North Carolina and Virginia share more than a border. Thanks to the moonshine-producing histories of Wilkes County, North Carolina, and Franklin County, Virginia, they also share a contested claim for moonshine capital.
That changed Thursday, during a debate in which Franklin County was crowned the winner.
The friendly debate was one of the events making up Speed Week, a three-day event in Martinsville culminating in Sunday’s NASCAR race at Martinsville Speedway.
“Every time we have a race in Martinsville, it’s like the Super Bowl,” said state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County.
This year, debate organizer Daniel Turner wanted to put on a unique event. The idea for the debate came to him after listening to Troy Selberg, the host of The Scene Vault podcast, describe Wilkes County as the moonshine capital on his show.
Turner recruited the expertise of third-generation Virginia moonshiner Henry Law to debate on behalf of Franklin County.
While both men believe strongly in the impact of their respective counties, Law had the home field advantage, something Stanley admitted to prior to the debate.
“I don’t think there is a debate at all. I think moonshine originated in Franklin County,” Stanley said. “It is a heritage and a history here.”
Stanley served as the event’s “judge,” presiding over the debate and calling “witnesses” to support Law’s and Selberg’s positions. Although tasked with deciding the debate winner, he left that up to the event participants in an effort to be fair. The crowd voted almost unanimously in favor of Franklin County.
Coming from a family of Franklin County moonshiners, Law urged the audience to simply “Google it.”
Much of Law’s argument hinged on the scope of Franklin County’s moonshine business, describing it as the largest ever.
“Prohibition guys tried to stop it but they couldn’t stop it,” Law said. “It just got bigger and bigger with millions of barrels sold.”
Law said the business wasn’t glamorous, and moonshiners from Franklin County focused entirely on feeding their families.
“You’re talking about this and that, but the bottom line was feeding your children, getting them into good schools, into college,” Law said. “It was something we never had and that was why we did it … why a man would get caught, go to jail, get out and do it again. It’s in the blood, I guess, like racing, racing and moonshine.”
Selberg emphasized racing in his argument, touting how Wilkes County moonshiners were the precursors to NASCAR.
“When you look at Wilkes County, not only are we some of the best drivers, but we’re some of the best mechanics, in such a way that a whole organization like NASCAR was formed around what happened in Wilkes County,” Selberg said.
Selberg alluded to the need for moonshiners to modify delivery vehicles so as to avoid capture by law enforcement. The practice, according to Selberg, was so prevalent in Wilkes County, it sparked the idea for NASCAR.
Warrick Scott was one of those from the audience who voted in favor of Franklin County.
“Who has done more for moonshining than the southside of Virginia?” Scott said.
Scott is the grandson of legendary NASCAR racer Wendell Scott, the sport’s first Black driver and the subject of the movie “Greased Lightning.”
Scott said he felt Franklin County deserves recognition.
“When you think about moonshine and bootlegging and who has done more for the practice of it … it is no doubt that the southside of Virginia is the moonshine capital of the Earth.”
While Law and Selberg were billed as the primary debaters, a number of others came out to argue on behalf of Franklin County.
Joe Keiper, director of the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, offered a scientific view of the moonshine ingredients from Franklin and Wilkes counties.
“Can dinosaurs tell us anything about moonshine?” Kieper asked. “We put our scientists to work. … They analyzed the dinosaurs and mastodons that were found in Franklin and surrounding counties and they did the same thing with North Carolina. What they found was that animals were bigger and more robust in Franklin County and surrounding areas than in North Carolina. The plant food they were using to grow was a finer quality than other areas. The ingredients were of a finer quality and gave backyard distillers the upper hand.”
Former U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, whose 5th Congressional District included Franklin County, closed out the debate by saying that denying Franklin County’s place in the discussion on moonshine is revisionist. To make his point, Goode mentioned a famous American novelist who named Franklin County the moonshine capital decades prior.
“During Prohibition, people had to make a living,” Goode said. “The one way they had to make a living was making moonshine whiskey. They did, and after some time Sherwood Anderson came down and named Franklin County the moonshine capital of the world.”
