Bootleggers comprise the second half of the illegal alcoholic beverage trade. Bootleggers, unlike moonshiners, don't manufacture alcohol but transport or sell it. Bootleggers have plied their trade since colonial times, and the term "bootlegger" came about from the period when the bootleggers concealed their goods in the high tops of riding boots that were the style of the time.
Starting in the latter 1920's, bootleggers began using motor vehicles to haul their wares. Most were quite good at building very fast cars which they used to try to outrun law enforcement officers who tried to stop them. Building fast cars and the driving skills they learned from hauling bootleg whiskey through the Carolinas led to the founding of the multi-million dollar NASCAR racing empire.
Bootleggers can generally be divided into two types: the ones that transport or sell moonshine and the ones that sell only bonded (legally produced) alcohol in a dry area. Some bootleggers do both, but usually they stay on one side or the other of the legal line that determines the harshness of the penalty if caught. Just as making moonshine is a federal offense, so is selling or transporting it. Transporting moonshine subjects the bootlegger to a prison sentence and property seizures, where simply selling legally distilled liquor in a dry area is punishable by a local fine that most bootleggers consider to be a cost of doing business.
In fairly recent times, the closest place a person could legally buy alcoholic beverages was either at the numerous stores that lined Lake 'O the Pines or in Gladewater, Texas, or across the Oklahoma line to the north. It was a considerable drive from Titus County in any direction to a "watering hole" and consuming alcohol during the return trip led to many serious and fatality traffic accidents along the way.
Bootleggers were pleased to save thirsty locals the trip, for a fee. Bootleggers would drive to an area where alcohol was legally sold, load their vehicles with as much as they could carry, and bring it back into Titus County where they would sell it a bottle or can at a time for a profit. Bootleggers often rigged their vehicles specially to haul liquor. They would remove back seats to make more room and would use well-tuned vehicles with large engines that could give law enforcement officer a race to prevent having their illegal "inventory" seized.
It wasn't a weekly occurrence, but also wasn't that unusual, as late as the 1970's for local law enforcement officers to engage in long distance high speed car chases with bootleggers trying to make it home with their "inventory" or moonshine runners trying to deliver 'shine to customers. Most chases occurred late at night or very early in the morning before daylight hours. Several were very good drivers with very fast cars who knew every back road in the county very well. Chases could reach speeds considerably over 100 miles per hour on highways and well-paved farm roads.
Once home, bootleggers had ingenious ways of hiding their alcohol to keep it from being confiscated. Some buried most of their "stash" on or near their property; others hid it in specially-made concealed spaces in the walls and floors of their buildings. They also used various means to conceal the smaller amounts of liquor that they kept close at hand for quick sale. One local bootlegger shortened the length of the drawers in a chest of drawers and modified the back of the chest so it could be easily removed. If the drawers were slid out, they were still full of personal items like those in any other home. He built slotted shelves in the newly-made cavity between the back of the drawers and the back of the cabinet to hold bottles and filled the back of the cabinet with liquor. When a customer came by, he could quickly slide the back off the cabinet and recover a bottle of spirits to sell.
Both bootleggers who dealt in bonded whiskey and moonshiners who made it would sometimes be caught and have their "inventory" seized and have to pay fines, but most considered it a cost of doing business and quickly continued their business as if nothing had happened.
