The White Lightning Trail Festival is returning to Cumberland Gap on Saturday, September19 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Started in 2009 as a celebration of the legacy of moonshine runners of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s who would barrel through the backroads of the Appalachian Mountains trying to avoid law enforcement, the festival has grown to earn national recognition.
The White Lightning Trail begins in Knoxville and travels through Anderson, Union, Campbell, Claiborne, Grainger, Jefferson, Hamblen and Cocke counties. Moonshining was a very lucrative, though very illegal business — revenue taxes from selling the alcohol were not being paid to the government. Many of NASCAR racing’s early pioneers learned their trade from hauling moonshine…