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Title details for Death in Briar Bottom by Timothy Silver - Available

Death in Briar Bottom

The True Story of Hippies, Mountain Lawmen, and the Search for Justice in the Early 1970s

by Timothy Silver
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On July 3, 1972, twenty-four hippies from Clearwater, Florida, set up tents and settled in for the night at Briar Bottom, a public US Forest Service campground in western North Carolina. The impromptu campout was a pit stop for the group on their way to a Rolling Stones concert in Charlotte. Early that evening, they drank beer, smoked marijuana, and listened to rock music as they anticipated the good times that lay ahead. Near midnight, the county sheriff showed up with six deputies, allegedly responding to a noise complaint. They were armed with pistols and five sawed-off 12-gauge shotguns, one of which discharged, killing a young man named Stanley Altland. To this day, no one has been held responsible for the tragic incident, though it happened in front of over a dozen eyewitnesses.
Timothy Silver writes the true story of Altland's death and its aftermath, using archival research, interviews with surviving Clearwater campers, and newly unearthed FBI files. A mix of true crime, southern history, and personal storytelling, this book shows how, in the dark of night at a remote mountain campsite, the killing of an innocent man epitomized the suspicion of young people and violence toward the counterculture that gripped the nation in the early 1970s.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 11, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781469682877

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781469682877
      • File size: 6106 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      October 1, 2024

      In 1972, a group of teens and twentysomethings from Clearwater, FL, traveled to the mountains of North Carolina to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Anticipating a laid-back camping experience, the group settled down for the night in the Briar Bottom campground. A local sheriff and his crew arrived, purportedly intending to disrupt a "hippie gathering" that was reportedly getting out of hand. By the time dawn broke, one man was dead, and no one could agree on what happened or even why. Back then, Silver (emeritus, history, Appalachian State Univ.; coauthor, An Environmental History of the Civil War) was a high schooler who was irked because his parents wouldn't let him attend the concert. In this book, he takes readers back to that time in the U.S., noting both similarities and differences to the country today. Thoroughly researched with more than 20 pages of citations, this book shines the spotlight on some small-town police interactions with people they perceive as threats to their area's way of life. VERDICT An intriguing perspective on a lesser-known case. This book proves that history can repeat itself in unexpected ways, and not everyone is eager to revisit the past.--Jennifer Moore

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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