The Bondurant brothers were three brothers from Franklin County in the Blue Ridge foothills of Piedmont, Virginia who, during the 1920s and 1930s, engaged in moonshining and bootlegging during Prohibition. At the time, Franklin was called "the wettest county in the world", as almost everyone (9 out of every 10 people) in the county was involved in the production of illegal moonshine. The brothers Forrest, Howard, and Jack used their gas station and restaurant as a front for their business, but, in 1931, US Marshal Charley Rakes declared war on the gang after they refused to bribe him with a cut of their income. They allied with the urban gangster Floyd Banner to expand their business, building new stills in the woods and raking in more money. Eventually, with the help of a convoy of bootleggers (and the sympathetic sheriff Pete Hodges), the brothers were able to kill Rakes and end his reign of terror, and they resumed their legitimate professions after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.