Read Online The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History by James Higdon - Free Book Online
Authors: James Higdon
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acres of land, all lying north of the stream, Jordan [with] a thirty-foot right-of-way from the Campbellsville Pike," the approximate site of the original Wathen Distillery, built in 1875, where "the famous `Rolling Fork' and `Cumberland' brands of whisky were made."The property had been dormant since a fire of mysterious origin had destroyed many of the buildings in 1931.
On Monday, November 27, 1933, Kentucky became the thirty-third state to ratify the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.
"For the first time in the history of the State, duly-elected delegates have assembled for the purpose of ratifying an amendment to the Constitution of the United States," Governor Laffoon declared while expressing the hope that repeal of Prohibition would not lead to the return of "open saloons."
The governor apparently had not traveled much to Marion County, where "open saloons" had never departed. Just two days before the governor's speech on the subject, a thirty-five-year-old Raywick farmer named Felix Mattingly shot and killed Marion Bell, forty-four, whose body was found "on the Main Street of Raywick near the Earl Bickett Pool Parlor shortly before 10:00 o'clock Saturday night by a group who rushed from the pool room and a dance that was in progress to see what had happened after they had heard the shot." At his trial in April, Mattingly would claim self-defense, and a jury would deliberate for fifteen minutes before acquitting him.
Slowly Marion County began returning to its brand of normal. By May 18, 1934, the Wathen Distillery began production in a new facility with a capacity of 740 bushels per day and a payroll of $2,000 per week. By midyear, something of a final act of Prohibition occurred with the death of John Dillinger. As reported by the Lebanon Enterprise on July 27:
BANDIT CAREER IS CONCLUDED
Last Rites For John Dillinger Slain Super-Criminal, Held Wednesday.
Tip-Off Denied By Girl
FARMERS ALL ACROSS KENTUCKY GREW TONS AND TONS OF HEMP IN THE nineteenth century but not in Marion County. According to an 1877 edition of The History of Kentucky, Marion County annually produced 81,800 pounds of tobacco, 2,207 tons of hay, 413,760 bushels of corn, 88,690 bushels of wheat, 1,041 bushels of barley-but zero pounds of hemp on 193,074 acres of land valued at $9.89 per acre. Neighboring Washington County reaped 2,100 pounds of hemp in 1876, a fraction of the statewide market for a product destined to become rope, paper and cloth in products used at home and at sea. Fayette County, the capital of thoroughbred horse country surrounding Lexington, produced 4.3 million pounds of hemp along with its 5,879 horses that same year. Hemp farmers in the counties that surround Fayette grew another five million pounds.
In 1937, four years after repealing Prohibition, the federal government criminalized hemp and its sister plant, marijuana. Yet, even while outlawing it, the government still consumed a great deal of hemp, needing its fiber for the miles of rope used by the Navy, which grew its hemp on plantations in the Philippines, an American territory, until Japan attacked in December 1941. In the days just after Pearl Harbor, America lost its sole supplier of hemp when it lost the Philippines. So, at the dawn of the war, the Navy was taxed not only with rebuilding its Pacific fleet but also with resupplying that fleet with rope made from the fiber that Congress had outlawed four years before.
While women grew victory gardens and Boy Scouts collected tires and tin, farmers across America raised hemp for the war effort at the request of the federal government. Farms across the Midwest and South grew mountains of the tall green plants and then packed them off by the truckloads to warehouses. From there, hemp was shipped by rail to processing plants where it was turned into the rope necessary for the Allied naval victories in the Pacific and European fronts. Of the nine states that grew hemp for the war, the government asked
On Monday, November 27, 1933, Kentucky became the thirty-third state to ratify the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.
"For the first time in the history of the State, duly-elected delegates have assembled for the purpose of ratifying an amendment to the Constitution of the United States," Governor Laffoon declared while expressing the hope that repeal of Prohibition would not lead to the return of "open saloons."
The governor apparently had not traveled much to Marion County, where "open saloons" had never departed. Just two days before the governor's speech on the subject, a thirty-five-year-old Raywick farmer named Felix Mattingly shot and killed Marion Bell, forty-four, whose body was found "on the Main Street of Raywick near the Earl Bickett Pool Parlor shortly before 10:00 o'clock Saturday night by a group who rushed from the pool room and a dance that was in progress to see what had happened after they had heard the shot." At his trial in April, Mattingly would claim self-defense, and a jury would deliberate for fifteen minutes before acquitting him.
Slowly Marion County began returning to its brand of normal. By May 18, 1934, the Wathen Distillery began production in a new facility with a capacity of 740 bushels per day and a payroll of $2,000 per week. By midyear, something of a final act of Prohibition occurred with the death of John Dillinger. As reported by the Lebanon Enterprise on July 27:
BANDIT CAREER IS CONCLUDED
Last Rites For John Dillinger Slain Super-Criminal, Held Wednesday.
Tip-Off Denied By Girl
FARMERS ALL ACROSS KENTUCKY GREW TONS AND TONS OF HEMP IN THE nineteenth century but not in Marion County. According to an 1877 edition of The History of Kentucky, Marion County annually produced 81,800 pounds of tobacco, 2,207 tons of hay, 413,760 bushels of corn, 88,690 bushels of wheat, 1,041 bushels of barley-but zero pounds of hemp on 193,074 acres of land valued at $9.89 per acre. Neighboring Washington County reaped 2,100 pounds of hemp in 1876, a fraction of the statewide market for a product destined to become rope, paper and cloth in products used at home and at sea. Fayette County, the capital of thoroughbred horse country surrounding Lexington, produced 4.3 million pounds of hemp along with its 5,879 horses that same year. Hemp farmers in the counties that surround Fayette grew another five million pounds.
In 1937, four years after repealing Prohibition, the federal government criminalized hemp and its sister plant, marijuana. Yet, even while outlawing it, the government still consumed a great deal of hemp, needing its fiber for the miles of rope used by the Navy, which grew its hemp on plantations in the Philippines, an American territory, until Japan attacked in December 1941. In the days just after Pearl Harbor, America lost its sole supplier of hemp when it lost the Philippines. So, at the dawn of the war, the Navy was taxed not only with rebuilding its Pacific fleet but also with resupplying that fleet with rope made from the fiber that Congress had outlawed four years before.
While women grew victory gardens and Boy Scouts collected tires and tin, farmers across America raised hemp for the war effort at the request of the federal government. Farms across the Midwest and South grew mountains of the tall green plants and then packed them off by the truckloads to warehouses. From there, hemp was shipped by rail to processing plants where it was turned into the rope necessary for the Allied naval victories in the Pacific and European fronts. Of the nine states that grew hemp for the war, the government asked