On this West Virginia Morning, March 17, 2020 marked the day West Virginia became the last state in the U.S. to test positive for COVID-19. Appalachia Health News Reporter Emily Rice spoke with two state health leaders about the fourth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic arriving in West Virginia.
On this West Virginia Morning, March 17, 2020 marked the day West Virginia became the last state in the U.S. to test positive for COVID-19. Appalachia Health News Reporter Emily Rice spoke with two state health leaders about the fourth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic arriving in West Virginia.
Also, in this show, distilling a piece of Appalachian heritage bubbled up debate in the West Virginia Legislature during the 2024 regular session. Randy Yohe reports on the spirited exchange of views prompted by the “Moonshine Bill.”
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Eric Douglas is our news director and producer.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
Currently, wineries are required to serve food if wine is going to be consumed on premises, but a new law advancing through the Senate would change that.
Updated on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024 at 6:25 p.m.
Currently, wineries are required to serve food if wine is going to be consumed on premises, but a new law advancing through the Senate would change that.
Senate Bill 320 progressed to second reading Tuesday. The bill would remove the current requirement for wineries to serve food when any more than four ounces of wine is being consumed on site by a patron.
Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, vice chair of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the bill is good for the state’s business climate.
“This seems to be a smart move with less regulation, and more freedom,” Stuart said. “I trust people to do the right thing on this. The idea of whether there’s a cracker or there isn’t, is not gonna save somebody’s life.”
Being required to serve food, requires extra permitting and overhead costs for wineries. Stuart said deregulation in this industry could bolster the vineyard and wine industry and aid tourism.
“We’ve got a huge potential for wine tourism growth,” Stuart said. “Tourism is booming in West Virginia, I think we need to embrace it as much as we can. That’s why I think less regulation: Let these wineries do what they can to bring in more people to grow West Virginia.”
However, he says this is just a small change to deregulation of alcohol and drug sales. Unlike a bill that the House sent over to the Senate that legalizes making moonshine, or introduced legislation on the legalization of recreational Marijuana.
“It’s a very small tweak, not a huge change. I think it provides for freedom — that’s reasonable. And we don’t have to worry about the safety of our communities on this,” he said.
Virginia, a top wine producing state, has laws similar to SB 320 that permit wine to be served without food being served.
**Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story misidentified Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, as Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha.
On this episode of The Legislature Today, new companies and new jobs are coming to West Virginia. And with those jobs comes the need for workforce development and new sources of energy. Curtis Tate spoke with Bill Bissett, the president of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, and Dan Conant, founder and CEO of Solar Holler, about these issues.
On this episode of The Legislature Today, the first public hearing of the 2024 session was held, and it focused on a bill that criminally penalizes public facilities for presenting obscene material to minors. Randy Yohe reports on an emotionally charged event.
Also, the Senate passed and sent eight bills over to the House, including one to protect police dogs. Briana Heaney has the story.
Bills dealing with human trafficking, a school counselor’s duties and moonshine moved to third reading in the House. Randy Yohe has more.
Geospatial professionals from across West Virginia gathered at the Capitol to teach the public about their field. Jack Walker reports.
And, discipline has always been a part of a school education. But in recent years, concerns over student and teacher safety have elevated discipline to be the school issue of the day. Chris Schulz takes a look at the legislature’s attempts to address the matter.
Finally, new companies and new jobs are coming to West Virginia. And with those jobs comes the need for workforce development and new sources of energy. Curtis Tate spoke with Bill Bissett, the president of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, and Dan Conant, founder and CEO of Solar Holler, about these issues.
Having trouble viewing the video below? Click here to watch it on YouTube.
The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.
Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
This week, punk music photographer Chelse Warren takes us into the pit. We hop a tiny train to discover the miniature wonders of a West Virginia model railroad. Then, we journey to eastern Kentucky, where they’re reclaiming their bootlegging heritage – along a new moonshine trail.
This week, punk music photographer Chelse Warren takes us into the pit.
We hop a tiny train to discover the miniature wonders of a West Virginia model railroad.
Then, we journey to eastern Kentucky, where they’re reclaiming their bootlegging heritage – along a new moonshine trail.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
Over the summer, Mason Adams visited a two-day DIY music festival called The Floor is Gone.
In the middle of it all was photographer Chelse Warren, who goes by Openhead Takes Photos online.
Mason reached out to talk music and more.
Tiny Train Trouble
The Kanawha Valley Railroad Association got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in 1998. The county commission gave them some money to build a brick-and-mortar clubhouse. Members decided to use the new space to build one big, permanent model train layout.
Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Along with trees and candy canes, trains have become a symbol of the holiday season. Think: the Polar Express, or Santa-themed excursions on local railroads. And generations of people grew up hoping to find electric train sets under the tree on Christmas Day.
These days, model train sets are enjoyed by grownup collectors and hobbyists.
Folkways Reporter Zack Harold visited a model train club in West Virginia and brings us the story.
Beyond Bourbon In The Bluegrass State
Kentucky is known for its bourbon. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only liquor with a history in the state.
A group of distillers wants to attract more visitors to eastern Kentucky by focusing on its historic ties to moonshine.
Shepherd Snyder has the story.
Remembering Travis Stimeling
Travis Stimeling, a musicology professor and the director of the Bluegrass and Old-Time Bands at West Virginia University (WVU), died on Nov. 15. They were 44.
Stimeling was a big figure in Appalachian academia, and played an important role in establishing the Appalachian Studies and Appalachian Music programs at WVU. Stimeling spoke with Inside Appalachia several times.
In 2021, Caitlin Tan interviewed Stimeling about a book they edited called, “The Opioid Epidemic and U.S. Culture: Expression, Art, and Politics in an Age of Addiction.”
In memory of Stimeling, we replayed that interview.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Collective Action, Dimension Six, Gaol, Sultry, Sean Watkins, Hurlbut-Kaukonen, Tyler Childers, Steve Earle and Gerry Milnes.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
Some say moonshiner Mahalia Collins Mullins once beat 30 men in a wrestling match and sold them all whisky afterward. Others say she was so large that when police tried to arrest her, they couldn’t get her through the door. By the time Mullins passed away, her story was known from coast to coast, and into Canada and Mexico. The headlines? “Not too Big for Death.” “Famous Moonshiner Dead, Defied Law Officers from a Mountain Top.”
In East Tennessee, legendary moonshiners like Popcorn Sutton loom large in the imagination, rebellious and wild, driving fast and shooting faster, and almost always white and male. But Mullins was different. As with many old stories, much of Mullins’s origins are shrouded in legend, and for every one story about her life, there are two more.
During her life, her public image was constructed by muckraking journalists and missionaries. One early interviewer, missionary C.H. Humble, decried her business as a “curse brought to her own door.” Another, journalist Paul Converse, made special note of what he saw as the feuding and lawlessness that surrounded her family. Even her name is debated – spelled a number of ways, and called in some sources Mary, Betsy or Haley, perhaps nicknames.
So what do we know for certain? Born in 1824 to a poor family, Mullins became something of a folk hero, a kind of Paul Bunyan figure for East Tennessee. She was a large woman, and lived on top of a mountain, such that the sheriff could never quite manage to bring her all the way down to court – a dynamic that created much of her legend. And she was Melungeon, a name given to families of Black, white, and indigenous descent who settled in parts of Central Appalachia beginning in the late 1700s, including the remote Vardy community, near the border of Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, where she grew up. Subject to discrimination, Melungeon communities and people were sensationalized by the press during Mahalia’s lifetime, laden with stereotypes attributed to both people of color and rural Appalachians. Many subsisted on what they could grow on their land. And in the beginning, so did Mahalia – but from there, the story of her life took a number of unusual turns that earned her both fame and scrutiny, behind which she, a real, complex woman, was sometimes hard to see.
Finding out who Mullins really was requires a drive to Hancock County, Tennessee, where her descendants tend to her cabin and tell visitors her story, as they see it.
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Mahalia’s cabin in the Vardy Valley.
The House That Moonshine Built The Vardy Valley sits in a tangle of remote and winding mountain roads, the kind of place no one can get to by accident. There, Druanna Williams Overbay, a descendant of Mullins and a local public historian of sorts, keeps the lights on and allows visitors a peek into the Vardy community.
Overbay arrived at Mullins’s cabin on this particular instance to showcase her ancestor’s history. The cabin, she said, was moved several years ago from its old spot on Newman’s Ridge down into the valley. She can still point to the exact spot, up in a little dip on the ridge, abutting her own parents’ old property. The house, she said, was moved down from the ridge piece by piece and painstakingly reassembled and cleaned. “Up there in that little dip,” she said, looking towards the ridge behind the cabin, “was where Mahalia’s house sat.”
Overbay is also a descendant of Mullins. Unlike the newspapers, which some feel sought to sensationalize her, Overbay views her story as their heritage, and seeks to dispel myths about her life. “This is a very poor area,” says Overbay, “and there’s very few ways to earn and make a living.”
It’s often said that Mullins’s product was special, often flavored with apples from local orchards, and that prospective buyers came from miles around. That business put her head and shoulders above other moonshiners as something of a boutique seller, and it funded the house that is still open to the public today.
