In 1955, at the age of 67, Emma Gatewood became the first woman to solo thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to the top of Mt. Katahdin in Maine. In this episode, Steve and Rod tell the story of her remarkable journey from a childhood in rural Ohio, through years of hardship and abuse, to the day this grandmother stepped onto the trail with nothing but a sack, a shower curtain, and an iron will. Her hike captured America’s attention, inspiring generations of hikers.

It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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In 1909, a Johnson City businessman named A.J. Slagle was lured by promises of buried Spanish gold hidden in a Cocke County house. What began as a desperate bid to recover from business losses ended in a murder, the body tossed into the French Broad River.

Join Steve and Rod as they tell a true story of greed, deception, and a treasure that never existed, a case that shocked East Tennessee and became another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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Four years after the Hillsville courthouse shootout shocked Virginia, another one of the Allen brothers met a violent end. Jack Allen, brother of Floyd Allen, and once a constable in that Carroll County courtroom, was shot and killed in 1916 at a roadhouse near Mt. Airy, North Carolina. His killer, 24-year-old Will McCraw, claimed self-defense and was acquitted.

But the story doesn’t stop there.

McCraw may not have been a stranger to Jack Allen’s family and some believe he was nudged into the confrontation by men with unfinished business from Hillsville.

In this episode, Steve and Rod follow the trail from the courtroom to the roadhouse, tracing rumors of revenge, Baldwin-Felts detectives and a possible family connection to the killer.

It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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After the Civil War, thousands of defeated Confederates refused to live under the Union flag. Instead, they packed up their families and headed for new lives in South America in a Confederate exodus from the United States.

One of them was Ezekiel B. Pyles, a young man from the mountains of north Georgia, who rode with General John Hunt Morgan’s raiders, fought across East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia and was captured at the Battle of Kingsport before becoming part of Jefferson Davis’ guard as he fled Richmond at the end of the Civil War.  

His story didn’t end there, for he joined around 20,000 other Southerners who migrated to Brazil to start over.  

In this episode, Rod and Steve tell the story of Pyles’ incredible journey — from the hills of Appalachia to the colony of Americana. 
 
It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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In August 1925, two years before the famed Bristol Sessions, Ralph Peer and Okeh Records set up a temporary studio on the rooftop of Asheville’s brand-new Vanderbilt Hotel.

Over ten sweltering days, local musicians cut sixty test records, capturing the raw sounds of traditional Appalachian ballads, banjo tunes, and old songs. Though often overlooked, these Asheville sessions lit the spark that would explode two years later in Bristol, igniting the Big Bang of country music.

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This Halloween marks 10 years of stories from Rod and Steve; to mark the holiday and our tenth anniversary, we’re going to take you deep into the dark side of Appalachia with two chilling tales from southwest Virginia.
 
First, Steve tells the story of three strange sisters who ran girls’ schools in Murfreesboro and Christiansburg—women whispered to be linked to evil spirits and who eventually faced justice for a terrible crime. Some say their spirits still haunt the ground where their school stood in Christiansburg over a hundred years ago.
 
Then, Rod shares the legend of two cunning sisters from Scott County, whose greed and cruelty led to a savage end. Their ghosts are said to still haunt the cemetery where they were denied burial.

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Happy Halloween, y’all!

We’ve told hundreds of stories about Appalachia, but few are as bizarre as the night a Kentucky drug smuggler named Andrew Thornton II fell to his death during a smuggling run over south Knoxville, Tennessee back in 1985. Join Steve and Rod as they tell the incredible story of a decorated police officer and practicing lawyer who led a double life as a major drug smuggler and the connections between this run and an incident with a black bear in north Georgia that would eventually inspire a well-known Hollywood movie.

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In July, 1912, a joyful Fourth of July outing on a mountain turned into a tragedy when a crowded passenger coach collided head-on with a massive coal train on the Wilpen Branch of the Ligonier Valley Railroad in Pennsylvania. The wooden coach was crushed between engines, killing 27 and injuring over 30, many of them young children.

This week, Steve and Rod tell the story of that crash and the haunting aftermath in the town of Ligonier.

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In November 1861, a secret band of East Tennessee Unionists struck at the heart of Confederate supply lines by burning railroad bridges across the region. They believed the Union army would soon march in to liberate them, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Confederate authorities unleashed brutal retaliation, hanging several of the men, while others barely escaped with their lives. In this episode, we tell the story of the East Tennessee bridge burners, the risks they took and the terrible cost they paid.
 
It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.
 
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This week, we wrap up our commemoration of the first anniversary of Hurricane Helene by talking with Mitchell County’s David Biddix, who documented the effects of the storm and its aftermath in that hard-hit part of North Carolina. From his home in Spruce Pine to small communities like Poplar, and along the Nolichucky where CSX rail lines were washed away, he shares what he saw as the area endured the flooding of September 2024.

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