_ Tar Heei. History _
By Billy Arthur
Moonshine Mecca
Before the 1930s, Dare County was best known for something
other than sea breeze and sunshine.
Lour before the 1930s. when
Currituck Sound was
bridged, the Wright Brothers
Memorial was erected, “The
Lost Colony" pageant opened and the
Outer Banks became a mccca for people
seeking sea breeze and sunshine. Dare
County (population 5,032) was
already widely known for some¬
thing — pure ami potent moon¬
shine.
Especially during the Prohibi¬
tion era. the East Lake communi¬
ty of about 250 people on the
northwest mainland was more
famous than Kitty Hawk. Kill Devil
I lills. Nags I lead. Whalebone and
Manico.
Until recently. I never set loot in
the East bike area, but I can tell
'you a little about it. because I
“bootlegged" some of its product
— once — and almost got caught.
Back then, much of the East
Lake rye whiskey was passed off as
bottled in bond Canadian liquor, com¬
plete with counterfeit labels. Eor two
decades rye whiskey and corn liquor
brought as much prosperity to the area
as do today's vacationists and tourists.
During that time reports persisted that
American llags were flown above the
stills and that operators were summoned
to work by steam whistles.
Accessible only by shallow draf t boats,
East Lake was settled in about 1790 by
sturdy folk who subsisted until about
1888 on what game and fish they could
lake from the water and what little they
could raise on a land almost totally
unsuitable for agriculture. Then a big
lumber company acquired thousands of
acres of tiinbcrland, built a logging com¬
munity with a commissary, brought in
machinery, installed a narrow gauge rail¬
road, felled the juniper, cypress and
scrub pine trees, converted them to lum¬
ber and rafted it to market.
East bikers were employed at good
wages and enjoyed prosperity — until
the post-World War I depression. The
company shut down and moved out. So,
while North Carolina and the nation
were adapting to Prohibition, which had
come in 1920. many of the East Lakers,
born with a heritage of making good
liquor for their own use. turned to sup¬
plying the wants of the outside world.
Historian Ben Dixon MacNcill called it
the “beginning of an empire."
They converted into distilleries the
boilers formerly used in powering the
mill and locomotives and made the fer¬
menting %ats from the native juniper and
cypress trees. The "densely colored fresh
water of the creeks" was said to be* “per¬
fect for the fermentation process."
It wasn't long before East Lake, ac¬
cording to government estimates, was
producing about 1.5 million quarts of
non-tax paid whiskey a year. Most of it
went to Norfolk, where it was distribut¬
ed principally’ to Washington. Baltimore.
Philadelphia and New York.
The Coaslland Times, published out of
Manteo. reported in 1973 that the East
Lakers “took genuine pride in the qual¬
ity of their liquor" and that so-called
experts pronounced their rye "as good
as any and far superior to the dubious
imported stuff.”
A fashionable New York speakeasy was
said to show “East bike Cocktails” on its
dinner menu.
The reputation had spurred mid¬
dlemen to extra profits. They had begun
repackaging the contents of half-gallon
jars and five-gallon jugs into pints and
quarts, adding fake labels and selling it
as Canadian (Hub. Seagram's VO and
other ryes and blends.
Many times the 200- and 250-gallon
capacity stills were raided, dynamited,
burned and destroyed, but few operators
were ever caught. Some legends
insist none were. The region was
reachable only by narrow and well-
guarded Mill Tail Creek. Seem¬
ingly, almost before Prohibition
officers could enter the creek, the
East Lake security system took
over, and the operators took
cover. By the quantity of the booze
that continued to come out, it
seemed that work was resumed the
very next day at a new still erected
among the ruins of the old.
Boats piloted by skippers well ac¬
quainted with the 1.000-square
miles of inland waters transported
the illegal product to pre-arranged
mainland landing sites and waiting
trucks, which had enough crates of veg¬
etables aboard for camouflage. Some of
those were captured, but federal agents
admitted publicly they could only dent,
not destroy, "that most extensive dis¬
tillery."
However, what they couldn't do. the
repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933 and
passage of North Carolina's local option
law in 1935 did. East bike became a “fall¬
en empire." The Coaslland Times report¬
ed.
In the summer of 1932. while at Kitty
Hawk visiting college chums working at
University of North Carolina football
coach Chuck Collins' pavilion on the
beach, the coach asked us to bring back
some liquor for some of his friends in
Chapel Hill. Arrangements were made,
and somewhere west of Wright Memori¬
al Bridge and Point Harbor, we left the
main highway and located a house in a
The State/Apnl 1993
