Two new owners, Bob Bahre and Bruton Smith, moved North Wilkesboro's NASCAR races to their tracks in Texas and New Hampshire. The North Wilkesboro Speedway was closed following the 1996 NASCAR season. Benny Parsons and Jimmy Pardue were two other notable NASCAR drivers from Wilkes. Wolfe's vivid article was later adapted as the movie The Last American Hero (1973), starring Jeff Bridges and Valerie Perrine. Johnson was featured by the writer Tom Wolfe in a 1965 Esquire magazine article titled "The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Wilkes County native and resident Junior Johnson was one of the early superstars of NASCAR, as well as a legendary moonshiner. The North Wilkesboro Speedway was the first NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing) track it held its first race on May 18, 1947, and the first NASCAR-sanctioned race on October 16, 1949. Since this often involved outrunning local police and federal agents in auto chases, the county became one of the birthplaces of the sport of stock-car racing. Many Wilkes County distillers ran white liquor as far as Detroit, New Jersey, and South Florida. Wilkes County natives also used bootleg liquor as a means for barter far beyond the borders of North Carolina. From the 1920s to the 1950s some young Wilkes County males made their living by delivering moonshine to North Carolina's larger towns and cities. Wilkes County was once known as the " Moonshine Capital of the World", and was a leading producer of illegal homemade liquor. Moonshine production and the birth of NASCAR Numerous boundary adjustments were made thereafter, but none resulted in new counties. In 1849, additional parts of Wilkes County and Caldwell County were combined with parts of Ashe County and Yancey County to form Watauga County. In 1847, another part of Wilkes County was combined with parts of Caldwell County and Iredell County to become Alexander County. In 1841, parts of Wilkes County and Burke County were combined to form Caldwell County. In 1799, the northern and western parts of Wilkes County became Ashe County. Wilkes County was named for the English political radical John Wilkes, who lost his position as Lord Mayor of the City of London due to his support for the colonists during the American Revolution. The act creating the county became effective on February 15, 1778, and the county celebrates its anniversary on February 15. The first session of the county court was held in John Brown's house near what is today Brown's Ford. The county was formed from parts of Surry County and Washington District (now Washington County, Tennessee) on April 20, 1778, by an act of the North Carolina General Assembly of 1778. Wilkes County comprises the North Wilkesboro, NC Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its county seat is Wilkesboro, and its largest town is North Wilkesboro. As of the 2020 census the population was 65,969. It is a part of the state's western mountain region. Wilkes County is a county located in the US state of North Carolina.
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