Moonshiners' Cow Shoes

The May 27, 1922 issue of The Evening Independent carried a story about moonshiners wearing "cow shoes" to trick revenuers -- rather than leaving suspicious footprints leading up to their secret stills, they'd leave innocent-looking hoofprints in the dirt and grass. The New Yorker's "Photo Booth" had a good snap of one of the shoes (above).

Shiners Wear "Cow Shoes" (via Kottke)

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UrbanUndead

Putting the “moo” in… oh never mind…

*slouches away, bad puns spilling from pockets*
- awjt
  
  …wearing your sheep shoes, no doubt, and feeling sheepish.
  - UrbanUndead
    
    This is just getting baaa-aa-aad :B
glatt1

I guess if this worked, it means the revenuers were city slickers who wouldn’t know how the pressure of a cow’s hoof is distributed.
- relawson
  
  Yeah, but, what if they also walked BACKWARD? Then it would have the added bonus of looking as if they walked the other way.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness

Moonshiners also invented the adjustable pneumatic suspensions we see in today’s lowriders. They used the extra boost from the pneumatics to keep the ridgerunners (cars modified for delivering moonshine) for riding low on their shocks. Police often stopped cars that were riding low from heavy loads.
Tarliman

The Jacobites (among others) used boots with horseshoes attached to trick the English soldiers. This is a very old trick. Still works sometimes. A revenuer who knew anything about cattle would be suspicious seeing a single cow going into the woods.
- ocker3
  
  Of course, it would allow you to walk across a field without leaving too-obvious tracks. Having a few cows around is hardly a suspicious activity.
- zarray
  
  Running a still seems like one of those things that takes more than one person to do.
Brainspore

“It’s the cops! Let’s hoof it out of here! “
jarmstrong

Makin’ the hoof prints wasn’t so tough. But those cow pies? Lemme tell ya…
http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie

A Bigfoot shoe would have also done the trick ;)
Henry Pootel

“Cow Shoe Boogie” needs to be a song from that era..
Bahumat

Can’t wait to see this on Lackadaisy Cats.
Vanwall Green

“The Adventure of the Priory School” – Sherlock Holmes had to figure out the mystery of the cattle tracks to solve the murder on the moors.
- noah django
  
  MOOOOOOOOOrrrs!
  
  Holmes would have been A) across the Atlantic and B) long dead, of course, by the time these shoes were made.
  - Vanwall Green
    
    Mr. Holmes last ‘official’ chronicle was in 1914, where he was quite hale and hearty, so I have no doubt he may have read this particular issue of The Evening Independent with a knowing smile, received in his occasional packages that Dr. Watson would send him for amusement, when he took a break from his beekeeping.
http://www.facebook.com/blank.snag.23 Blank Snag

Made me think of The Andy Griffith Show: “The Cow Thief “http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0512571/