Nestled between the Blue Ridge and the Piedmont and sitting halfway between Roanoke and Martinsville, Rocky Mount claims its unique dual identities beautifully.
Courtesy Town of Rocky Mount
Sitting across from the Harvester, Rocky Mount’s LOVE sign tells the region’s story simply and beautifully.
Saturday morning at Rocky Mount’s Citizen Square, the Farmers Market is buzzing. Flowers and herbs and vegetables and fruit. Jams and jellies and honey and spices. Jewelry and toys and totes. The farmers can tell you how to make their chrysanthemum plants bloom again next summer, and which tomatoes are best for canning. The Old German Baptist Brethren orchardists can tell you which of their minimally treated apples will last through a basement winter, and their fall greens and pumpkins stretch in long rows.
And across the front entrance of the Market is Rocky Mount’s LOVE sign, striking in its simplicity and symbolic storyline:
Joan Vannorsdall
Murals are everywhere in downtown Rocky Mount, with mountains the uniting feature.
L: copper and silver moonshine still lines
O: a massive farm tractor tire
V: a guitar angled behind a red Harvester sign
E: railroad ties, complete with spikes
Spend a couple days in this town of just under 5,000 residents, and it’s clear they’ve got that sign down pat.
Rocky Mount is the seat of Franklin County, known by most everyone as The Moonshine Capital of the World. Yes…the world. The history of Franklin County’s moonshine production is book-length and novel-fascinating. Suffice it to say that well before Prohibition and long after its repeal, folks in Franklin County were growing corn and using it to distill liquor. Novelist Sherwood Anderson put it this way in the November 2, 1935 issue of Liberty magazine:
The extreme wet spot, per number of people, isn’t New York or Chicago. By the undisputed evidence given at a recent trial in the United States Court at Roanoke Virginia, the spot that fairly dripped illicit liquor, and kept right on dripping it after Prohibition ended, is in the mountain country of southwestern Virginia—in Franklin County, Virginia.
In fact, a much-quoted statistic (likely central to the Moonshine Capital label) is that during Prohibition, 99 of every 100 residents in Franklin County played a part in the moonshine trade.
Moonshine also makes up part of the extensive heritage archives at the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum, in Ferrum, just 10 miles from Rocky Mount. Learn more about the exhibits at this official State Center for Blue Ridge Folklife—including the largest moonshine collection in the world—at blueridgeinstitute.org.
Cloud Bobby Photography
The Harvester Performance Center in downtown Rocky Mount is a major concert venue in southwest Virginia.
And then there’s the Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935—said to be the second-longest trial in Virginia history—which involved indictments of 34 alleged bootleggers, 21 of whom went to prison.
One of those was James Walter “Peg” Hatcher. Who, when he was released from prison, came home and took up the fiddle. “My great-great grandpap, when he got out of federal prison, he took up old-time fiddling. They recorded him for the Library of Congress,” Anna Prillaman says.
We’re standing in the Harvester Performance Center, and it’s Homegrown Music night. Anna’s father, Chris Prillaman, is onstage with the Twin Creeks Stringband—and he’s playing Peg Hatcher’s fiddle. Anna and her infant son are flatfooting with dozens of other dancers up front. It’s a beautiful thing to see, and I’m pretty sure that Peg Hatcher must be looking down from above, feeling mighty proud of his family.
The Prillamans also inherited Peg’s moonshine talents. Their Twin Creeks Brewery on Franklin Street produces moonshine, whiskey and brandy on-site, and old-time music is often part of the experience.
Which is another major piece in Rocky Mount’s regional draw. The town is the eastern gateway of the storied Crooked Road, Virginia’s 330-mile heritage music trail. And with the Harvester Performance Center hosting multiple concerts most weeks, music lovers are regular Rocky Mount visitors.
On a Saturday night, music is all over Rocky Mount. At the Alley Cat and Old Town Social House (where the Moonshine Explosion Museum tells an incredible story in the basement). At the Living Proof Beer Company and Anastasia’s Speakeasy and the Rocky Mount Burger Company. And, they say, some nights at the Dairy Queen.
Courtesy Twin Creeks String Band
The renowned Twin Creeks Stringband plays old-time music, and features moonshiner Peg Hatcher’s fiddle played by his great-grandson, Chris Prillaman (second from right).
It’s a busy place, Rocky Mount, and the Town’s creative strategizing that brought the Harvester downtown 10 years ago has resulted in 11 restaurants within town limits and 15 more just beyond. Walk down Franklin Street through the center of Rocky Mount, and you’ll find everything from the functional (Angle Hardware store, which opened in 1887) to the funky (Old’s Cool, a record and vintage toys shop whose posted hours are “Weds – Sat, 12ish to 6ish.”)
It’s a joy to walk Rocky Mount, which has seven parks, all but one of them sidewalk-connected. “We’ve got twice the national average of parkland per population,” Assistant Town Manager Mark Moore says. “Placemaking is important.”
Cultural and Economic Development Director Daniel Pinard has his eye set forward: “What I envision here is a community that’s appreciated from the outside and also appreciated by the locals. If we’re telling our stories well, we’ll be appreciated from both outside and inside.”
Rocky Mount could easily have become a neither-nor kind of place, as tobacco farms waned and factories closed or changed hands. But this is a town with creative and connected leadership, determined volunteers and a story to tell. Concerts and street festivals and moonshine and music…Rocky Mount has a lot to share.
'Raising the Shade' in Franklin County
According to military records, 70 African Americans (United States Colored Troops) from Franklin County, Virginia, registered to fight in the Civil War. And by the end of 2025, there will be a new monument erected in their memory, and to honor the work they did before, during and after the Civil War. A grant from Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia (MAAV) has provided funding to the Franklin County NAACP to tell the story of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). Additional funding was provided for community outreach and conversation about the stories of African Americans in the Franklin County/Southwest Virginia region.
Joan Vannorsdall
The Mountain Spirit Trail is in the works across Franklin, Patrick and Floyd counties in southwest Virginia. And a nonprofit group in Rocky Mount is determined to create a full understanding of the region’s moonshine heritage. The Moonshine Capital Heritage Foundation is developing “a visitor center for all things moonshine” at their building at 20 Warren Street. “Visitors often inquire about where to learn about the cultural heritage of moonshine, but we have no place to send them,” says Robin Altice, owner of the Claiborne Bed and Breakfast. “We hope our group can help share the heritage and culture of the moonshine craft in Franklin County.” Check out their Facebook page for more information.
The story above first appeared in our January / February 2025 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!