Hopkinsville – Black Patch Tobacco War
My grandparents were Kentucky farmers. They raised Black Angus cattle, hogs, and grew burley tobacco, just like thousands of others across the Commonwealth.
You’ll still find burley growing in most regions statewide year after year, but there’s another variety of tobacco grown in Kentucky that is common only in the western part of the state. It’s called dark tobacco.
Burley vs. dark tobacco
While burley is a light tobacco leaf commonly used in cigarettes, dark tobacco is commonly used in pipe blends. It can be air cured or “fire cured,” meaning the leaf is hung in curing barns over hardwood fires to give it a desired smoky flavor.
One site that I found describes the scent of this type of dark tobacco as a “thick, tomato-based BBQ sauce.”
But don’t let the difference in varieties fool you: both burley and dark tobacco are Kentucky tobacco, which is as much a part of the history of this commonwealth as thoroughbred horses and whiskey. Setting tobacco from the back of a tractor in a dusty field is kind of a rite of passage for many rural Kentucky families , even if the level of tobacco production in the state has changed over time. (A national tobacco settlement in the late 1990s and federal buyout in 2005 significantly altered the tobacco landscape in Kentucky. )
The truth is that Kentucky is still a leader in tobacco in the U.S. And one of the largest tobacco producers in the state is Christian County.
Located in a west Kentucky region known as the “Black Patch” for of its production of dark-leaf tobacco, Christian County has a long tobacco history, some of which reminds us that everything comes at a price – and, sometimes, with a valuable lesson.
Christian County’s tobacco history
Tobacco barns are not hard to find in Christian County. There were around 130 farms growing tobacco in the county in the last census, some producing burley, dark air-cured, and dark fire-cured leaf. The crop is important here.
But this is 2020, when tobacco production is a growing worldwide market with China at the helm. Many Kentucky farmers who grow tobacco today don’t use it as a primary source of income as they did generations ago. A much heavier reliance on tobacco in the early 20th century caused some Kentuckians to go to great lengths to protect their tobacco income.
The Black Patch Tobacco War
Price in the U.S. is affected by competition. More competition usually means better prices for producers. Less competition can stagnate prices. In 1890, competitive pricing in the dark tobacco industry took a giant hit that affected thousands of growers, including farmers here in Kentucky.
The trouble began after the nation’s largest tobacco companies consolidated into one company called the ATC, or the American Tobacco Company. This gave the ATC 90 percent of the tobacco market and placed a stranglehold on prices paid to growers.
Farmers in the Black Patch responded by forming the Dark Tobacco District Planters’ Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee in 1904. Known commonly as “the Association,” the group refused to sell to the ATC with hopes of driving up prices. Farmers were encouraged to join the Association, with hold-outs referred to by Association members as “Hillbillies.”
The Association resolved to peacefully convince farmers and tobacco buyers on the Hillbillies side to join their group. But the situation escalated.
By 1906, vigilantes called the Night Riders were determined to see the Association came out on top — by any means necessary.
The Night Riders
I visited the Black Patch Tobacco War exhibit at The Pennyroyal Museum in Hopkinsville this month to learn more about this period in Kentucky history. Copies of news articles, firearm types, and even pieces of clothing used by the vigilantes to terrify their victims (dark masks with red stitching around the mouth, nose, and eyes) are on display.
Raids by the vigilantes left warehouses, homes, and other buildings in ruins. Others took lives. A 1908 Night Riders raid in a former west Kentucky town called Birmingham, Ky. resulted in the shooting deaths of two Black residents. Atrocities were reported in news headlines regularly during the decade.
Several Night Riders raids throughout west Kentucky are marked on a timeline at the center of the Hopkinsville exhibit, with one costly raid taking place on Dec. 7, 1907 in Hopkinsville itself. The timeline reads:
“December 7 Raid on Hopkinsville. 250 masked and armed Night Riders ride down 9th Street and take control of the city. The Latham Warehouse and Tandy and Fairleigh warehouse are burned. Several residences and an Association warehouse are burned when the fire gets out of control.”
The Night Riders would be forced to stop their raids in 1908, the same year the federal government filed a lawsuit against the ATC. That lawsuit resulted in a 1911 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that broke the ATC monopoly and created separate major tobacco companies.
Plenty of books about the Black Patch Tobacco War exist, along with one or two documentaries. But to see the history displayed in person, in Hopkinsville where some of these events in our state’s history happened, makes a lasting impression.
Hard-core fans of Kentucky tobacco history should check out the Tobacco War Pilgrimage, an event organized in past years by the Hopkinsville Christian County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville Christian County. There’s a Facebook page dedicated to the event, or you could contact the Pennyroyal Area Museum for future dates.
A Night Riders Tobacco Raid Re-enactment that followed the fateful 1907 Night Riders raid on Hopkinsville and was part of the pilgrimage was discontinued a few years ago. Other activities have since been put in place to expand on the story of the Night Riders.
Still curious?
The Black Patch Tobacco War exhibit at the Pennyroyal Area Museum can be experienced at the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville Christian County. The museum is located at 217 E. 9th Street in Hopkinsville and is open to visitors Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT.
Stay tuned here at un-Tucked for more West Kentucky history next week.
