The Booze Lake
Franklin Ion liatl ils own |»oc*iiliar
kind
о
I’ walc*r pollution, and tlitk popu¬
lation was liuyoly anin.sod.
By T. II. PEARCE
As any one who keeps up with cur¬
rent events in even a minimal manner
can tell you. volumes have been writ¬
ten and millions of words spewed forth
by environmentalists on the various
types of spills that have affected many
of the nation's water supplies in recent
years. These spills have been caused
by a wide variety of mishaps all re¬
sulting 'n run-offs of the spilled, or
dumped, materials finding their way
into a water supply used by humans.
Oil. chemicals, paints, grease, in¬
secticides. manure, fertilizer, effluent
from hog lots, chicken pens, county
fairs, massage parlors, rock concerts
and political gatherings. You name it.
and it has probably polluted a water
supply somewhere and we aren’t even
going to mention air and sound pollu¬
tion.
The reasons for these spills and
dumpings arc as many and varied as
the materials involved. Most of them
accidental, but some caused by nefari¬
ous characters interested only in their
financial gain. Certainly all of us have
heard (and heard and heard) of the
PCB fiasco, with its resulting marches
and demonstrations.
Just when, however, did you hear of
a spill with resulting run off of a
hazardous material getting into a
town's water supply that was looked
on with amusement and downright
pleasure by all concerned. Well that's
just what happened in Franklinton. a
town of some 1.5(H) persons located
north of Raleigh in Franklin County,
back in 1959. And while most folks
treated the whole matter with amuse¬
ment and good humor, there was an
exception — one of the town's top offi¬
cials.
Moonshine Center
Back in this particular time period it
would be well to explain that North
Carolina was the center of the nation’s
moonshine industry and Franklin
County was noted far and w idc for its
successful participation in said indus¬
try. Of course, folks have reformed
20
now and absolutely nobody makes
moonshine in this enlightened era.
but there was a period during the
1950’s and 60’s when booze making
was big business, especially in
Franklin County. It got so big that the
Federal Government became dow¬
nright concerned about it. Not the fact
that folks were making whiskey, but
the fact that they were failing to pay the
$10.50 per gallon tax on it. as required
by those folks up in Washington who
look after our interests.
This being the case, they stationed
some officers of the Alcohol and To¬
bacco Tax unit to make full-time war
on the booze industry in Franklin and
surrounding counties. And that is just
what they did. A person could hear
dynamite explosions any time, as they
blew up stills day and night. Before
they bkwv them to bits, they emptied
thousands of gallons of corn likker.
mash and beer onto the ground. They
also dumped out tons of sugar, confis¬
cated cars, trucks, mules and tractors
and even arrested a few people who
didn't run fast enough. One year they
averaged destroying more than a still
per day. getting 27 in one three-day
period.
If you arc picturing the average
moonshiner as a little old man dressed
in overalls and tending a little copper
pot on the creek back of his farm
house, you have the wrong picture.
Certainly there were some of these,
but most of the production w as coming
from big steam plants with an upright
coke-fired steam boiler and two or
three big cookers turning out over 600
gallons of potent white lightning per
day. To keep these operating on a daily
basis required 20 to 40.000 gallons of
mash, fermenting in up to 200 barrels.
I he still hands reported to work every
day. just as they would at any other
type of manufacturing plant.
THE STATE. MARCH 1983
