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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
A bizarre tale of muskets, cross-dressing and marsupial hoisting in the Southern town once accused of hiding notorious fugitive Eric Rudolph.
Feb 14, 2002 | Seven years ago, Clay Logan, owner of Clay's Corner, the general store in Brasstown, N.C., counted all the possums killed on nearby roads. A few friends helped with the count, did some mysterious math and came up with a figure that would surpass any possible competing estimate. The town's title was born: Possum capital of the South.
For most North Carolinians to get to Brasstown, they must drive to the western end of the state, take a left and go along State Road 64. They will pass a brick millhouse being consumed by kudzu, a few horse farms and a thrift store, where proprietors discourage shoplifting with framed Bible verses: "For the ways of man are before/ the eyes of the Lord/ And he pondereth all his goings." Even then, they must continue beyond the illuminated advertisement for ammo standing out front of the local BP, and follow signs to the Brasstown Speedway where, during warm nights, stock car engines scream and echo off the surrounding mountains.
Arriving in Brasstown, then, they will notice the buildings lining Cherokee Creek -- a post office, a folk art gallery and Clay's Corner, a one-story white wooden building, with windows and a bench lining the front. Two gasoline pumps, under a metal canopy, stand between the store and road.
In addition to offering gasoline, groceries and auto parts, Clay's Corner gives Brasstown residents almost all the services they need: They can rent videos, weigh killed or captured game, hear bluegrass on Friday nights and celebrate civic events.
Clay's store also hosts the biggest New Year's Eve party in the region. Brasstown's population of 240 doubles when residents and guests celebrate the only way a possum capital knows how. The celebrations began at 10:30 a.m. this past Dec. 31, when a few men gathered behind a white trailer parked out front of Clay's. One, wearing a camouflage jacket, stuck his thumbs in his jean pockets and snickered while the others lit a neon-pink firework. It fired up and over Cherokee Creek, away from the gas pumps, and resounded into the surrounding farmland. "We just wanted to make sure they would work," Logan said, as he walked toward the store.
Half of one wall at Clay's is dedicated to opossum merchandise -- shirts, postcards, canned meat, videos of opossum hunts and bottled water. It sells briskly. The most popular items are those that hint at the evening's culminating event, in which Brasstown residents lower a caged marsupial from the store's gas station canopy.
As Logan discussed the history of Brasstown's obsession with opossums, some Brasstown regulars stopped by: Charlene Thomas dropped off some cheddar sausage balls; Sheriff's Deputy Melvin Cantrell came by to pick up his costume; Bill Timpton, a local log-home builder and dairy farmer, stopped by to see if Clay needed some help setting up the stage.
Although it was a busy afternoon, Timpton said, most of these folks congregate at the store every day. They come in for coffee around 8, and then around noon they drop in for lunch and messages. "We use Judy as our secretary," he said of Judy Logan, Clay's wife. "She takes all the calls during the day and we come in during the afternoon to see if somebody's called and needs us when we're out working."
Brasstown made headlines for reasons other than opossums about three years ago when national media accused the town, and the region, of hiding Eric Rudolph, a prime suspect in the bombings of the 1996 Olympics and of abortion clinics in Atlanta. The neighboring community of Andrews was Rudolph's last known place of residence. His abandoned truck was found about three miles away from Clay's Corner, on Martin's Creek Road.
Cantrell, who stopped in the store Dec. 31, continues to work with the FBI search. He said the most intense portion of the investigation -- about three years ago -- revealed a disconnect between the federal organization and the small community.
"The FBI did not fit in well at all," he said. "They came here and really didn't get cooperation from the local people. They came in and tried to strong-arm people."
Their presence and tactics weren't even necessary, Cantrell says -- Rudolph could have been under arrest. "All they [the FBI] had to do was call Jack Thompson, who was sheriff of Cherokee County, and tell him where Rudolph was, what he did, and Jack would have been waiting on him."
Instead, Cantrell said, the FBI alerted the national media, which prompted Rudolph to flee. The suspect left his house so quickly that police found the lights on and the door wide open.
Logan says the FBI's presence had one good effect: Brasstown's economy soared with the long-term visitors. "Our economy was really a-booming," he said. "The restaurants stayed open late. The motel business was good." He then laughed and said, "We're thinking about resurfacing him to get the economy back up."
