I had planned to head essentially straight across the Lower South from Savannah through Montgomery, AL, and Jackson, MS, but unfortunately, the weather is not cooperating. This pattern will continue over the next couple of weeks as the central South (known as Dixie Alley due to the numerous tornadoes and thunderstorms that occur each spring) is repeatedly pummeled by waves of thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes. So instead of visiting the major cities of the Lower South I am going to weave my way across rural areas, hopefully skirting the southern edge of Dixie Alley.
The drive through the rural Lower South is a reminder of the inevitable passing of time. The area was developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s when railroads criss-crossed the region and opened up the great pine forests to exploitation. Towns sprung up at train stops near sawmills and county seats built magnificent courthouses in anticipation of the glory to come. Unfortunately, the combination of over logging and modern mechanization eventually pulled most of the good paying jobs away to the larger cities and today large scale signs of prosperity are hard to find. Leaving Thomasville we enter Wiregrass Country, named after wiregrass, a type of grass that grew in the poor soil of the region amongst the pine forests. The grass got the name wiregrass from its tough texture. Early settlers plowed under the wiregrass clearings and severely limited the widespread fires necessary for its seeds to germinate so there is very little wiregrass growing today. Heading west from Thomasville the forests recede and large fields come into view.
Donalson, Georgia, is typical of the small towns that flourished in the Wiregrass Country around 1900. Once home to a large lumber mill the town became the county seat of Seminole County and was so prosperous that a stunning courthouse was erected on the edge of the town center in 1922.
The historic center of town, East 2nd Street, parallels the railroad tracks heading east from the courthouse.
Dothan, in the southeast corner of Alabama, is the largest metropolitan area along our journey with a population of around 70,000 people. Once a center of the cotton growing industry, the local economy fell apart when the arrival of the boll weevil devastated the cotton fields around the turn of the 20th century. Fortunately George Washington Carver, the leading black scientist of the early 20th century, focused his skills on developing an alternative to cotton and today the Dothan area provides a huge percentage of the US peanut crop. The bustling town has all the big box stores you could want along with the traffic. A thunderstorm decides to descend on Dothan just as I drove in so I kept on driving and find myself in the middle of peanut fields.
In 1881 a store opened on the current site of Enterprise, AL, but the town didn’t really begin to flourish until 1896 when the railroad came to the area. Enterprise prospered as the center of a cotton growing area but the area’s entire way of life was destroyed in 1915 when the boll weevil, an insect that feeds on the cotton plant, made its way to the local fields. Fortunately the area was one of the first to turn to growing peanuts as an alternative and by 1918 Coffee County around Enterprise was the United States’ leading producer of peanuts. In 1919 grateful town erected a monument to the boll weevil for bringing such prosperity to the area. A statue of a Greek woman proudly holds a boll weevil high into the sky in the center of the main street of Enterprise in honor of the insect’s role in creating the peanut-based economy.
Farms and ranches continue past Enterprise as we head north towards the center of Alabama, but eventually the patchwork of forested hills and farmland returns.
In 1855 the Louisville and Nashville Railroad constructed a rail line through a small valley in south-central Alabama and a minister, Pitt Milner, opened a post office and named it Georgina, a combination of the names of his home state Georgia and his daughter’s name. The town grew and became home to a steam-powered sawmill and two grist mills. It also became an important shipping point for local cotton farmers. Most rural towns have not fared well over the years since and, deep in the Alabama woods, Georgiana is no exception. Not a county seat and so not the beneficiary of government jobs, modern mechanization and consolidation passed Georgiana by and there was not much left to keep people employed. The mostly deserted town center straggles on either side of the still active rail line.
The United Methodist Church rises a block west.
So why are we here? Georgiana was the childhood home of one of the most impactful musicians of the 20th Century. Hiram Williams and his sister Irene lived in Georgiana from 1931-1935 in a small house next to the railroad tracks. The house, now a small museum, commemorates the years that Hiram, now country music’s first “super star” legend Hank Williams, lived in the town.
Here in 1932 Hank’s mother gave him his first guitar and a black street musician, Rufus (Tee-Tot) Payne became his music teacher. The museum, run by a local non-profit, is not the Smithsonian but simply a local labor of love. The home contains a myriad of Hank Williams memorabilia in the various rooms.
Much of the collection has been contributed by fans. One item in particular, obviously a labor of love, is a quilt embroidered with the story of Hank Williams.
Behind the house is a park that contains part of Thigpen’s Log Cabin, a popular 1931 dance hall and honk-tonk in Georgiana that now is part of a covered pavilion used for community activities. On a railroad side track next to the house is a box car saluting Georgiana as the home of Hank Williams.
Our journey into rural Alabama continues to a town with an astonishing history, not only of the town itself, but of the number of writers and journalists that it has produced over the years.
Monroeville
In 1832 Monroeville was incorporated on a site previously home to a store, tavern and grist mill and became the county seat of Monroe County. The Old Monroe County Courthouse was completed in 1904 and dominates the town square, surrounded by historic buildings fading in the sun.
