The Red Flannel Rag

month, twenty-five of which was sent home to their families. The CCC was part of

President Roosevelt’s program to end the Great Depression.

“President Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932; and by 1935, his

administration was providing jobs for the people in the CCC camps,” Dad told me. “It

was at this time that the government forced the revenuers to crack down on us.”

The government crackdown tended to slow production because the moonshiner

had to be more cautious. The safest time for distillation was just before dawn. The

moonshiners came up with creative methods of detecting the revenue agents when they

came down into the Gap. The moonshiners placed guards on the high ridges overlooking

the road at both ends of the Gap.

On days when a father knew he was going to make moonshine, he told his

children to watch the road from the schoolhouse window. If strange cars were spotted,

the children were to run from school to warn the moonshiner.

Mr. Sem Swope was a teacher in Hopkins Gap for a period of years. He lived a

very long life, and I was able to talk with him about teaching in the Gap. He recalled

stories of children sitting in school watching the road for the revenuers. “I could tell

which men were making moonshine on any given day, because the children di dn’t pay

attention to their lessons. They would sit next to the window and stare at the road

instead of listening to me. All of a sudden a child would jump through the schoolhouse

window with no warning and take off down the road and through the woods.”

I asked Mr. Swope, “Did you try to stop him?”

He answered, “I learned it was best for me to just go on teaching and not try to

interfere with what the local people were doing.”

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