All 150 coins have been claimed. The caches are still in place but the challenge has ended. Thank you for coming out and enjoying LBL Heritage.
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 “2024 Land Between the Lakes Heritage Geocache Challenge: Moonshine Heritage”. There are 6 geocaches placed across Land Between the Lakes related to the history of the moonshine industry between the rivers. 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 150 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 inside a tree trunk.
Joe Bogard
“The King of Golden Pond Still Men”
Prohibition agent, William “Big Six” Henderson, held so much respect for the moonshiners of Golden Pond Kentucky that he wrote a letter detailing its role in the moonshine industry to Bob Howes the director of Land Between the Lakes in 1969. In the letter, Big Six states that “during the early prohibition era from 1919 to the late twenties, the Bogards, the Higgins, the Joyces, the Mitchusons, the Calhouns, and various other family units who were early settlers of the community plied their trade or illicit traffic in moonshine whiskey almost unmolested.”
Big Six highlights Joe Bogard as the Kingpin of the Golden Pond still men. Joe was highly respected for his honesty in his dealings and was very discerning in the quality of the moonshine being sold. He is credited with organizing and supervising the sale and distribution of all the liquor that came out of Golden Pond. It is likely that the unique close-knit quality of Between the Rivers communities played a big role in the renown and success of Golden Pond moonshine.
A former resident of Between the Rivers, likened the quality of Golden Pond whiskey to that of Jim Beam. Many stillmen from this community took such pride in their product that it was treated as a science and was not drunk during operations. This quality control was likely due to Joe Bogard’s efforts.
All the geocaches in this challenge have been placed in locations that were frequented by moonshiners. Some are placed close to old moonshine distilling sites. Others are placed on ridgelines or hills that overlook areas moonshiners once hid their stills in.
As you walk through the woods on your way to find these geocaches, there are many subtle signs of the past and if you pay attention to them, you can get a glimpse of times gone by.
There are old road beds in varying states of erosion. Some are vibrantly apparent while others have faded into the landscape. You can follow these roads to the geocaches and imagine the moonshiners that once traveled it, keeping their heads on a swivel looking for interlopers and revenuers.
Other signs of the past are daffodils and wolf trees. Many times, you can see daffodils lined up next to a road or bordering the footprint of a homesite. Wolf trees can be any species but are marked by being larger and older than surrounding trees. Their identifying feature is that its branches stretch out parallel to the ground rather than at steep angles, or they have numerous nubbins that indicate their branches have fallen off. These nubbins and the horizontal branches indicate that the tree was once in a cleared area, it did not have to fight for sunlight and could stretch its arms wide.