Growing up in East Tennessee, there was local stories of Johnson City as Little Chicago”.
The area could have been rest stop between Chicago and Miami during the Prohibition.
But, looking at this map, it shows how the Southern Appalachian mountains made it logistically difficult.
The reputation probably came out of moonshiners in the hollers operating as wholesalers.
A couple strangers who go up on Rocky Top, they don’t always come back down.
