In the 1920s, Buffalo City, NC was the Moonshine Capital of the United States. Almost 100 years later, the legacy continues for Dare County… legally. Worn photographs easily conjure up images of the Wild, Wild West and old timers will happily share stories about jugs of moonshine believed to be still lying at the bottom of the creek from the days of Prohibition. They will tell the tales of bears chained to posts (for staged bear fights) and casually recall family distilleries being busted by revenuers, arrests made and ruffians reaching for their holsters and the constant dust that hung in the air.

Although this easily paints a picture of life in an old western town, it is instead what was once known as Buffalo City, a prosperous logging town and later a very renowned lucrative bootlegging hub just 20 miles west of Roanoke Island. All that remains of this intriguing ghost town are some rusty train tracks and a town that was eventually swallowed up by the marshes since its downfall in the early 1950s. Now part of Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, hunters and others who like to wander among the swamps still claim there are remnants such as an old locomotive engine and a cache of stills and moonshine artifacts out there, but few have seen it.

Left to right are Adam Ball, Scott Smith, Matt Newsome, and Kelly Bray, owners today of Outer Banks Distilling in downtown Manteo. Photo courtesy K. Bray.

And while Buffalo City may have been swallowed up into the natural world more than a half century ago, a new business in Manteo is reviving its old roots. Outer Banks Distilling – although different in nature because it is of the legal sort – is sure to bring history rushing back for some on the Outer Banks. With Kill Devil Rum as its specialty, the distillery is expected to be open for business in downtown Manteo late in the summer of 2014. On Budleigh Street, the distillery will be housed in an old brick building that was once Davis Department Store and dates back to the 1940s.

Fittingly, local lore has it that moonshine was once sold in the back of the store during the Prohibition era, according to Matt Newsome, one of the owners of the new distillery. After the building was a department store, it became home to the Board of Education but has remained empty since 2005.

The building’s new tenants are local brew specialists, Newsome, Scott Smith, Kelly Bray and Adam Ball who will convert it into a distillery specializing in a unique rum. The distillery will utilize a modern still from a popular German-owned company and while it can’t sell liquor on site due to state law, it will offer tours, tastings and merchandise such as t-shirts, glassware and hats. Newsome, being a law-abiding citizen, unlike the Buffalo City sect, says he hopes the state laws will change sometime in the future to allow for distilleries to sell one bottle per customer. But for now, their product must be shipped to Raleigh before it is sold in ABC stores statewide. (See ABCs of ABC Law)

For many locals, the distillery will no doubt churn up memories of stories of the region’s moonshining past.

Stan White, owner of Stan White Realty and Construction and local political figure, was born and raised in Manns Harbor, not far from where Buffalo City’s illegal distilleries were sprouting up to keep alive a town whose logging industry was dying out. White, whose family owned the local convenience store, conducted an extensive research project with students on the history of Buffalo City when he was a Dare County teacher in the early 1970s.

“Gosh, this is bringing back a whole lot of memories,” White says from his Nags Head office as he begins reminiscing about the stories he has heard over the years about steamboats coming into the town through Milltail Creek with gambling machines and dancing girls. “The town even looked like the Wild, Wild west,” he said.

Three different companies operated timber and mill operations in Buffalo City at separate times. Buffalo City Mills operated the first 18 years; Later, Dare Lumber for 11 years and finally, the Duvall Brothers for 20 years. Photo courtesy Stan White.

Buffalo City, the largest town in Dare County (in the early 1900s) was bustling with 3,000 residents, many Russian immigrants. Dirt roads weaved through town, past a hotel, a general store, post office, homes and some 100 miles of railroad tracks. Large barges would come down Milltail Creek to collect the lumber and later moonshine.

In fact, the story of Buffalo City is so compelling that the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center on Roanoke Island has dedicated an elaborate display and theater to ensure Buffalo City history is not forgotten. Named after the Buffalo Timber Company in New York, Buffalo City was built up around a logging industry that reaped the benefits of the plentiful cypress and juniper trees in the region.

As the story goes, once the logging resources dwindled and Prohibition laws were passed, the distilleries emerged, and if legend is true, a number of buildings in the Town of Manteo that still stand today have been constructed with moonshine money, White said. “The residents needed to make some money in a hurry after logging ended.”

