Chattanooga's Most Bizarre Bootlegging Story Began in a Coffin Factory

By the summer of 1915, Chattanooga had already learned two things about prohibition.

The first was that whiskey was harder to kill than lawmakers imagined.

The second was that a determined Southerner could hide liquor just about anywhere.

Still, nobody expected to find it in a coffin.

Tennessee had officially gone dry six years earlier, but Chattanooga carried on with the stubborn confidence of a city that had spent decades making, selling, shipping, and drinking whiskey. Freight trains rattled through the valley at all hours, riverboats worked the Tennessee River, and warehouses overflowed with goods moving across the South. Somewhere in that constant motion, liquor continued finding its way into thirsty hands despite what lawmakers in Nashville had written on paper.

That was the world Thomas C. Betterton lived in.

Betterton wasn't some obscure figure operating on the fringes of Chattanooga society. He was the city's Police Commissioner, a successful businessman, and part of a family whose manufacturing interests helped shape Chattanooga's industrial growth. Alongside his public role, he served as the active head of the Tennessee Coffin and Casket Company.

Chattanooga knew exactly who he was. His businesses employed local workers, his family name was tied to some of the city's growing industries, and his reputation had been built in full public view.

Which is why Chattanooga paid attention when his name appeared in the newspaper.

On September 3, 1915, readers unfolding the Hamilton County Herald were greeted by a story that must have seemed impossible to believe:

"Police Commissioner Betterton Charged With Shipping Whiskey Packed In Coffins From His Factory."

The accusation wasn't whispered across a barroom table or passed along as rumor. It appeared in print for the entire city to read.

And even the editors seemed uncomfortable publishing it.

"The gruesomeness of the subject," they wrote, citing its "near approach to sacrilege and the sacredness of the casket and shroud."

Later, they admitted they were "ashamed to discuss it."

The language reflected a community that found the allegation genuinely disturbing.

Chattanooga had heard bootlegging accusations before.

A coffin was different.

Families often cared for loved ones at home until burial. Funeral processions moved through neighborhoods where everybody knew the deceased. A casket represented one of the final acts of dignity a family could offer someone they loved.

The allegation transformed an ordinary whiskey scandal into something far stranger.

According to the Herald, reports had circulated for more than a year that whiskey was allegedly being packed into completed caskets before shipment. The newspaper claimed it possessed evidence supporting the accusations and described bottles supposedly concealed inside coffins manufactured by Betterton's company before being transported as ordinary freight.

Whether every allegation was true remains difficult to determine more than a century later.

What isn't difficult to determine is how Chattanooga reacted.

The Herald described the affair as becoming "the general theme for discussion in the community."

If the newspaper was to be believed, there weren't many conversations in Chattanooga that didn't eventually drift back to Betterton.

A barber might have paused mid-haircut to discuss the latest rumor. Railroad workers gathered around a newspaper during lunch breaks. Church members lingered outside after Sunday services, insisting they weren't gossiping while doing exactly that.

The accusations touched nearly every sensitive nerve in public life, blending politics, business, religion, money, death, and whiskey into a single scandal. Most importantly, they centered on a public official who was expected to enforce the law rather than appear in stories about breaking it.

What began as a sensational local accusation soon attracted federal attention.

In November 1915, a federal grand jury returned indictments connected to the alleged shipment of whiskey from the Tennessee Coffin and Casket Company. Betterton's name appeared among those charged, and news of the indictment spread well beyond Tennessee, appearing in newspapers from Georgia to New York.

Whether residents believed the allegations before, the federal indictment made them impossible to dismiss as mere rumor.

The timing only added fuel to the fire.

Tennessee had been dry for years, yet whiskey still seemed remarkably easy to find. Moonshiners worked the surrounding hills, bootleggers adapted faster than lawmakers could regulate them, and Chattanooga's rail network made the city an ideal place for almost anything to move from one place to another.

Every day, freight cars rolled out of Chattanooga loaded with lumber, machinery, livestock, textiles, and manufactured goods bound for destinations across the South. Most shipments attracted little attention, which was exactly what made railroad cities so valuable during prohibition.

As the years passed, Chattanooga accumulated more stories involving moonshiners, organized crime, federal agents, and famous gangsters. The Read House eventually became attached to tales involving Al Capone, who is believed to have stayed there while traveling through the region. Some stories remain well documented. Others have become harder to separate from decades of retelling.

The Betterton affair became one thread in Chattanooga's larger bootlegging mythology, surviving because it sits somewhere between documented history and local legend.

What's particularly fascinating is that the indictment didn't erase Betterton from Chattanooga's story. His reputation as a lawman suffered, but his business career continued. The Betterton family's manufacturing interests remained part of Chattanooga's economy, and he remained a recognizable figure long after the headlines faded.

More than a century later, Betterton's photograph still sits quietly in the Chattanooga Public Library archives. The Hamilton County Herald clipping survives too, preserving a story so bizarre that even the editors who printed it seemed uncomfortable putting the words on paper.

The federal indictment ensured the story would outlive the rumor. More than a century later, the full picture remains tangled somewhere between court records, newspaper headlines, and local memory.

