Hillsville, Virginia

Hillsville is the seat of Carroll County, Virginia, tucked into the Blue Ridge foothills. On March fourteenth, nineteen twelve, it became the site of one of the strangest courtroom tragedies in American history. Floyd Allen, patriarch of a powerful mountain clan, was on trial for assault when gunfire suddenly erupted inside the courthouse.

When the smoke cleared, the sheriff, the judge, the prosecutor, a juror, and a bystander lay dead or dying. Whether Floyd Allen fired first remains disputed to this day. He and his son Claude were captured, convicted of murder, and executed for their crimes.

The Allen clan's defiance of the courts gripped the nation for months. Today Carroll County still remembers the event as the Courthouse Tragedy, a name that carries the weight of a community that lived with the fallout for generations.