The True Story of Thunder Road Moonshine Running in the southern Appalachia's and it's people.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] people of these mountains been making moonshine for well over 200 years since they settled this country whether it be southwest virginia southeast kentucky southern west virginia or east tennessee they've been making it and they mostly made it for family friends get-togethers but there's no sand in these old mountains it's either coal mines moonshine or moving on down the line it just wasn't much to do here and it was just times as hard and it was a way to make a living and they started out small but they became a market for it especially when the prohibition started so this is their story of how they supplied that demand now these old mountain people they lived hard they were really remote a lot of times it was miles away before they didn't see you be around anybody but they were resilient people these mountain people they either raised it made it or they traded for [Music] making moonshine was no different [Music] a lot of them went into the coal mine and made a living at that black lung health hazards and some of them decided well that's not for me so they thought they would just make them a moonshine sell it make a living provide for their family even though it was against the law but they was gonna do it anyway and besides it's easy to hide these old mountains are real remote these hollers the sun don't hit them but about two or three hours a day fog remote areas and they would supply it to the local stores friends family people they know and back them days it just wasn't much places to go you can see what kind of roads they had in the early days [Music] they stole dirt roads when it rained they'd wash them out mar up in here's kind of rosy head old rocks and stuff mostly just horse or wagon [Music] and it'd take them all day just to go to a local community town or store but this is how it was and as the towns grew more people moved in they started improving the roads as years went by from a wagon road to an actual road even started trying to rock it and pave it make better roads between the communities even over the mountains highways was developed state highways was developed u.s highways was developed so that made her made a little more demand on them here you can see the old road went horse and buggy roads to modern roads where they can get around with the modern vehicles bottle tees come out and they they branch out a little bit more supplying it to [Music] i guess store owners where they hit it in the back give it to friends nobody knows about dance halls and such well here they just kept making it making more and more of it getting more braver knowing it's against the law but they was going to make that money some of them even bragged about it [Music] these old mountain people if they knowed you liked you they'd give their shirt off their back to you there wasn't nothing they wouldn't do for you but if you cross one of them you've got the whole clan to deal with [Music] and here's the old revenue start coming in busting up finding these steels arresting people a lot of them went up these hollers and never come back some people just wasn't going to put up with that [Music] a lot of violence ensued [Music] now these old moonshine producers they needed somebody to get the product out there for them without getting caught up so they'd find some of the best drivers they could and they'd pay them pretty good too now they take these old cars something like this and they'd fix them up or look like crap but they'd really be hot rods they'd really move on what they had under the body was nothing like what they looked on the outside so they started running these highways and supplying this demand know it comes a lot of places with some moonshine come out of ever holler out of this whole area but this one here that we're looking at we'll just say it come out of harlem out of southeast kentucky this is one of the true routes they'd come out of harlem down 119. [Music] [Applause] down to bible get on 25 e go down through old cumberland gap down into cleveland county from tasman they get on 33 and they've gone down through maine level union county going down to knox so the main route to travel was 119 in harlem 25b from kentucky to minnesota to tassel and then on down 33 from tasman down into knoxville and they traveled this route a lot now just keep in mind it's not like the modern roads you see today these were real curvy roads just more or less wagon trails with pavement on them just real curvy so they'd be traveling 80 to 100 mile an hour some places where you couldn't travel 40 to 50 miles an hour without wrecking in matters old bridges straightaways they'd really lay it to it and they covered a lot of country so that's probably a good 125 to 50 miles out of harlan and old kentucky state police they keep an eye on them all the time tennessee state police done the same thing watching these highways see these cars squatted down and they mostly traveled at night and they catch a lot of them too so you see them here loaded down big catch didn't matter if it's a small time operator they caught them all but a lot of them got through and just travel on these old roads as fast as they can moving and here's what happened to a lot of them worse than getting caught a lot of them died on these old roads couldn't hold it on the road or something they'd wrecked or hit somebody head on or something a lot of them that that ended their travels for but anyway a lot got through but these these little counties tried to catch them too so it was a full-time business and no matter how much they found how many steals they found and destroyed it didn't make no difference they just go back down to the the country store get their supplies get right back up in them and they just keep destroying them when they can most of them run off up in these hollers they'd never catch these people they just when they left they'd start another one somewhere else well this is an ongoing struggle in these mountains now these old these old drivers they got pretty good they got together on weekends started racing each other and one thing led to another people watching wanting to pay to watch them race and one race turned into another and it that's that's the start of nascar right there that's the start of the old race cars well them days is long gone they even made movies about this thunder road but this is actually what happens in these mountains the life these people had but anyway it ain't nothing to go down into severe county several fission forwards gatlinburg distillery out of distillery get all the moonshine you want even get all the free samples so times have changed so i hope you all enjoyed this little bit of history and i thank you for watching and i'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: DONNIE LAWS

Views: 675,375

Keywords: Tennessee Mountain History, The True Story of Thunder Road, southern, Untold history, Appalachia, DONNIE LAWS, Thunder road story, Thunder road, Moonshine, Shine, White lightning, Moonshine Still, US25E, HW119, HW33, southern Appalachia's, Mountain people, Harlan Kentucky, old highways, moonshine runners, moonshine history, running moonshine, old Tennessee woods, copperhead road, moonshine routes, Alcohol, Prohibition, Southeast Kentucky, Making moonshine, The movie Thunder road

Id: kUc7UrqpFI0

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2021