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"Brinkley is someone most everyone has heard something about, whether through the monument at 'Aunt Sally's Curve,' or the rock walls that spell out 'Dr. John R. Brinkley' at the entrance to Wolf Creek Tree Farm in Tuckasegee.
"We thought the tour could be a way of learning more about Brinkley's beginnings here as well as his role in the larger world," Moore said.
The Brinkley tour will be led by Joe Rhinehart, president of the Jackson County Historical Association. Participants will meet at 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3 at Tuckasegee Baptist Church. From there the group will travel together to Brinkley's former farm in Tuckasegee (now owned by Tommy and Joan Beutell) and to "Aunt Sally's Curve" on N.C. 107 between Tuckasegee and East LaPorte, where they will view the monument erected by Brinkley in memory of the woman who raised him.
Participants will then travel in their own vehicles to Wike Cemetery, and then to Lovedale Cemetery, where Brinkley's mother, Sarah Candace Burnett, is buried beneath an angel monument.
The final tour stop will be at the old Wesley's Chapel church (now Sylva Assembly of God, the church is located off N.C. 107 near UPS), where a monument that reads "Erected by Doctor John R. Brinkley to Thomas Jenkins (1951) and Louisa Jenkins (1902)" stands, though no one seems to know the significance of the Jenkins' to Brinkley, Rhinehart said.
A reception at City Lights will begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by a 7 p.m. program to include a brief talk about Brinkley by George Frizzell of Western Carolina University's Archives and Special Collections, a reading of a John Parris story about Brinkley, and music recorded by the late Harry Cagle, a renowned local fiddler who once played on Brinkley's radio station with the legendary Samantha Bumgarner. One recording features Cagle playing "Eighth of January," a piece he performed as a child for Brinkley, and the other, "Soldier's Joy," was made by Cagle and Jan Davidson, who tried to replicate the way the song sounded when Cagle and Bumgarner played it in the 1930s on Brinkley's radio program.
All events are free; however, those planning to participate in the tour are asked to call City Lights at 586-9499.
The son of a country doctor, Brinkley was born at Beta, orphaned at age 10 and raised near East LaPorte by his stepmother (also his great-aunt), Sally Mingus Brinkley.
Brinkley supported himself as a teletype operator for Southern Railway before putting himself through medical school. He hit on the idea of treating male impotence by transplanting goat glands into aging men and performed hundreds of such surgeries at hospitals he founded at Milford, Kan., Del Rio, Texas, and Little Rock, Ark.
Brinkley is thought by many to have been elected governor of Kansas in 1930 through a write-in campaign. However, he lost the election because many of the votes in his favor were disallowed due to technicalities.
In October 1991, Life magazine described Brinkley as a "notorious quack" and said he had made millions "treating the curse of impotence by transplanting goat glands into the groins of unfortunate human males."
When Brinkley ran afoul of Kansas authorities, who stripped him of both his radio and medical licenses, he moved his operations to Del Rio, Texas, and constructed his radio transmitter across the Rio Grande in Mexico to avoid Federal Radio Commission regulation.
"It was then the most powerful in the world, booming northward at 500,000 watts, blanketing the U.S.," said Life.
According to the late Bill Smith, Brinkley's station, XERA, came in loud and clear in Jackson County. Smith said his daddy would tune in every Sunday night to listen to Brinkley, who would often speak directly to individuals about their medical problems, Smith said during a 1994 interview.
"People would write to him with their problems, and he'd tell them what to take," Smith said.
During the time Brinkley broadcast his radio program, he helped the careers of a number of musicians. Life credits Brinkley's radio show with popularizing the Carter Family's music.
Brinkley took Jackson County musicians Bumgarner and Cagle out to Texas to play on his program.
"Brinkley had a lot of different acts on his show," Smith said. "He always kept it lively and entertaining so people would tune in."
Brinkley died in 1941 after losing his medical credentials and being forced into bankruptcy.
"If ever there was a true rags-to-riches story, Brinkley is it," Smith said. "He grew up the hard way with nothing, made a fortune and owned the most powerful radio station in the world."
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Dr. John Brinkley, in a photo belonging to the Kansas State Historical Society, talks with his followers during a radio broadcast. Born in Beta, Brinkley left Jackson County as a teenager and worked as a teletype operator while putting himself through medical school. He soon gained national prominence as aging men flocked to his hospital for his "virility rejuvenation cure," which involved the transplanting of goat gonads into sexually impotent human males. One of the first to realize the advertising potential in the then new medium of radio, Brinkley once owned the most powerful radio station in the world.