This photo from “Signal Mountain and Walde’s Ridge” by Cartter Patten shows a copper still on Walden’s Ridge.Independence Day in 1924 on Walden’s Ridge started in traditional fashion with a barbecue at the old Fairmount Academy. Ice cream and drinks were sold in booths decorated with flags and red, white, and blue bunting. Patriotic and political speeches, including one by Judge Nathan Bachman, songs and drills were followed by a ball game in the afternoon.
Later that day, about 100 people gathered at the Summerfield Key residence in Summertown, where they ate supper at long tables decorated with fresh flowers.
Guests included the Williams, Poindexters, Kreusis, Thompsons, Bryans, Lovells, Campbells, Craigs, Strangs, Watkins, Caldwells, Keys, Van Dykes, Campbells, LeNoils, Ochs, Kropps, Averys, Browns, Laceys, Riddles, Bachmans, Steffners, Sharps, Burrs, Harrisons, Carters, Insers, Wests, Hoods, Cookes, Footes, Kierklands, Jeffries, Troutmans, Holtzclaws, McCalls and Smarts.
But the summer festivities turned ugly that night at Lon Keith’s dance pavilion, less than two miles away at the top of the W Road, when without warning it appeared as if Sam Godsey shot at brothers Ike and Hobart Bowman.
Ike was killed, and Hobart was taken to Erlanger Hospital. The shooting happened, according to evidence and whispered reports, because of a feud between two elements of the liquor ring flourishing in the mountainous portion of north Hamilton County, The Chattanooga Times reported.
The Bowmans had lost a still when revenue agents confiscated their equipment, and they blamed Godsey for turning them in to the raiders. Godsey was sore at the Bowmans, whom he suspected had led a posse of Sequatchie County officers to his still.
When the case went to trial in November, more than 100 witnesses were called to testify. Several prosecution witnesses testified that the first shot was fired not by Godsey but by Edgar Freeman, who was lying under an automobile near Godsey. Freeman had been knocked down by Ike Bowman, who was reaching under the car to drag him out when the first shot was fired.
During the trial, the Times reporter noted, “the courtroom and corridors of the courthouse have been thronged with friends of the principals of the tragedy, grim, close-mouthed and sullen individuals who smelled of corn liquor and had every appearance of being ready for any emergency that might arise.”
After deliberating for six hours, jurors declared defendant Godsey not guilty.
Shortly after the trial, the dance hall on Walden’s Ridge was destroyed in a forest fire that swept up the side of the mountain.
Days later, the Hamilton County Grand Jury passed a resolution asking owner Joe Anderson to refrain from rebuilding his “W” dance hall, since it appeared that “the major part of Hamilton County’s reputed bootleggers, blockade runners and distillers were making the place their headquarters.”
Bootleggers saw whiskey and whiskey-making as a fundamental part of their lives and livelihood. They were cunning in locating their stills in hidden hollows. They stashed their barrels of corn whiskey in deep caves or abandoned mines. The “stillers” developed effective systems of lookouts and signals.
One of the mountain’s colorful old distillers shipped his whiskey in 10-gallon charred kegs in wooden boxes marked “books.” An acquaintance recalled that “the railroad agent would call and say, ‘you better come down here, your books are leaking.'”
Federal revenue officers described Walden’s Ridge as one of the great areas of moonshine production in the country.
“One of the favorite sources of corn whiskey for Washington politicians during Prohibition was reached by a winding steep ‘W’ Road just outside of Chattanooga,” Dabney’s Mountain Spirits stated.
Uncle Joe Miles was considered one of the famous distillers in the area. A July 4, 1963, Times column “Looking Backward” noted that during Prohibition “some men of means who had enough money to lay in a supply of the famous legal brands would hold Uncle Joe’s brand highly too.”
Frank “Mickey” Robbins, an investment advisor with Patten and Patten, is a CAHA board member. For more, visit Chattahistoricalassoc.org or call LaVonne Jolley 423-886-2090.