Stories of Appalachia

This week’s story is the bizarre true tale of Leila Davidson Hansell, known as "The Sunshine Woman," and the controversy surrounding her final resting place in Hendersonville, NC. Leila's final wish upon her death in 1915 was to be buried above ground in a unique mausoleum topped with 147 squares of prism glass, designed to let the sun shine down on her remains. For over two decades, her glass-top...

Born in Blount County, Hut Amerine grew into one of East Tennessee’s most notorious moonshiners. After the Civil War, federal whiskey taxes ignited a bitter conflict between mountain distillers and revenue agents. Accused in the fatal shooting of a federal officer, Amerine became the target of an intense manhunt, spoke publicly in his own defense, escaped jail twice, and ultimately vanished. It’s...

James Faye Hall, better known as Roy Hall, was born in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, in 1921.  He died in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee in 1984.    Between those dates is a story about a hillbilly boogie pianist who played for Uncle Dave Macon in a traveling version of the Grand Ole Opry as a child, formed his own hillbilly/R&B band. He found success in Detroit, worked as a session musician for such Nashvi...

We’ve told the story of labor conflicts from Harlan, Kentucky to Blair Mountain, West Virginia. This week, we tell a story that’s not set in the Kentucky or West Virginia coalfields, but in Western North Carolina. It’s the story of the 1906 “Tally War,” a violent clash between Italian railroad laborers and company officials of contractors for the South and Western Railroad, which was building thei...

A once thriving lumber and mill town in the mountains of western North Carolina, Mortimer rose fast, becoming prosperous…until it was washed away twice in massive flooding events. Shortly after a 1916 wildfire burned large tracts of timberland in the mountains,  two hurricanes struck the area back to back, causing historic floods not seen again in the area until Helene in 2024, nearly wiping out t...

This week Steve and Rod tell the story of a Christmas morning that ended in heartbreak instead of celebration. In 1882, a passenger train and a freight engine collided near Millboro, Virginia, killing six crewmen and scalding the lone surviving passenger. How this tragedy occurred, the story of the men who paid the price along with that of the injured passenger, is another one of the Stories of Ap...

John Pemberton Gatewood was a notorious Confederate bushwhacker/guerrilla leader.   Born in Fentress County, Tennessee, in 1844, Gatewood's life took a dark turn after a Union attack on his family led him to abandon the Confederate army and become a guerrilla fighter. Leading his own unit in north Georgia and known as the long-haired, red-bearded beast, Gatewood was driven by his thirst for reveng...

Major Lewis Redmond’s story sounds like it comes from a 19th century dime novel.  He was a Carolina moonshiner, an outlaw and, thanks to actually being in some of those dime novels after the Civil War, a folk hero.   His killing of a U. S. Marshal led to a life on the run across North and South Carolina, making Redmond a legend.  Today we tell his story.   Be sure to follow the Stories of Appalach...

In 1955, at the age of 67, Emma Gatewood became the first woman to solo thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to the top of Mt. Katahdin in Maine. In this episode, Steve and Rod tell the story of her remarkable journey from a childhood in rural Ohio, through years of hardship and abuse, to the day this grandmother stepped onto the trail with nothing but a sack, a showe...

In 1909, a Johnson City businessman named A.J. Slagle was lured by promises of buried Spanish gold hidden in a Cocke County house. What began as a desperate bid to recover from business losses ended in a murder, the body tossed into the French Broad River. Join Steve and Rod as they tell a true story of greed, deception, and a treasure that never existed, a case that shocked East Tennessee and bec...

Four years after the Hillsville courthouse shootout shocked Virginia, another one of the Allen brothers met a violent end. Jack Allen, brother of Floyd Allen, and once a constable in that Carroll County courtroom, was shot and killed in 1916 at a roadhouse near Mt. Airy, North Carolina. His killer, 24-year-old Will McCraw, claimed self-defense and was acquitted. But the story doesn’t stop there. M...

After the Civil War, thousands of defeated Confederates refused to live under the Union flag. Instead, they packed up their families and headed for new lives in South America in a Confederate exodus from the United States. One of them was Ezekiel B. Pyles, a young man from the mountains of north Georgia, who rode with General John Hunt Morgan’s raiders, fought across East Tennessee and Southwest V...

