Fleenor and Phillips Arrested When Found Asleep by 300-Gallon Still, Sept. 16, 1925

Man-Handled Near Summit While Asleep by Officers

The Watauga Democrat last week says the deputy sheriff who keeps the county jail “is being congratulated this morning on every hand for his action last night when he and his assistants found a 300-gallon steam still running full capacity—a wash tub being used to catch the hootch as it ran from the still, and two men, Will Fleenor of Summit, Wilkes county, near which place the thing occurred, and one Phillips of Wilkes County also peacefully sleeping nearby.

The interesting part of the story lies in the fact that the officers were not out on a raid of this kind. Information brought out by Mr. Ed Stears, manager of the Watauga Café at Blowing Rock, in whose establishment a quantity of whiskey was found not long since, and who is arraigned before this court, led the officers to seek Fleenor on a charge of retailing at Blowing Rock this summer. It was in an attempt to locate him for appearance in connection with the Stearns case that he and Phillips were found in the act of making liquor.

Everything was “setting pretty” when Officer Gross arrived. The deadly work was being done while the offenders slept, weary perhaps from long nights of vigilance. The distillery was of a size never before captured by Watauga officers, its output immense, and a large-sized wash tub was the least thing the moonshiners could risk in which to catch the fluid as it ran from the condenser, and as they peacefully reposed. Some thousands of gallons of beer sat near. Mr. Gross waited and looked no doubt for a moment, at the willfulness with which the laws were being violated, State and Nation, and flashed his electric torch into the sleepers’ faces, but they did not awake, and when they did awake they were being man-handled by the efficient arm of the law.

The outfit was dismantled, and Phillips (now in Wilkes jail) handed over to a Wilkes officer while Fleenor spent the remainder of the night in the Boone jail to answer local charges.

He will be used materially in the Stearns case, when it comes before court, and will then be arraigned jointly with Phillips before the next Wilkes tribunal, when they will face an “open and shut” charge of manufacturing intoxicating beverages.

From the front page of The North Wilkesboro Hustler, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 1925

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