The coffin factory is gone and prohibition has long since ended, yet the story remains.

Tucked away in library archives, folded into local memory, and waiting for the next curious Chattanoogan to stumble across it and ask the same question readers were probably asking in 1915:

Did that really happen here?

Fans came to see Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Instead, they left talking about a 17 year old girl.

In the spring of 1931, thousands packed Chattanooga’s Engel Stadium to watch the mighty New York Yankees take on the Chattanooga Lookouts in an exhibition game. Ruth and Gehrig were already among the most famous athletes in America, and nobody expected the biggest story of the afternoon to come from Chattanooga’s dugout.

That story was Virnie Beatrice “Jackie” Mitchell.

Born and raised in Chattanooga, Mitchell had been playing baseball for years before that famous afternoon at Engel Stadium. At just 17 years old, she had already earned a reputation for a fastball and sharp breaking ball, eventually catching the attention of the Chattanooga Lookouts.

The Yankees were originally scheduled to play on April 1, but rain pushed the exhibition game back a day. When Babe Ruth learned he would be facing a teenage girl on the mound, he reportedly dismissed the idea, telling reporters that women were too delicate to succeed in professional baseball.

The next afternoon, Mitchell got her chance to prove him wrong.

She wasn't even the starting pitcher.

After Lookouts starter Clyde "Foots" Barfoot gave up a double and a single in the first inning, manager Bert Niehoff called on Mitchell to take the mound.

The next two batters were Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

According to newspaper accounts, Ruth tipped his cap to the teenage pitcher as he stepped into the batter’s box, seemingly amused by the matchup.

The crowd laughed.

Nobody expected what happened next.

Then Mitchell threw her first pitch.

Ruth swung and missed.

He stepped back, adjusted himself, and dug in again. Mitchell delivered another pitch. Another miss.

Suddenly the crowd wasn't laughing anymore.

After taking a ball and even requesting a new baseball from the umpire, Ruth stepped back into the box. Mitchell fired again. Moments later, the umpire called strike three.

The Babe was headed back to the dugout.

The crowd erupted.

Then things got even crazier.

Up next was Lou Gehrig.

If anyone thought Ruth’s strikeout was a fluke, Gehrig was about to get his chance to prove it.

Instead, Gehrig swung and missed.

Then he walked back to the bench too.

Two batters.

Two strikeouts.

For a few unforgettable minutes in Chattanooga, a Chattanooga teenager had retired the most feared hitting duo in baseball history.

The next batter, Tony Lazzeri, worked a walk, and Mitchell’s afternoon was over almost as quickly as it had begun.

The applause reportedly lasted for several minutes.

Almost immediately, people began arguing about whether the moment was real. Chattanooga promoter Joe Engel was famous for turning baseball games into spectacles, and many suspected the strikeouts had been staged to generate headlines. Newspapers across the country picked up the story, and Jackie Mitchell became a national sensation overnight.

But the mystery never went away.

Both Ruth and Gehrig later insisted the strikeouts were legitimate. And there was little evidence to suggest either man was struggling at the plate. That same season, Ruth hit .373 with 46 home runs, while Gehrig batted .341 and also hit 46 home runs.

Nearly a century later, people still argue about whether it was a publicity stunt.

What nobody argues about is the box score.

On a spring day in Chattanooga, a 17 year old girl struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back.

Curious what Jackie Mitchell looked like? The Library of Congress has preserved a collection of photographs from her career, including images from her time with the Chattanooga Lookouts, that can still be viewed online today.

If you've looked outside lately, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Tennessee River should be overflowing.

It's not.

Despite days of rain across the Chattanooga area, the Tennessee River is currently sitting around 632.8 feet, with forecasts showing only a slight rise this week. For context, minor flood stage doesn't begin until 651.1 feet, putting the river nearly 18 feet below any flooding concerns.

The reason is surprisingly simple.

Before these recent storms, Tennessee was experiencing one of its most significant droughts in decades. Much of the rain has been absorbed by dry soil and thirsty vegetation instead of running directly into local waterways.

TVA says Chickamauga Lake remains about eight inches below normal for this time of year, and more rainfall will be needed before reservoir levels fully recover.

The good news? If you're planning to spend time on the water this summer, conditions remain normal. The river may be running a little lower than average, but it's still open for boating, fishing, paddling, and everything else that makes summer in Chattanooga feel like summer.

What's the most underrated restaurant in Chattanooga?

Not the place everyone already talks about. Not the spot with the longest wait.

We're talking about the restaurant you swear by but somehow nobody else seems to know about.

Hit reply to this email and tell us your pick. We'll feature some of our favorite reader recommendations in next week's edition and help Chattanooga discover a few hidden gems. 🍽️

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Familiarity can be a strange trap.

The longer we live somewhere, the more convinced we become that we've figured it out.

We know which roads to take, where we like to eat, who we spend time with, and what we expect to find around the next corner.

Then something comes along that completely surprises us.

A story we've never heard. A place we've somehow overlooked. A piece of history hiding in plain sight.

Maybe curiosity isn't really about discovering new things.

Maybe it's about refusing to believe you've already seen everything.

— Marie