Archaeologists have uncovered remnants of a 1920s sunlight that may have been part of the illegal operation of the famous gangster Al Capone.
Researchers at the University of Tennessee found barrels, ash blocks, a garden hose and other artifacts in the ‘Hell Hole Swamp’, outside Charleston, South Carolina.
The abandoned operation is said to have been led by Benjamin Villeponteaux, a famous bootlegger who smuggled drinks out of state by Capone.
Villeponteaux eventually died in a shooting, but experts believe rival bootlegs took over the operation for their own illegal business.
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Volunteers crossing the Hell Hole swamp in the low country of South Carolina discovered the remains of a moonlight that is still believed to be owned by one of Al Capone’s boatmen.
The objects were discovered in the Hell Hole Swamp, located within the Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina, Berkeley County, about 30 miles from Charleston.
Katherine Parker, a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has been investigating illicit distillation in the region since 2018.
Moonshine’s remains in South Carolina date back to the colonial era, Parker said in a 2018 report.
During the ban, Hell Hole Swamp hosted some of the most important operations in the country.
Researchers found barrels, ash blocks, a garden hose and other artifacts from a 1920s moon operation.
Due to the secretive nature of moonlight operations since the 1920s and the lack of interest from academics, few sites have been formally investigated or documented.
But due to the secretive nature of the work and the lack of interest on the part of academics, few places have been formally researched or documented.
“A lot of archaeologists tend to dismiss them because they think they’re, you know, too recent to really care about, or that there’s too much documentary evidence that we don’t need to do archeology,” Parker told The Post and Courier.
Parker has found distillery operations in the woods before.
In November, he led a team of volunteers to the forest, where they found seven more stills.
Last month they headed out to the Hell Hole Swamp and found a barrel and a metal hose, ash blocks and other debris.
Blocks of ash were often placed to keep the floor rigid so that the puree could be heated from below.
An architectural historian dated the ash blocks to the 1920s, according to their size and composition.
A 12-foot well was also discovered in the area that provided operation, along with sheets, charcoal and other signs of heating elements that were used to heat the puree inside the still.
Unlike most stills, this one was not located near a stream or other body of water, so Villeponteaux could have created the weel.
An architectural historian dated the ash blocks of the site to the 1920s, according to their size and composition.
During the ban, Berkeley County was infamous across the country as the cradle of illicit distillation: in 1929, pro-temperance Governor John Gardiner Richard declared the county “a painful pain in South Carolina.” .
Hell Hole Swamp was one of the largest suppliers of alcoholic beverages in Chicago in the Prohibition era, according to Charleston magazine, with Capone visiting the area in an elegant limousine to check on operations.
In 1930, the Charleston Daily Mail wrote that the swamp gave off “an aroma of spirits that stank all over the southeast.”
Archaeologists believe they discovered the remains of a moonlight that still belonged to Benjamin Villeponteaux, a famous executioner of Al Capone (pictured) in the 1920s and 1930s.
Volunteers found the remains still less than a mile from the site of Ben Villeponteaux’s home. Parker reported that banks were frequently located near an operator’s property, to protect the still from unintentional discovery. In the picture: barrels used in the moon operation
Corn whiskey would be taken from the swamp, loaded onto railroad cars, and shipped to the city in the wind.
Parker’s team found that artifacts were found less than a mile from the location of the home of Benjamin Villeponteaux, one of the largest in the country, which led her to believe the operation was hers.
Parker discovered in his research, that they were frequently close to the property of the operators, in order to protect the photographer from inadvertent discovery and the photographer additional charges.
The Villeponteaux clan was one of the few families in the region successful enough to pay the authorities to look the other way.
“These operators were made up of some of the oldest families in Berkeley County,” Parker wrote. They competed for control through networks controlled by Al Capone himself, and violent and frequent clashes between the two rivals led to the county nickname “Bloody Berkeley.”
Villeponteaux died in a shootout with the McKnight family, but Parker believes rival shooters probably continued to use his still after his death.
It is unclear how long this particular setting was used.
The ban was repealed in 1933, but high alcohol taxes in South Carolina kept employers on the moon for years afterward.
Although the ban was repealed in 1933, bootlegging continued in Lower County for years afterward. Pictured: Government officials next to still operating outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee
Parker says abandoned liquor stills are often confused with piles of garbage, but they have several features that stand out, including an oven or fireplace to heat it and rocks or blocks to support it.
There may also be broken stone or glass jars, nails, rivets, sheet metal fragments, rubber pipes or hoses, drums or barrel rings, buckets, and even worn clothing and ammunition.
Parker continues to comb the woods and hopes to find some personal belongings that belong to the winemakers, to get a clearer picture of who they were.
Local volunteers have also been sharing stories about family members who were spoilers, some of whom were slaves.
“They would say,‘ Yeah, you know, a lot of our ancestors did alcohol … they also did moonlight here, ’Parker told the newspaper.
“Much smaller operations than perhaps some of the white planter families that produced moonlighting, but they are also part of that culture.”