I am one hundred percent in favor of increasing tourism in the Tug Valley. The Valley is economically prostrate as King Coal’s death rattles resound among the hills, and tourism could definitely be a great boon.
The leaders of the industry have gone to great lengths to preserve and, in some cases, to amplify their “feud story” in the interest of increasing the draw to outlanders. We saw just last year a new “historical marker” erected which magically transformed the career criminal Frank Phillips into a lover of law and order.
I think that was a mistake, and said so publicly. At the same time Kentucky was whitewashing Bad Frank, Comanche, Texas was in the process of getting a movie filmed there depicting the life of one of Comanche’s former residents, John Wesley Hardin.
Hardin, like Bad Frank, is famous only because he is said to have murdered several men in cold blood. Americans are drawn to “Bad Men,” as scores of successful movies about such characters as Jesse James, John Dillinger and the aforementioned Hardin attest. Therefore, I am convinced that Pike County would greatly increase tourism by depicting Bad Frank as he really was. They could have at least a dozen markers recognizing places where Bad Frank committed his crimes.
With the sanitized Frank now cast in metal under the seal of the Commonwealth, that opportunity is gone. But not all is lost; we still have Charles Manson.
Charlie Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1934; his mother had left home after being impregnated by one Colonel Walker Scott. The parentage was determined in a 1937 lawsuit brought by his mother against Scott.
Colonel Walker Scott was a great grandson of Peter Cline and Elizabeth McCoy. Peter Cline was a brother to Perry Cline, and a son of Rich Jake Cline. Elizabeth McCoy was the daughter of John McCoy, who was the son of Old William McCoy. http://www.wargs.com/other/manson.html
As the genealogy shows, Manson can also be claimed by all of Pike County’s McCoys, Clines, Maynards, Fullers, Lowes, Jacksons, Deskinses and Runyons. I personally share a great, geat, great grandfather with Charlie– Adron Runyon.
The direct connection to the Cline family is icing on the cake.
Charlie Manson has a direct link to the feud story. According to the industry’s best-selling author, Dean King, Charlie’s Great Great Grandfather, Hense Scott, was once shot by the Hatfields. (p. 125)
Johnse and Cap Hatfield, along with five more West Virginia marksmen, set up and ambush for Ran’l McCoy. Positioned only thirty feet off the road, the Hatfield gang mistook Hense for Ran’l McCoy, and loosed a fusillade from their Winchesters. Although they could shoot a squirrel out to the tallest tree with a .22 rifle, all the Hatfields managed from their thirty- foot barrage was to wound Charlie’s ancestor in the shoulder.
Manson’s Scott (half McCoy) ancestor shares something with all the other people who were shot at in the feud yarns during the years 1883-1887, when no one was really shot at; he was only wounded. Whenever the Hatfields shot at someone in an incident that is supported by the historical record, the result was fatal in every case except the one of Ran’l McCoy during the house-burning raid.
It’s all there. Now all that remains to be done is for the tourism people to pick up the ball! The feud tours could point out all the homes of all the direct ancestors of the California cultists, with the Beatles “Helter Skelter” playing in the background.
The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the tourism people.