On June 6, 1903, after days of extremely heavy rain, an overnight torrential downpour sent the Pacolet River raging with rushing floodwaters through the mill towns of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Some reports have stated the water level rose to over 22 feet above the river’s flood stage, with the current moving more than 40 miles…
The Ghostly Legend of the Land’s End Light
The Land’s End Light is a famous ghostly legend from the Lowcountry of South Carolina on St. Helena Island. The yellowish orb appears on a 3-mile stretch of Land’s End Road, just a few miles past the Chapel of Ease. Some also refer to this road as one of the most haunted in the state,…
The 1975 Lumberton UFO Flap
Back in April 1975, a string of well-documented sightings sent UFO investigators scrambling across the country to Lumberton, North Carolina. Some estimates report that as many as 80 people, including 40 police officers, observed close encounters and unidentified flying object sightings over a week-long span. The incidents are known as the “Lumberton UFO flap,” and…
The Unexplained 1973 UFO Sighting over Myrtle Beach
During the summer of 1973, residents and people visiting the Grand Strand in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, were treated to one of the greatest mysteries in South Carolina history. Sometime in the early evening hours, onlookers began noticing lights in the sky over the Atlantic. At first, it appeared as a faint orange-red glow, but…
The Whang-Doodle of Western North Carolina
Most folks in western North Carolina know the creature as the whang-doodle, but some call it the king-doddle. The creature is said to come out after dark, typically hanging around barns and henhouses. The last one spotted was in McDowell County, almost fifty years ago, but the old stories still get passed down. “Way it…
The Civil War and Linville Caverns
Many people have stopped at Linville Caverns in Marion, North Carolina, through the years. The caverns were first discovered in 1822 by Henry E. Colton, but what many don’t know is their ties to the Civil War. When war broke out in April 1861, many deserters from both the Confederate and Union armies used it…
The Chapel of Ease
The Chapel of Ease was built around 1740 on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, in Beaufort County, to serve the island’s plantation community, but on November 4th, 1861, a messenger arrived with urgent news for Captain William Oliver Perry Fripp about the Union army approaching, during the Civil War, prompting locals to flee and abandon…
The first and only station in the United States operated by an all-Black crew of service members.
Richard Etheridge was the first in a long line of Black keepers of the U.S. Life-Saving Station at Pea Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He served during the Civil War and was appointed to his position in 1880. Etheridge hired local black men from the community to serve. They were trained as…
The Legendary Moonshiner- Popcorn Sutton
Marvin Popcorn Sutton was a mountain legend, plain and simple. Born and raised in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, he spent his days running the backroads between there and Cocke County, Tennessee, making moonshine the way his people always had. Popcorn wasn’t shy about what he did. He told his story in books and home videos,…
Dr. George Rogers Clark Todd – brother-in-law of Abraham Lincoln & Confederate Army surgeon
Dr. George Rogers Clark Todd was the brother-in-law of President Abraham Lincoln, but the two never agreed, with Todd once saying that Lincoln was “one of the greatest scoundrels unhung.” Todd had worked tirelessly around the clock to save lives for several days following the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, bandaging wounds, administering anesthesia, and…