Moonshine, Murder and Mountaineers

Book excerpt: Around the turn of the twentieth century, a rural county located in the backwoods of the Blue Ridge Mountains made national headlines as the most lawless place in America. Winner of the North Carolina Society of Historians' Willie Parker Peace History Book Award, Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers: The Wildest County in America recounts a time when moonshiners and desperadoes faced off against lawmen in epic battles that made national headlines. The book focuses on actual events from an area in western North Carolina that held the reputation as the wildest county in America. With a masterful blend of entertaining stories supported by historical documentation, the reader is given an exciting account of true events.Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers also provides readers with historical and genealogical reference points. The names of real people are used throughout the book. An index of names is provided for ancestry research. Old newspaper and court documents are quoted on numerous occasions and provide a solid historical reference point to the accounts. The book is written in a format to both entertain and inform. Entertaining and exciting stories are followed by a chapter documenting historically accurate research. This format takes the reader back in time through vivid short stories and allows one to make their own opinion of the events based on the facts. Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers: The Wildest County in America will prove to be a fun and informative read!