In the shadow of the courthouse is a sculpture of three Depression-era children reading a book in honor of the town’s designation by the Alabama legislature as the “Literary Capital of Alabama.”
And what did Monroeville do to deserve such an honor? Maybe it’s something in the water but Monroeville was home to numerous noted writers and journalists over the years, including Pulitzer-Prize winning black journalist Cynthia Tucker, writer and journalist Mark Childress, educator and writer Marva Collins, amongst others. Without question two of the most important and impactful American writers in the1950’s and 1960’s were Monroeville childhood friends Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Harper (known as Nelle in Monroeville) was born in Monroeville and Truman spent a significant amount of his childhood living with his cousins the Faulk family who were next door neighbors of the Lee’s. Harper Lee wrote one of the most significant novels of the 20th century, Pulitzer-Prize winning novel “To Kill A Mockingbird”, set in the Monroeville courthouse where her father practiced law. The film of the same name was not filmed in Monroeville, instead an exact replica was built in Hollywood so those who have seen the movie will definitely recognize the courtroom
The main entrance opens up into a hall leading to a central octagonal reception room. Stairs lead up to the second floor courtroom.
To the left of the stairs is an attorney’s office, decorated with original furniture to the period that Harper Lee’s father would have practiced law (though not his actual office.)
Up the stairs the second floor has the same shaped central area (note the painted tin ceiling.)
Off the central foyer are office spaces similar to the one we saw on the first floor. However, on the second floor they are dedicated to Truman Capote and Harper Lee.
Of course the main attraction is the actual courtroom, standing a dramatic two stories tall on the second and third floors of the courthouse. The view from the entrance looks directly at the judge’s podium with a witness chair in front. In the courtroom the tin ceiling was not painted.
Standing at the witness chair, I look the other way to the main entrance and foyer beyond.
Pretty amazing! The weather forecast is not good again so I hop in the Lunch Box and dash west into Mississippi. This stretch is a very rural area, most of the population in both Alabama and Mississippi live in the upper half of the state. The land is not well suited for agriculture, it is the vast forest that was the treasure mined by early settlers. Lumber trucks are still frequent companions along the way.
Once into Mississippi the highway wends its way towards Laurel, a town of approximately 20,000 people recently made famous by HGTV’s home improvement show “Home Town.”
Laurel, MS
The 1881 construction of the New Orleans and Northeastern railroad north through the center of Mississippi opened up the vast forests of yellow pine that blanket the hills to harvest. The town of Laurel was incorporated in 1882 and quickly became a thriving center of the timber industry. Eventually four large saw mills called Laurel home and after World War I Laurel shipped more yellow pine than any other location in the world. Production peaked in the 1920s and all of the large sawmills ceased operations during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The historic downtown area of Laurel rises west from the railroad tracks. The revitalization of Laurel sparked by the television show is seen immediately in the Laurel Mercantile Building, a spot frequently featured in the tv series.
Because of the hills rising west of the railroad tracks the city core is not exactly a grid but Magnolia Street, running parallel to the railroad tracks, is the main street through town and the intersection of Oak Street and Magnolia Street is the center of the action,
Up Oak Street to the west atop a small hill near the intersection of Oak and N. 5th Street are a number of significant buildings. The intersection is bracketed by the BancorpSouth Building and the 1914 Laurel City Hall.
Across the street atop the hill is a plaza marking the site of the 1914 Pinehurst Hotel, once the finest hotel in Laurel and one of the first hotels in Mississippi to offer air conditioning. In 1924 the Arabian Theater was added to the hotel and it still stands today as the premier performing arts center in Laurel. The hotel was demolished in 1988.
Continuing north on 5th the 1907 Jones County Courthouse dominates the east side of the street, complete with an elaborate Civil War memorial added in 1912.
The courthouse sits on the corner of N. 5th Street and W. 5th Street. Occupying two of the other corners are massive church complexes, the United Methodist Church and the First Trinity Presbyterian Church.
Down along the railroad tracks I have to visit Ben Napier’s workshop as frequently seen on “Home Town”, the Scotsman General Store and Workshop, complete with his old pickup parked in front. Obviously I’m not the only fan of the show checking this out!
Inside the long building is divided into two sections, a small store and the larger workshop area able to be viewed through a glass window.
I can’t leave without visiting at least one of the restored homes featured on the show. In this case the house was converted to the Bird Dog Café where patrons are enjoying the shade on a hot afternoon. As evidence that renovation can spread through a neighborhood, there are six similar homes on the little side street, all six have been renovated.
While the weather in these pictures appears fabulous, pictures can be deceiving. It was very hot and humid, warnings of severe thunderstorms are forecasted to appear later this afternoon so I cut my visit to Laurel short and head out trying to avoid the storm. As I head west across Mississippi towards Natchez and Vidalia, LA, truthfully there isn’t much to see other than the relentless forest on all sides.
Wow, this concludes an epic four-month journey around the Lower South. I have essentially completed a circuit around this part of the country, exploring off the rural areas of the Lower South seldom visited by tourists. It certainly has been an educational experience!
Many thanks for accompanying me along the way.
Next up: Who Knows???
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