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Druanna Williams Overbay, a descendent of Mullins, offers visitors a tour of the cabin.
It’s a large house, even now. Two floors, a wide porch, and two separate rooms at the bottom. Overbay said it was built after Mullins’s first, more modest cabin was burned to the ground by Confederate soldiers as a consequence for her support of the Union army. First, Overbay showed the keeping room, which functioned as a dining area.
Artifacts of her life – from the china, to a simple spinning wheel, to a chamber pot once given to her daughter as a joke – surrounded the space, making it cozy, domestic, and warm. “She loved blue flow china,” said Overbay, referring to a special kind of china from England, displayed in a glass case. “So when they left home, her grandchildren would send pieces of blue flow china to her.”
Overbay then led the way upstairs – a narrow stairway. Upstairs was for the kids, of which Mullins had somewhere between 13 and 20, but likely 15, depending on who is asked. It was here they slept, and also went to school, since there was no school in the Vardy Valley until 1899. Even if there had been, at that time, free people of color were prohibited from attending public school, and as Melungeons, that would have been a reality for Mullins’s entire family.
Mullins may have identified particularly with the Cherokee people, said Overbay, who believes Mullins’s father, Solomon, may have applied to the U.S. government for recognition as a member of the tribe. That would have given the family access to some reparations money for the loss of ancestral land. While there is no online record of Solomon’s application, one exists for her son, Reuben. After years of angry back-and-forth with the government, Reuben’s application was denied. Druanna thinks this history may be why Mullins chose not to pay taxes on her liquor.
“They ain’t getting a damn dime of my money,” Overbay imagined her saying. “They owe me, and I’m not paying them.”
Downstairs, in Mullins’ bedroom, was a simple room with a four-poster bed and mantle, where she spent much of her later life. Here, she reportedly made and sold her moonshine, and, finally, passed away. By the end of her life, her health had declined steeply. Though many people made her size into a joke, she was severely disabled with a skin disease called elephantiasis. One source noted that she almost wished the sheriff would take her to court, just so she could see a little more of the world. She had outlived her husband, and three of her children, who died violently, one in a brawl, one lynched, and one in the Civil War. It’s said she had them buried right outside her bedroom window where she could see them, once she could no longer leave her bed.
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A mantle in Mullins’s bedroom displays press and popular photographs.
It was 1898 when Mullins passed away. She was buried outside her cabin on Newman’s Ridge, with her family. As with her life, there were multiple stories about her death.
“Some say that they built her a coffin around the bed,” Overbay said. “Took her out the back and buried her in the backyard. Others said she was rolled up in a quilt and pushed out the door to her grave.”
After a moment, Overbay laughed knowingly. “We add to our stories as years pass, as you know,” she said.
Even in death, to look at Mullins was to see double. Many papers published a photo alongside her obituary that showed her, looking sickly, in bed and wearing a nightgown, clearly suffering from her disease. But her family was careful to save other photographs – portraits of her in beautiful dresses, arrayed with her family, posing with poise and grace. In these portraits, she appeared, perhaps, as she might have wanted to be seen.
Setting The Record Straight “People in Hancock County would prefer to look at her in kind of a respectful way, and not kind of a sensationalist circus freak, how she’s been portrayed,” says Wayne Winkler.
Winkler is the author of a Melungeon histories Walking Towards the Sunset and Beyond the Sunset: The Melungeon Outdoor Drama, 1969-1979. Winkler identifies as Melungeon himself, and spent many childhood summers with family near Vardy. He hopes that Mahalia, like many other maligned Appalachian women, can come to be seen as a full person, contextualized in her time and place, rather than as a joke.
Winkler notes that at the time, moonshining was common in Hancock County – and throughout the mountains – as a way for local people to squeeze extra money out of their corn crop. In a way, it was just another value-added product. People used it to let loose, but they also used it as a medicine, cleaning agent, and preservative. While it may have seemed lawless to outsiders, to locals, it was not unusual. In fact, Mullins was generous with her good fortune, says Winkler, and was loved for it.
“When children went over there she always had some cookies and milk for them,” said Winkler. “They always wanted to go visit Aunt Haley.”
The stories are fun – whether or not they’re true – but sometimes their telling leads to misconceptions. “People in Vardy are amused by them,” Winkler says, “but there’s a respect with which they feel, that sometimes outsiders don’t have that same respect.”
Mullins’s descendants spread far and wide, and donate their money, time, and heirlooms to the Vardy Community Historical Society, keeping her memory, and the memories of their other ancestors, alive. Her story may sound like a folk tale, but to the Vardy community, she’s family history.
