This Geocache is part of an annual Geocache Challenge put on by the Heritage Program at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area as part of our outreach to the public, to get people to explore their forest and their history, and to share the unique heritage of the families from Between the Rivers.
This Geocache is part of the “2023 Land Between the Lakes Heritage Geocache Challenge: Communities Between the Rivers”. There are 6 geocaches placed across Land Between the Lakes related to the history of some of the historic communities. If you locate each geocache, and collect a numbered aluminum tree tag from each cache, you can turn them in at the Golden Pond Visitor Center for one of 100 Challenge Coins created for this event.
The Geocache is a 6” x 6” orange watertight plastic box marked “Heritage Geocache” on the top. The geocache is placed under a fallen tree trunk.
Birmingham Community
Birmingham was initially settled by Europeans in 1849. Establishment of the post office in 1860 made it official. The settlers named the community after Birmingham, England, hoping they too would become a thriving iron industry town. By 1894 Birmingham had five churches, two schools, two hotels, four dry goods and general stores, three grocers, two millinery shops, two wagon and blacksmith shops, and a drug store. By 1929, the town was home to 600 residents.
Instead of iron, however, the timber industry became Birmingham's primary economic contributor. Scottish immigrant James Love also established a successful tobacco stemmery and by the 1890s Birmingham was a thriving river community with a large portion of the population being black. This fact along with the role of Birmingham in the tobacco industry would make it a target for terror in 1908.
The Night Rider Tobacco Wars
At the beginning of the 1900s, large tobacco companies began to take advantage of small farmers in Western Kentucky by offering low sale prices for tobacco farmers wanted to sell. Farmers then organized groups like the Dark Tobacco Association and the Planters' Protective Society in an attempt to raise and gain control of prices. The idea was to only sell crops through these groups and thus overthrow the monopoly of large corporations.
To make sure farmers didn't go around these
monopoly-busting associations, enforcement
groups were formed to pressure farmers with
physical harm and destruction of property. The
Night Riders were formed and these vigilantes
attacked both towns and individuals.
What started as a means to get poor farmers fair prices for their crops, quickly turned into a convenient excuse to persecute blacks living in Western Kentucky. Hatred and racism fueled the motivations of vigilante Night Riders who were interested in more than just convincing tobacco growers to sell through non-corporate associations.In March of 1908, about 100-200 Night Riders originating from Between the Rivers converged on the bustling town of Birmingham, just across the Tennessee River and in Marshall County. They directed gunfire into the house of every black citizen of the town, seriously wounding and killing several. John Scruggs, his wife and two children were wounded and his granddaughter was killed.
The Aftermath
The Night Riders wrenched people from their
homes and mercilessly whipped them, many were
wounded and brutally terrorized. This attack and many
others that preceded and followed it caused nearly
every black person in Birmingham and the surrounding
counties to leave the area.
Eventually, Grand Jury indictments resulted in the arrest
and trial of 40 residents. Witnesses
included one confessing Night Rider and a physician, Dr.
Robert Overby, who tended blacks wounded in the
attack. He was warned to leave Birmingham by the
Night Riders for offering them medical care.
During the trial, hundreds of Night Riders converged on
Paducah in an attempt to intimidate the court and
citizens. Thankfully this attempt failed.