook
it in so many different ways. - [Sam] Deep fried,
three five ounce fillets. - [Wanda] Stuffed
catfish was wonderful. - We grill it a lot, we
make gumbo, make sandwiches, it's certainly a great fish
that can be enjoyed any place When we first started,
growing fish was new to us, but it wasn't as
difficult as it is now. We have people growing
catfish now in other countries and importing 'em. We are regulated more
now than we were. Now, it's just more to it. - We have rules
in Mississippi that says if you're selling
catfish in a restaurant, you have to say right
there on the menu, we proudly serve
US Farmers catfish. That's something we'd kind
of like to see nationwide. - I think the future's bright. I think it's a great product. We're going to focus
on good quality and people that appreciate that. - Right now catfish
business looks good. It looks really good. If we can really educate
people as to the benefit of eating
American-raised catfish. A lot more people are
seeing the significance and value of doing that. (mellow guitar music) - Mississippians love community and sometimes that
community's a place. Could be a shared faith. Sometimes, it's
a shared passion. Now for instance,
skateboarders find community in sharing a sport with
no winners or losers. And yet, it's exhilarating
and challenging all at the same time. And still relaxing
too, take a look. (crackling skateboard wheels) - Skateboarding has
given me so much I owe skateboarding
my entire life. It's made me who I am, and I think the way I think
because of skateboarding. I look at the way the world is
because of skateboarding. Community
and camaraderie, it's always been a big thing
in skateboarding because especially
when it came out, It's always been
something that's kind of been
looked down upon. And it's always more fun to do
things with other people. You can feed off each other's
energy and stuff. Someone's trying something,
you encourage them and it just makes it more fun. - A lot of us are like
that, it dictates your life, it becomes your life. - In 1968, a lot of bad
stuff happened in my life. My older brother
committed suicide, I became a diabetic and
I had to have some way to get myself away from that. Even if just for a little while. Skateboarding played
an instrumental part in getting me through that or making me want
to stick around long enough to
get through that. - Our patriarch of Hernando
Skates Edward Pigeon, the man who we named
the park after. It's why we call this
place Pigeon Park. He's retired with a
disability, old surfer, really awesome guy. So he finds out that
there was the plan for this big Rennaisance
park or whatever. In the beginning, there was
no skate park in the plan. And then Ed says, "Alright,
if you guarantee us the space, "we're gonna go
ahead and fund it, "we're gonna get it
built, and when it's done, "we'll just turn it right
over to the Park Department." - There are a lot
of young people that are marginalized
because of stuff beyond their control that
happens in their life. And people don't know
how to handle that so they just kind
of abandon them. We're not like that. (upbeat rock music) If you get involved
and you stick with it, you're gonna learn how
to get up from a fall. You're gonna learn
how to keep going. I don't know of anything
more important than that that anybody can learn from
anything they're doing. - For us, it kind of
is kind of cultish. We want everybody to be around. I want to indoctrinate
you and your children most of all, with how
fun skateboarding can be. (upbeat rock music) We let the skaters who
were building the park, build something that
they wanted to ride and by doing that we
came out with a gem. We have a world-class
skate park at the end of a dirt road in
Mississippi and it's one of the coolest places I
think I've ever been able to hang out and skate. The more places
we get like this, where we get kids out
here having fun together, interacting, not doing this. Off the couch, off
the video game, that's a really,
really important thing. You hear a lot about vibe,
the vibe in skateboarding, the vibe and our scene,
our little group here, our vibe is all about fun. (upbeat rock music) - You learn loyalty,
you learn commitment and you love it. And this is what
becomes of it. So we are in the perfect
location for a skate park. We're right outside
of Downtown Jackson. We're at Monument Street,
that turns into High Street. There's an exit
right off the highway. Leads right here. You have a
beautiful view of Downtown Jackson
right behind me. We've got trains; it's a revolving art gallery
that comes by here multiple times a day. It's awesome! It's inspiring. It couldn't be
a better spot. - Whenever we have enough money
to pour some concrete, we all come out here and
come mix concrete and dump it all in on
a Saturday or Sunday. By the next week, you've got
something new to skate. - It's just a slab and the City actually has
nothing to do with it. There's nothing standing
in our way, so to speak. The community can
come out here and build and give the kids
something to do and give people the
opportunity to come work or skate, or ride
their bikes on it or rollerblade,
or whatever, you know. - Really, it's just us
pulling together money. I got $20 this week. Someone else
might have $20. Come together, see how
much concrete we can get how much money
we have, and then we see
what we can pour. - We could cry about not having
a skate park, but just as easy, we could
build our own skate park. - And there's a bunch of
people in the community that want to see good
happen in Jackson and who will come help us. We can cross any line you can
draw in the sand. And that's something that we
pride ourselves on doing. Gender, age, socio-economic
standing, your religion your nationality,
your gender identity, any of that stuff goes
right out the window when we bring out
our skateboards. - Well, that's all the
time we have for this show. If you'd like information
about anything you've seen, remember you can
always contact us at: And while you're at it, like our Mississippi Public
Broadcasting Facebook page. Until next time,
I'm Walt Grayson. I'll be seeing you,
on Mississippi Roads. (twangy guitar music) ♪ Down Mississippi Roads ♪ Mississippi Roads (twangy guitar music) - [Announcer] Mississippi
Roads is made possible in part by the generous support
of viewers like you. Thank you. - Hi, I'm Walt Grayson. You know, we really
enjoy bringing you Mississippi Roads
every week. We appreciate you
watching it. And we really appreciate
those of you who support Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Because your support of
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