Leak in Bootleg Corn Liquor Container Leads to Fatal Crash, Feb. 16, 1921

Lincolnton, Feb. 16—T.A. Yarborough of Columbia, S.C., was so badly injured in an automobile accident at Alexis near here last afternoon that he died about 7 o’clock, and his companion, a man named Alley, also from Columbia, is in jail here and probably will be charged with transporting liquor. The car in which the men were riding and 50 gallons of lqiuor contained in the car, are in the possession of the sheriff of Lincoln county; that is, what remains of the car after it had wiped up the earth with itself. When going at a 60-mile clip, it struck a rock and somersaulted on the county road.

A thrilling chase with the Columbia man in the lad, and Sheriff J.L. Abernethy of Lincoln county and deputies preceded the tragedy. Sometime before the fatal accident, Yarborough and Alley passed through Lincolnton. A farmer coming in behind them reported to the sheriff that they had whiskey. He had discovered the presence of the contraband because of a leak in one of the receptacles in which it was being hauled. Gradually oozing out, a few drops at a time, the fragrance had saturated the car, all unknown to the occupants, for , being saturated themselves, perhaps, they were unable to detect or rather to segregate the odor of the escaping thrill producer. All along the Lincoln county highway for miles out, the fragrance of pure corn liquor had haunted the olfactory organs of the producer of the grain in the rough. He was not tempted but he wondered, and the speeding car, a mile or so ahead, excited his curiosity after he had found that the corn liquor odor was not confined to one point of the highway but followed him all along the way. Being something of a sprinter himself, he speeded up his Ford and gradually decreased the distance between himself and the car in front. Suspicion increased to certainty when he came into close contact with the leading car.

From the Hickory Daily Record, Feb. 16, 1921