Places Often Named After Moonshine

There’s a place up in Tazewell County called Busthead.
That name, alone, makes people laugh.
But it’s the story of how that name got to be on the map that’s given me a good story to tell, time and time again.
As it goes, some guys had a moonshine still. And drinking that moonshine it’s said would “make your head bust” or “bust your head wide open.”
Across the Appalachians, such moonshine madness, still, is not relegated strictly to Southwest Virginia.
A similar story actually runs along the Tennessee-Virginia border at a place called “Boozy Creek.”
This neighborhood straddles the Sullivan-Scott county line, though not all spellings of the place agree. To some, it’s known as “Boozie Creek.”
Either way, a story says moonshiners would get scared as federal agents approached them.
And to destroy evidence, these moonshiners would topple over their liquid containers.
Now, old-timers say that’s how the creek became “Boozy.”
Further west in Lee County, you might find a similar story at a place called called Sugar Run, a scenic valley lying about halfway between Ben Hur and Jonesville. Some say this place’s sweet name comes from men running with bags of sugar, used to make moonshine.
Sounds plausible.
But consider the nearby Sugar Hill Loop Trail: This little place in St. Paul got its name not from moonshine but from a 1930s-era maple syrup operation.
Likewise, Smyth County’s Sugar Grove takes its name from sugar maples.
So wait – maybe there’s something more than moonshine at Sugar Run. Or, at least, all these other name origins have made me believe in a conflicting story: the one that has nothing to do with booze.
Long ago, there was this girl who has madly in love with a boy in the valley. And yet, the story goes, that boy just did not pass the acceptance of the girl’s father.
One day, the daddy came home and found the couple together.
The older man pulled out a shotgun.
And then, right at the edge of a showdown, the daughter looked at her lover – and, at that point, gave the tiny valley its name.
Loud as she could, that girl hollered, “Run, Sugar, Run!”