2014 Pickin' in Parsons Bluegrass Festival July 2014 | Page 9

Yost Act , threatening prohibition in the state and becoming a reality in 1914, that made Gillespie seek new fortunes elsewhere. It’s said that Gillespie decided to turn to more legitimate business, when he went into a partnership with two other men to finance the building of the Hotel Gassaway in Elkins in Randolph County, West Virginia. In the end, the venture feel through, and all of Gillespie’s properties in Brooklyn Heights, Hambleton, and
Hendricks were sold off, and Gillespie was left penniless. After trying and failing to get back into the bootlegging
business in Grant County, West Virginia, Gillespie drifted back to Virginia. There, the man who built his little
empire in Hendricks, reportedly lived out the rest of his days as a laborer, filling gas or cleaning hotel windows
before dying in a