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A little after midnight on June 6, 1979, a Douglas DC 6 cargo plane crashed in Charleston, West Virginia while attempting to land at the old Kanawha airport, what is now Yeager Airport.
The plane was carrying approximately 20,000 pounds of marijuana and the crew was made up of drug smugglers from South America. They had never flown into Charleston before, but decided to come to West Virginia believing security would be lighter, according to Stan Bumgardner, a West Virginia historian, and the editor of Goldenseal Magazine.
The plane was too big for the airport at that time and it was overloaded. Unable to stop in time, the plane crashed over the hillside at the end of the runway.
This story from a recent episode of Inside Appalachia includes a slightly different version of the story in the form of a tall tale from storyteller Bil Lepp. His telling is featured on his CD called “Fire Fire! Pants on Liar!” He told this tall tale back in 2008 at the public library in St. Albans, West Virginia.
Lepp is an award-winning storyteller and five-time winner of the West Virginia Liar’s contest. His brother Paul actually wrote the story.
Bumgardner said one of the biggest challenges for the authorities was what to do with the pot after the crash.
“With 20,000 pounds of marijuana, it was too much for an evidence room. The feds came in and decided they would burn it,” Bumgardner explained. “The newspaper interviewed Anna Marie Smith and she just talked about how there was an awful smell and it was just burning all the time. And then they asked her about how things had been on the street. And she just said, ‘Well, all of a sudden everybody’s really calm, and they were laughing and talking.’ And it said they started calling her road ‘happy holler.’”
Bumgardner says he’s also heard rumors that seeds from the pot grew up the hillside beside the airport. Authorities tried to kill the plants with diesel fuel, but some locals say the plants didn’t die off and some residents foraged the wild marijuana growing there.
The reason the smugglers were bringing the marijuana into the United States was another issue. Leon Gast was waiting on the ground in a rental truck to collect the goods. The story came out later that he was smuggling the pot to help finance a film about the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.
Gast was convicted on drug smuggling charges, but once he got out of prison, he did actually make the movie, called “When We Were Kings,” and it won an Academy Award in 1996.
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The hillbilly stereotype is frequently used to shame mountain people, but there are gentler versions, like Snuffy Smith, the long-running comic strip character. Snuffy Smith originally started out as a supporting character in his comic strip, which first launched in 1919 when Billy DeBeck created Barney Google. Artist Fred Lasswell was brought in during the ‘30s to create Snuffy Smith and his friends. And now the strip is written and drawn by John Rose, who lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
Continue Reading Take Me to More News"Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire" is a young adult novel set in Appalachia. Written by West Virginia native Don Martin, the book follows the story of a witch-in-training who uses her magic to help a forgotten mountain coal town. It was an instant New York Times bestseller after it was released last year. Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Martin about the book and his podcast "Head on Fire."
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsThis week, having a very specific talent can lead to a dream job. It’s how cartoonist John Rose got his foot in the door to draw the comic strip Snuffy Smith. Also, there are dos and don’ts for treating poison ivy. And, a young, old-time musician wants to save her family’s lost ballads.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsFor nearly 100 years, Snuffy Smith has been a staple of newspaper comic pages, though these days, it’s easier to find him online. Snuffy Smith was brought to life by artist Fred Lasswell in the 1930s, but now the strip is written and drawn by John Rose, who lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams spoke to Rose about drawing the famous hillbilly.
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