Spring 2024 – The History Committee has been busy this past winter exploring, clearing, and documenting old homesites in Front Hollow. If you hike/bike out there you might see 4 sites that were recently cleared, including an earthen dam at the Ledbetter site. Click here to see what they’ve identified!

Sep 2023 – After discovering a 1978 audio cassette interview with John and Ollie Quillen, MANY new facts and stories have been learned and documented!

• The dam cracked and leaked after the first year of construction, requiring the columns/steps (“braces”) to be added in the second year
• The spillway has an odd rock that isn’t aligned with the others. Can you find it? John Quillen told us who did it and why there’s a $100 bounty on that rock!
• About 1 week after the dam was finished and water was filling the reservoir, someone secretly opened the valve, letting the water back out. Who? Why? (Hint: they had a very good/honorable reason!)

  Come to our history talks to hear these new stories and more!

Feb 2023

Added an 11-part series of newspaper articles on moonshine from Nov 1966

The BMPA History Committee and park staff have:

• Cleaned up an old homesite with two foundations on Lake Road near Ledbetter Gap
• Established a moonshine still exhibit on Chinquapin Trail
• Installed a history panel at the Bays Mountain Schoolhouse site

Oct/Nov 2022

• BMPA History Committee members have discovered 3 old moonshine still sites on Bays Mountain and are working with park staff to feature the still on Chinquapin Trail