Appalachian History

Granny’d sing us her Christmas carol, “Brightest and Best”

Born in Viper, Kentucky, Jean Ritchie came from a family of musicians who have preserved folk traditions for generations.

They were started as a way to provide a less expensive (to the taxpayers) alternative to what we would now call “welfare.”

I told you if you got out & built roads & cards and did things like that on Sunday that’s what’d happen to you. The booger man would get you.

In the mid ’30s De Beck abandoned Spark Plug, subordinated Barney, and brought bodacious Hillbilly Snuffy Smith to the fore.

Comic strip artist Robert Ripley featured a tree rooted at both ends in Crossville, TN in his “Believe it or Not” panel of November 14, 1935.