With the logging industry faltering in town and their nets and boats from their fishing and trapping days rotted out, the residents turned Buffalo City into what is often referred to locally as “The Moonshine Capital.”

The waterways were used for commerce in both directions. Boats left Buffalo City full of lumber and would return from Elizabeth City with sugar for more moonshine and 300-pound blocks of ice for refrigeration. Photo courtesy Stan White.

It’s no secret that Buffalo City residents knew how to make whiskey and they did it well. A fascinating business in and of itself, the East Lake moonshine was hands down considered some of the best around. In fact, it was even well-known in Europe and particularly sought after in areas around London. It was often shipped to speakeasies in New York and Chicago. Using rye, a grain instead of corn, imbued the brew with desirable dryness and spicy undertones when compared with corn-based bourbons.

“Buffalo City was definitely a shaggy, frontier town,” local historian Wayne Gray said in an interview on OBXTV’s My Heart Will Always be in Carolina. “People looked out for one another.” The residents would send scouts out to look for revenuers in an effort to warn each other of possible infiltration. And they needed to, considering just about every family in Buffalo City operated a still. If it was busted by revenuers, families would build just 100 feet away in the woods of the original ones. “That way,” White says, “when revenuers would come looking, they would just assume they had already busted the one they were called about.”

Large earthenware jugs, or “Jimmy Johns” full of moonshine were strung along trot lines and floated behind boats to reach their destination.

The moonshine was sometimes transported from Buffalo City by mules and rails, but primarily, they utilized the same boats and waterways used by the legitimate logging industry. One boat, called the Hattie Creef, would sail down Milltail Creek and across the Albemarle Sound to Elizabeth City where the moonshine was sold. It would return to Buffalo City with sugar to supply the moonshine operation. From Buffalo City, boats would drag the bottles of moonshine in five-gallon jugs called “jimmy johns” on trotlines which were long lines with hooks at regular intervals. The jugs would make their way through Milltail Creek and into the Albemarle Sound to Elizabeth City, where it could be exported. When the revenuers arrived from the north, bootleggers transporting moonshine would cut the ropes from the boats so the jugs would sink. Later, they’d return to recover the sunken bottles.

“It’s just the way they scraped their living,” said White.

Deputy Sheriff Clarence Hassell, Manteo Police Chief Chester Mitchell, and Sheriff Frank Cahoon with the remains of a moonshine still found in Kitty Hawk Woods, ca. early 1960s. Photo courtesy Outer Banks History Center, from Aycock Brown’s Collection.

Buffalo City was no doubt the perfect setting for such a business. In the middle of the wilderness, it was hard to get to by northern revenuers.

“They would be at a severe disadvantage if they came by water,”

Gray explained during the television interview. With close-knit families, many would post scouts who would look out for the revenuers. “The moonshine was made so carefully and it was so pure,” he continued, “It was an extremely popular moonshine.

Many northern menus would tout the “East Lake Pure Whiskey Moonshine.” Once Prohibition was lifted, Buffalo City’s sawmills continued for some time but eventually died out and closed down in the 1950s. When the sawmills went,, the town went too.

But later this summer, the county’s rich moonshining history will come full circle with Outer Banks Distilling. The distillery will begin with the production of Kill Devil Rum, Newsome explains. Legend has it that local rum was first called Kill Devil because it was strong enough to kill the devil. “It was believed that its higher proof warded off evil spirits and disease.” Plus, all the good explorers from Europe (and pirates) knew that adding at least a few drops of rum to water made it much safer to drink.

Newsome said Kill Devil Rum will be the distillery’s primary focus at first. “We may make some moonshine in honor of Buffalo City down the line, but now we are going to concentrate on the crystal [clear] rum.” Outer Banks Distilling owners also hope to hit the market with a rum that includes North Carolina pecans and honey and a seasonally-spiced rum in time for Christmas. Rum lovers can also expect to get aged rum from the distillery in the future which will be made in bourbon barrels.

While the product can be ordered by other ABC stores in the state, “We are going to take care of the Outer Banks first and foremost.” (See Nags Head’s new ABC store and distribution center)

The crystal rum comes by many names…light, white, silver. But, Newsome says, it looks an awful lot like moonshine.
Live on, Buffalo City…. ■

Author: Michelle Wagner

Michelle Wagner has been living and writing on the Outer Banks for over 15 years.