http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield-McCoy_feud
In 1979, the two families united for a special week's taping of the popular game show
Family Feud, in which they played for a cash prize and a
pig which was kept on stage during the games. The Hatfield family won the contest 301- 227.
Great-great-great grandsons of feud patriarch, Randolph McCoy, Bo McCoy of
Waycross, Georgia, and his cousin, Ron McCoy of
Durham, North Carolina, organized an historic joint
family reunion of the Hatfield and McCoy families in 2000. More than 5000 persons attended the reunion, which attained national attention and was dubbed "The Reunion of the Millennium".
On June 14, 2003, the McCoy cousins partnered with Reo Hatfield of
Waynesboro, Virginia, to author an official
truce between the families. The idea was
symbolic: to show that Americans could bury their differences and unite in times of crisis, most notably following the
September 11 attacks.
In 2002, Bo and Ron McCoy were
plaintiffs in a
legal case to acquire access to the McCoy Cemetery, which holds the graves of six family members, including five slain during the feud. The McCoys took on a private property owner, John Vance, who was restricting access to the cemetery. While the McCoys claimed victory in the suit, as of 2003 the cemetery was still not open to the general public.
In the 2000s, a 500-mile (800 km)
Hatfield–McCoy Trails all-terrain vehicle trails system, has been created around the theme of the Hatfield–McCoy feud.
Many tourists each year travel to parts of West Virginia and Kentucky to see the areas and historic relics which remain from the days of the feud. In 1999 a large project known as the "Hatfield and McCoy historic site restoration" was completed. This project was funded by a federal grant from the
SBA. Many improvements to various feud sites were completed. A committee of local historians spent months researching reams of information to find out about the factual history of the events surrounding the feud. This research was compiled in an audio
compact disc called the "Hatfield–McCoy Feud Driving Tour". The CD is a self-guided driving tour of the restored feud sites. It includes maps and pictures as well as the audio CD (see external link below).
The Hillbilly Days festival in
Pikeville, Kentucky, is a
Shriners fundraiser that, according to rumor, was founded by one member from each of the two families