Secrets in the Woods: Moonshine Still, Plantation Farm Ruins, and the Rock Mound Mystery

What started as a simple investigation turned into one of the wildest “history the woods try to keep secret” journeys we have ever filmed.

We were invited into the woods of an undisclosed location in west central Georgia to take a closer look at a site flagged by an archaeologist as possible Native American activity. Rock piles on a hillside - a question that needed a second set of eyes. Were these traces of Native history, or something left behind by later farming?

Not long into the search, the woods changed the story. Hidden down in the creek bottoms, we discovered the remains of a long abandoned moonshine still site. Rusted metal, scattered evidence, and the kind of place you would walk right past if you did not know what to look for. From there, the rabbit hole got deeper.

To help tell the story the right way, this episode includes historic photos and “voices from the past” through two interviews sourced from the Library of Congress: Johnny Stokes (1977 South-Central Georgia Folklife Project) and John Bowman (1993 Coal River Folklife Collection). Their firsthand words bring the moonshine era to life in a way no modern explanation ever can.

During all of this, we push into a second tract of land, once part of a major plantation landscape, where the woods still hold the fingerprints of cotton farming. Along a hillside, the ground rises in massive terrace “steps,” almost like stairs for giants. Those terraces become our key to the original mystery, because they help explain what people did to this land, what they moved, and what they left behind. And out there, we find even more: another moonshine site, this one marked by a pile of old mason jars and a dug out spot by the creek where a still once sat.

By the end, we follow the evidence where it leads. After comparing the rock piles to the surrounding farm terraces and old field patterns, I believe the rock piles are more consistent with European style farming and field clearing than Native American origin. But the bigger story is what the land reveals when you slow down and listen.

Audio interviews and historic images used under fair use. Interviews sourced from the Library of Congress with no known restrictions (Johnny Stokes, 1977; John Bowman, 1993). Additional historic photos sourced from the Library of Congress and other archives believed to be usable under fair use.