Ironically, many of the old-time whisky runners later went on to become professional race car drivers.
Demand for quality moonshine soared and Harris Lee's suppliers couldn't keep up with it, so he began running his own stills.
"Making moonshine isn't complicated but it requires a definite process. First, you have to pick out a location and then have the still built. It has to be close to a good water supply and you have to have a road or a trail to get to it. One of the most critical parts was the sugar. Large amounts of sugar were required and the revenuers kept an eye on anyone buying 100-pound bags. I used to buy it out of Atlanta by the ton and have it delivered. You had to have good still hands, people who knew what they were doing and would keep their mouths shut. You also had to have drivers to transport it and stash houses to store it in."
"At first I shipped the liquor in 5-gallon G.I. cans but later used gallon jugs I bought from Coca Cola companies. The syrup used to make Coca Cola came in the jugs and the business owners were happy to make an additional profit by selling the empty containers."
But after making the whiskey he had to get rid of it. Harris Lee did this by using the same techniques as General Motors - liberal credit terms, incentives, and friendly persuasion. As more customers signed on, Parcus kept increasing his production. One still alone, located on Skyline Mountain, was turning out 2,200 gallons every five days, but it still wasn't enough. Often times he had to send his drivers into Tennessee or Mississippi to buy an additional 500 gallons just to keep his customers supplied.
"Parcus was smart," said an old time deputy. "Whenever he had loads going into an area where he had not bought protection, he would hire some of the most beautiful women you ever saw. He would send them to a beauty shop, have their hair and nails done and buy them nice clothes. Then he would buy them new Lincolns or Cadillac's, have heavy duty springs installed, and put them in business. The law never suspected an elegant woman, driving a new car, of hauling moonshine."
Before long he was supplying almost every bootlegger in North Alabama and many in Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia.
It was about this time that Harris Lee acquired the name "Godfather." Almost everyone in Triana worked for him and, like the Godfather in the movies, he showed a paternal interest in his employees and the community. If someone was in trouble they went to see Parcus. If a family had nothing to eat, Parcus would make arrangements to take care of them. When there was a fight or feud he would order the offending parties to appear before him where he would render judgment. He often bought hundreds of pounds of ribs or catfish to distribute to the community.
And, like the Godfather in the movies, he demanded loyalty.
When Harris Lee got out of prison he hit the ground running. Within weeks he had his businesses going full blast again with more demand than he could supply. He also got involved in another business.
"At this time, there were dry counties all around us and Madison County was the only place in North Alabama where you could buy beer and a lot of my customers started asking if I could supply them. We had this store here in Triana where the beer would be delivered, then our drivers would take it on to the bootleggers. Even the smallest bootleggers ordered a hundred cases at a time." A relative of Parcus' remembers getting up in the middle of the night to help load the cars and trucks that were lined up waiting.
An F.B.I. report estimated that he sold 320,064 cases of beer in one nine-month period.
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