This interview is part of an episode of “Inside Appalachia,” featuring stories about Matriarchal Moonshiners, Legendary Lawbreakers and more.
On any given Friday night, a parade of customized cars and trucks cruise from north to south and back again on Williamson Road in Roanoke, Virginia.
Modified with neon lights, spinning rims and streamlined spoilers, these vehicles do not necessarily scream “folk tradition”—but they are just the modern version of a long-running Appalachian tradition.
People in the mountains have tinkered with cars for as long as there have been cars. In the ‘20s and ‘30s, that often meant converting stock cars with bigger engines, stiffer suspensions and hidden compartments to hide bootlegged whiskey. That tradition formed the foundation for NASCAR and modern-day stock-car racing.
In a special report as part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Project, Mason Adams profiled one family about how car repairs have turned into a unique family tradition.
In Roanoke, the Bennett family is sustaining the automotive tradition another way, by restoring vintage cars into pristine conditions, and sometimes by building them from the frame out.
“I’m into the traditional style cars,” said Jeff Bennett. “That’s what I like. I like stuff that looked like it was built in 1960. My term there is, less is more.”
Jeff’s father, Jack Bennett, ran Perfection Auto Body in Roanoke for 25 years and died last year. Jeff now operates a custom auto shop out of his home, where his son Jeremy assists him with high-end body work.
“His [Jeff’s] father had been in the automotive business and was interested in hot rods,” says Roddy Moore, vintage car aficionado and retired director of the Blue Ridge Institute, a folklife center in Ferrum, Virginia. “Jeff grew up with that and that interest went from father to son, like it’s gone from Jeff to his son. So you’ve got three generations right there.”
The Bennetts are all about cars that are built correctly, from the ground up. They find old cars through Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and word of mouth. They take those bodies and rebuild them to look brand new.
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Jeremy (left) and Jeff Bennett stand by a 1937 Ford pickup they rebuilt.
One of the cars in their shop sits stripped down to its frame, with only the engine and front seats sitting on it. The Bennetts will take this and build a new body for it. Sometimes they lower the body closer to the ground, but otherwise they tend to keep them as close to the original as possible.
Jeff spoke about a 1931 Ford Coupe he bought in North Carolina and rebuilt.
“I basically made the whole bottom of the car,” Jeff said. “It was rotted, all, built the frame. Built the whole car from nothing. There was really nothing there.”
Jeff learned those skills from his father, Jack, whose style was exemplified in the name of his shop: Perfection Auto Body.
“He was a perfectionist,” Jeff said. “I guess he tried to teach me to be a perfectionist also. You know his big thing is edges. Make sure the edge of everything is straight. Everything is perfect. Everything is fixed. “Edges will make you or break you, boy,” that’s what my dad would tell you.”
Jack passed away in September of 2018. More than a year later, Jeff is still processing his loss. What remains are his memories, and the lessons that his father passed to him. He recalled the first time he handled a professional paint job.
“We had a car sitting in the paint booth, and it had to be painted,” Jeff said. “He’s like, ‘You’re going to have to paint that car.’ I said, ‘I’ve never sprayed that stuff before.’ He said, ‘Well, just go in there and paint. That’s all I can tell you.’ I went in there and started prepping the car. I came back out of the paint booth.”
Jeff was struggling with the job. Jack called him over to a picnic table and sat him down. They had a beer and took a moment. Jeff tears up thinking about it, especially since Jack’s death.
“We sat there and had a beer,” Jeff said. “He said, ‘You feel better now?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Go paint the car.’ I went out and painted the car and it looked really, really good.”
Now, Jeff is passing that knowledge on to his son Jeremy.
“I guess he’s taught me everything really,” Jeremy said. “I mean, cause I didn’t know a clue about how to do anything before I started here when I was like 14.”
On a balmy autumn evening, Jeremy worked with Jeff in the shop. Jeremy meticulously buffed the inside of a car hood, preparing it for another layer of paint. Very few people notice the inside of a car’s hood. But for Jeremy and his dad Jeff, the inside of the hood is just as important as the parts of the car you do see.
Jeremy also has developed his own interest in restoring vintage Volkswagen Bugs. He has completely restored two so far, including one vanilla and mint Beetle he drives around sometimes. The body of a third sat in the shop, waiting for rebuild and a new life.
The Bennetts are keeping their family tradition alive, while carrying on the tradition of tinkering with cars – an Appalachian craft that has been flourishing since before Prohibition. Jeremy Bennett’s Volkswagen Bugs would not make the best bootlegging cars, though. There is not enough trunk space.
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