In August 1925, two years before the famed Bristol Sessions, Ralph Peer and Okeh Records set up a temporary studio on the rooftop of Asheville’s brand-new Vanderbilt Hotel. Over ten sweltering days, local musicians cut sixty test records, capturing the raw sounds of traditional Appalachian ballads, banjo tunes, and old songs. Though often overlooked, these Asheville sessions lit the spark that wou...

This Halloween marks 10 years of stories from Rod and Steve; to mark the holiday and our tenth anniversary, we’re going to take you deep into the dark side of Appalachia with two chilling tales from southwest Virginia.   First, Steve tells the story of three strange sisters who ran girls’ schools in Murfreesboro and Christiansburg—women whispered to be linked to evil spirits and who eventually fac...

We’ve told hundreds of stories about Appalachia, but few are as bizarre as the night a Kentucky drug smuggler named Andrew Thornton II fell to his death during a smuggling run over south Knoxville, Tennessee back in 1985. Join Steve and Rod as they tell the incredible story of a decorated police officer and practicing lawyer who led a double life as a major drug smuggler and the connections betwee...

In July, 1912, a joyful Fourth of July outing on a mountain turned into a tragedy when a crowded passenger coach collided head-on with a massive coal train on the Wilpen Branch of the Ligonier Valley Railroad in Pennsylvania. The wooden coach was crushed between engines, killing 27 and injuring over 30, many of them young children. This week, Steve and Rod tell the story of that crash and the haun...

In November 1861, a secret band of East Tennessee Unionists struck at the heart of Confederate supply lines by burning railroad bridges across the region. They believed the Union army would soon march in to liberate them, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Confederate authorities unleashed brutal retaliation, hanging several of the men, while others barely escaped with their lives. In this episode, we...

This week, we wrap up our commemoration of the first anniversary of Hurricane Helene by talking with Mitchell County’s David Biddix, who documented the effects of the storm and its aftermath in that hard-hit part of North Carolina. From his home in Spruce Pine to small communities like Poplar, and along the Nolichucky where CSX rail lines were washed away, he shares what he saw as the area endured...

When Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina a year ago, it left behind washed-out roads, flooded homes, and communities cut off from each other. For first responders, the storm was more than just a headline, it was a fight to save lives. In this episode of Stories of Appalachia , we sit down with Kevin Behm, a firefighter and first responder with the Nebo Fire Station in McDowell Cou...

On the first anniversary of Hurricane Helene’s flooding in Appalachia, Rod and Steve share the story of Maria True, general manager of Jet Broadcasting in Erwin, Tennessee. When the Nolichucky River overflowed, it destroyed the studios and AM tower of WEMB and WXIS, along with family belongings tied to her and her late father and former station owner, Jim True. In this episode, Maria talks about t...

In July 1944, a troop train packed with new Army recruits derailed near Jellico, Tennessee, plunging into Clear Fork River. Thirty-five soldiers died and ninety-one were injured. In this episode, Steve and Rod tell the story of how Tennessee prepared for World War II and the one tragic night that brought the war home to Appalachia. You can subscribe to the Stories podcast wherever you get your fav...

In 1919, a nitroglycerin explosion near Torrent, Kentucky, killed four men and leveled a factory. Today we tell the story of that tragedy and the explosive history of oil well “torpedoes” in Appalachia. It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia. Be sure to subscribe to the Stories podcast if you haven’t done so already.  You’ll find us wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

In 1750, surveyor Christopher Gist set out to explore the wilderness of what’s now Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia. Hired by the Ohio Company, Gist mapped the Appalachian frontier and discovered coal.  He also guided a young George Washington, becoming an important figure in the French and Indian War. Join us as we tell the story of Christopher Gist, another one of the Stor...

In March 1864, Union Colonel William B. Stokes and his cavalry were ambushed at Dug Hill, in Tennessee, leaving dozens of his men dead. Enraged, Stokes led a brutal raid on William and Cynthia Officer’s home, where Confederate soldiers, including their son John, were staying. Six were killed, and the family narrowly escaped destruction thanks to the courage of one of their slaves, Uncle Abe. This...

In the final years of the Civil War, a group of young women in Rhea County, Tennessee, made American history as the only known all-female cavalry unit: the Rhea County Spartans. Born from loyalty to their Confederate fathers, brothers, and sweethearts, they rode sidesaddle into history, carrying supplies, letters, and, according to some accounts, intelligence for the Confederate cause. As Union fo...