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.
The parking spot and trailhead is 1.7 miles from the geocache.
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 in a mash barrel.
The Day Crooked Creek was 100-Proof
Prohibition officer Allie Leigh chanced upon the operation of a man named Smith who lived in a log home on Crooked Creek. Leigh dumped the man's liquor in the creek--so much, in fact, that it was said you could dip whiskey from the creek with a ladle!
A neighbor complained that Prohibition Agents ruined his well water, which tasted like whiskey for some time after (though this was probably just anti-prohibition grumblings).
Allie Leigh's Car Gets the Message!
The actions of Allie Leigh so incensed locals Between the Rivers that his automobile was fired upon local moonshiners and the car was ultimately destroyed by rifle fire. Leigh wasn't in it at the time, of course. Though this might have been one of the few instances of violence or retaliation towards Prohibition Agents or Revenuers for enforcing Prohibition or Tax laws Between the Rivers.
Outsmarting the Man!
Misdirection: Moonshiners have many traditions for hiding their stills and smuggling out the product. One man in the BTR would purposefully set up smaller stills as a misdirection. So that when agents found and destroyed the small one they wouldn't go looking for the big one.
Hide the Smoke: During the 50s-70s, moonshiners would use propane or gas heating elements instead of burning wood, so that revenuers couldn't follow the smoke to their stills.
Use a Hoopdie: Cars were a big deal to bootleggers, the professionals in the BTR knew how important it was to keep your getaway vehicle out of sight. They called the hollowed out cars hoopdies and they knew that once a revenuer spotted your vehicle at a still or engaged them in a chase that you had to sell it and get a new hoopdie.
Follow Your Nose? Moonshiners sometimes made whiskey near their houses, those who had hogs could use their pungent odors to mask the smell of the moonshine process. They also fed the pigs the corn husks, which got rid of evidence and provided free food source for the pigs.
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.