Blue Ridge Institute & Farm Museum

Franklin County calls itself the Moonshine Capital of the World, and the Blue Ridge Institute keeps the record straight. This museum on Ferrum College's campus is Virginia's state center for Blue Ridge folklore — music, crafts, oral history archives — which means the collection here carries institutional weight. Franklin County's moonshine history peaked during Prohibition, when the Great Moonshine Conspiracy trial of 1935 became the largest in U.S. history at the time. The Institute documents that chapter but doesn't stop there. A working 1800s German-American farmstead operates on the grounds with heritage breed livestock and heirloom crops. On the fourth Saturday in October, the annual Blue Ridge Folklife Festival draws roughly 20,000 visitors. The festival charges admission. The museum itself is free the rest of the year, about forty minutes south of Roanoke.