Stand There and Tremble: When the Night Riders Came to Russellville is an attempt by author Mark Griffin to discover the city’s missing history when the Night Riders terrorized the town as well as the county during the Tobacco Wars. They first came on Jan. 3, 1908 to take over the town to dynamite two tobacco warehouses. They returned again on Aug. 1, 1908, to commit a crime so heinous it is still not talked about to this day.

Griffin had grown up hearing the hushed tales of the Night Riders as he grew up in Russellville. Finding a book, On Bended Knee by Judge Bill Cunningham, about this clandestine group, he was disappointed only one paragraph discussed the Russellville Raid so he started on an 11-year quest to find out what happened. Scanning the newspapers of cities in Kentucky, Tennessee, and other states (including New York and California), interviewing people about stories they heard from parents and grandparents, and finding a witness to the Russellville Raid, Griffin was able to compile a book that gives an account of when the Night Riders came to Russellville.

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