Mexico Farms folklore relates the following during the days of prohibition. Federal prohibition of production and/or sale of alcoholic beverages were strictly controlled by the US Internal Revenue Service from the early 1920’s to the time of repeal of Prohibition in 1933. To obtain alcoholic refreshments, one usually had contact with a known bootlegger, who would know you personally or someone known to them would vouch for you. Only through that connection would the bootlegger sell illicit alcoholic beverages. Often times, this alcoholic product would be produced by individuals without much knowledge of quality control. At best it was often of poor taste and at worst, caused physical ailments after consumption. In the surrounding area of Cumberland, good quality moonshine, known as ‘white lightning’, could be obtained from mountain people who were distilling liquor as a family tradition, passed from generation to generation since early times. In Canada, good quality legal Canadian whiskey could be purchased, which was highly prized by local bootleggers for sale to the local citizenry.
Enterprising local pilots came up with a plan to fly moonshine to Canada, which would then be sold at lower prices than legal whiskey, and then return to the Cumberland area with a load of the much-desired Canadian whiskey. The aircraft would travel from the Mexico Farms landing field to Canada and return. Mexico Farms then was a fairly remote area with unimproved roads that had to be accessed by crossing the main lines of both the Baltimore & Ohio and Western Maryland Railroads. At times the railway crossing would be blocked for a period of time. Once the Internal Revenue agents learned of these trips and they waited for the airplane to return from Canada. Charges in Federal court were severe as the US Federal Government took a tough stance on the illicit activities involving alcoholic beverages. The involved pilots, however, had local Mexico Farms people watching for the Revenue agents, who would stand out as strangers in this small community. The watchers, upon seeing the agents, would display certain signs on the ground and the pilot would know not to land. A field was used as an alternate landing site, that being on the hill north of Mexico Farms where the Greater Cumberland Regional Airport is now located.
The whiskey was quickly transferred to a waiting vehicle and the airplane would depart. In order to get to this alternate landing field, the agents had to retrace their route across the railroad tracks, travel on Route 51 to South Cumberland, then south on Virginia Avenue, across the Western Maryland Railroad again to the Wiley Ford bridge, over the Potomac River, and then by dirt road up the hill to the landing site. Such a trip would entail a long enough delay for all evidence of the whiskey, airplane, and loaded vehicle carrying the illegal whiskey to disappear from the alternate landing site.
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Wings Over Cumberland 