Sinopsis
A History of Appalachia, One Story at a Time
Episodios
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Popcorn
21/05/2016 Duración: 16minMoonshining has long been associated with Appalachia. Probably the most well-known and well-marketed moonshiner was Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton of Cocke County, Tennessee. Popcorn dressed the part, at least the way he believed everybody outside the area thought a moonshiner should look like. And he made sure everybody knew who he was, appearing on television, in […]
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Clark Dyer’s Flying Machine
17/05/2016 Duración: 09minIn the hills of North Georgia in the 19th century lived a farmer named Micajah Clark Dyer. Dyer wasn’t just a Georgia farmer, though. He was a self-taught inventor and tinkerer whose passion was flight. Clark Dyer devised a very detailed flying machine that not only received a patent from the U.S. Patent office, but […]
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The Battle of Kings Mountain
14/05/2016 Duración: 13minIn 1780, the Patriot cause was suffering from losses across the colonies. Then, a British commander threatened to cross the Appalachians and lay waste to the settlements established in what is now East Tennessee, and that changed everything. Around 1400 militia were mustered from Southwest Virginia, present-day East Tennessee and Western North Carolina and set […]
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Buried Alive!
10/05/2016 Duración: 12minIn the spring of 1891, wealthy Pikeville, Kentucky, businessman James Hatcher buried his young wife, Octavia, after she apparently died while giving birth to their baby boy, who also died. Unfortunately, there was a bout of African sleeping sickness going around the coalfields at about this same time, with the symptoms mimicking death. On this […]
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The Death of Edward Wentz
07/05/2016 Duración: 17minIn 1903, the Wentz family of Philadelphia was in control of the Virginia Coal and Iron Company and Stonega Coal and Coke. In that year, young Edward Wentz came to the coalfields of Wise County, Virginia, to help manage the corporate property. In fact, Edward took a personal hand in patrolling the property, throwing out […]
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The Melungeon Trials
03/05/2016 Duración: 16minStarting in the mid-19th century, just before the Civil War, there were several Tennessee court cases that helped define the role of the mysterious people known as “Melungeons” in Appalachian society. On this episode, Rod and Steve tell the story of those cases as well as the history, as best it can be determined, of […]
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The Moon-Eyed People
30/04/2016 Duración: 13minThere is a Cherokee legend about a war with a fair-skinned people with blue eyes and beards, who were extremely sensitive to light. One version of this legend has them responsible for pre-Columbian stone fortifications located in Georgia, pictured above. This week on Stories, Rod and Steve tell the story of the Moon-eyed people of […]
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The Duke of Asheville
26/04/2016 Duración: 10minIn the fall of 1902, a sickly Englishman arrived in Asheville, North Carolina, from parts unknown. He passed away shortly thereafter and, over the next seven years, became a part of the fabric of the mountain town, until he left just as mysteriously as he came. It’s the story of the Duke of Asheville, on […]
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The Deadly Harpes
23/04/2016 Duración: 10minOn this week’s episode of Stories, Rod and Steve tell you the story of the Harpes, two men who, at the turn of the 19th century, led authorities on a horrific crime spree from North Carolina to Illinois and back again, leaving numerous murder victims in their wake.
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The Strikes of ’29
19/04/2016 Duración: 10minIn 1929 a series of textile mill strikes hit the southeastern United States, starting in Elizabethton, Tennessee. On this episode, Rod and Steve tell the story of what happened in Elizabethton when workers went on strike against the rayon plants there. Thanks for listening to the podcast!
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The Bluebeard of Quiet Dell
16/04/2016 Duración: 10minSometimes love just isn’t enough. At least it wasn’t for Harry Powers of Quiet Dell, West Virginia. On today’s episode, we tell a story of murder in the singles ads in 1920’s West Virginia. You can subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. We’re also on Facebook, where we have even more stories […]
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The Great Cholera Outbreak
12/04/2016 Duración: 11minIn 1873, there was a world-wide cholera epidemic. One of the worst hit places in the Appalachian region was the East Tennessee town of Greeneville, which saw 90 percent of its population either die or flee in absolute terror. The illness even struck a retired American president who lived in the town. On this episode […]
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The Greenbrier Ghost
09/04/2016 Duración: 12minIn 1896, Elva Zona Heaster met and married Edward Shue, a drifter who had just arrived in Elva’s hometown of Greenbrier, West Virginia, to work as a blacksmith. In less than a year, she would be dead and buried and her killer undiscovered but for her appearance as an apparition to her mother, who led […]
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The Last Public Hanging in West Virginia
05/04/2016 Duración: 14minWhen there is a public execution, one expects a somber affair. That wasn’t the case with John Morgan of Ripley, whose hanging on December 16, 1897, for a grisly triple murder had more of a carnival atmosphere, which led the state of West Virginia to outlaw public hangings the next year. On this episode of […]
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John Brown
29/03/2016 Duración: 14minIn the summer of 1859, as the country was rapidly coming apart over the issue of slavery, a man slipped into the Appalachian town of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia under an assumed name and began preparing to spark a massive slave revolt. In the end, what was waiting for John Brown was not a revolution but […]
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The Hermit of Big Bald Mountain
26/03/2016 Duración: 10minOn today’s episode of Stories, Steve tells the story of David Grier, who spent his adult life atop Big Bald Mountain, just above Flag Pond, Tennessee on the North Carolina border. You might call him the Appalachian Thoreau, but Grier had an odd streak about him, which landed him in a trial for murder and, […]
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The English Doctor
22/03/2016 Duración: 11minUp until the end of the nineteenth century, most “doctoring” in the rural parts of Appalachia was done by folk healers or “granny-women,” who used old time roots and herbs and traditional treatments. One of the first true doctors to settle in the mountains of Southwest Virginia was an Englishman named Lawrence Haddon, who came […]
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The Dictator
19/03/2016 Duración: 15minIn the mid-19th century, American “filibusters” descended on Latin America with an eye on extending the United States’ influence over the area. The most notorious of these men was William Walker of Tennessee, who led his band of Tennessee and Kentucky mercenaries into Nicaragua, where he made himself dictator. To this day, Walker’s name is […]
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The Appalachian Trump
12/03/2016 Duración: 19minAt one time, Buchanan County, Virginia, was the home of the largest number of millionaires in the Commonwealth of Virginia, due to the money to be made mining coal. Probably the best known of these “one percenters” was Arthur M. Ratliff, also known as “Smiley.” Smiley Ratliff was a World War II vet, the first […]
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The Greenbrier Bunker
08/03/2016 Duración: 13minIn the hills of West Virginia, at White Sulphur Springs, is a fine resort, the Greenbrier. There you can enjoy fine living and also take a tour of a Cold War relic: the underground nuclear bunker designed to protect the elite of Washington politics in the event of a nuclear war with the Russians. On […]