“You want to hear that story again?”
It’s a question Asheville resident Steve Woody is known to raise when it comes to a tale he has regaled listeners with for decades. A story of whiskey, fire and a pact that three men made in 1901 — an account, as Woody tells it, that the trio agreed to keep secret until only one surviving member remained.
Woody’s grandfather — also named Steve Woody, and affectionately referred to as “Uncle Steve” by friends and neighbors — turned out to be the last man standing.
Cheese and whiskey
Uncle Steve was one of the pioneering citizens of Cataloochee Valley, an isolated mountain farming community located within what is now Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He moved to the area in the early 1860s at the age of 10, accompanying his father and four siblings. Schools were established in Cataloochee almost as soon as the valley was settled, according to a report by Ed Trout, former chief historian for Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But education was spotty and poorly funded. In 1880, nearly half of school-age residents in Cataloochee were illiterate…