I don't believe it either. I was bitten by one at Ft. Bragg, NC.
They occasionally are found outside of their normal range and ususally it's because they hitched a ride but more often than not people think they were bitten by one but were not. IMO, being bitten by a recluse is kind of like being bitten by a shark. When it happens, there's not a lot of question about it. I have seen limbs lost over recluse bites. Everyone that comes though my ER thinks every bug bite they have is a recluse bite. We joke about it frequently because they almost never are.