 A Trip to Alabama
I enjoy the Southland – the southern states, which I define in the eastern portion of the United States as including Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri and all states south thereof. Maybe I like these southern states because they have a warmer climate, maybe because the south’s music and food appeal to me, or its culture of friendliness and its slower pace have a magnetic effect on me.
Travel plans would take me all the way to Mobile, Ala. on the Gulf of Mexico, then we would work our way north to Georgiana, the boyhood home of country music legend, Hank Williams, followed by a stop in Selma, the site of civil rights “Bloody Sunday,” then to Birmingham area for a look at the history of the iron industry surrounding that city.
Mobile, the first capital of the French territory of Louisiana, was founded in 1702. It is located on a delta formed by Mobile River alluvium which protrudes out into Mobile Bay. The city was the site of the first known Mardi Gras celebration in 1703, even before New Orleans.
Mobile, named by the French for the Mobilian Indian tribe which lived in the area, is the only seaport in Alabama. It’s seaport past includes the import of slaves and the export of cotton. More recently, Liberty ships were built there during WW II and now tour ships are docking in Port Mobile.
There are many museums there featuring The National African Achieves and Museum which houses slavery artifacts, portraits and biographies of famous African Americans and the history of colored carnival. There is a Museum of Art, a Mobile Carnival Museum, a live performing theater, a symphony and ballet, antebellum architectural historic districts, botanical gardens and other attractions.
Once in Mobile, we focused on Fort Gaines, which was named for General Edmund Pendleton Gaines who received national attention when as a young officer he led a detachment of soldiers to capture former vice-president Aaron Burr. Burr, o at the time was being accused of participating in a conspiracy to commit treason. Fort Gaines, located on Dauphine Island and completed in 1861, served along with Fort Morgan to protect the mouth of Mobile Bay so that Confederate blockade runners could supply the beleaguered Confederacy.
A famous naval battle was fought during the Civil War for control of Mobile Bay. In 1864, Admiral David Farragut of the Federal Navy ran through the Confederate fortifications at Mobile Bay shelling Fort Gaines and responding with the words, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!” when he saw the federal USS Tecumseh roll over when it hit a Confederate mine or torpedo.
Today, a visitor to Fort Gaines can see the “disappearing” gun mounts, a bakery, an active working blacksmith shop, officer’s and quartermaster quarters, kitchen courtyard, guardhouse, sally port, walls built with bricks made by slaves and powder and ball magazines. The “disappearing” gun mounts were called such because the gun would be lowered to reload and then raised again to be fired.
From the ramparts of Fort Gaines, we could get a beautiful view of Mobile Bay to the north and the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to the south.
We left Mobile on I-65 headed for Georgiana and a tour through Hank Williams’ boyhood home and museum. Hank lived in Georgiana from the time he was 8 until he was 11 years old. He was actually born in Mount Olive, Ala. on Sep. 17, 1923.
As we sat in the car plotting our next move there was a knock on my closed car window that scared me half to death. Jerking my head around I saw an attractive older woman’s smiling face looking in at me and brandishing a fistful of papers. I rolled down my window and after a cordial greeting she handed me the papers with a brief explanation. She told us that she was the president of the Hank Williams Fan Club and the papers I held were several of the Club’s Newsletters. She gave us the museum’s schedule and some information about the celebrations of Hank’s life and music that takes place there in Georgiana.
From Georgiana, we continued north on I-65 turning west onto US 80 which would take us to Selma, Alabama. US 80 is the route followed by the voting rights marchers on their way from Selma to Montgomery on March 21, 1965. The marcher’s route is well marked as the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail and there is a Loundes County Interpretive Center along the trail (US 80) which commemorates the events, the people and the route of the 1965 march. The Center is free.
As we approached the town of Selma we were able to make out a familiar landmark, the Edmund Pettus Bridge where “Bloody Sunday” occurred on March 7, 1965. At the north side of the bridge, 600 civil rights marchers came up against Sheriff Jim Clark, and the state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. Some police were on horseback. This march was turned back and 17 people were hospitalized.
A successful march occurred from March 21 to 26, 1965 when marchers, beginning at Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, which we visited, were able to complete the march to the steps of the capitol building in Montgomery. M.L. King led this successful event.
There are many big and beautiful antebellum homes in the town. And, tours may be scheduled through the city and its cemetery. There is an oddity downtown, a fully functioning Rexall Drug Store, the likes of which I haven’t seen in years.
Just to the south of Selma is the first capital (1820-26) of Alabama, Cahawba, which became a ghost town after the Civil War. Today, Cahawaba is an important archaeological site and place of picturesque ruins. There is is an old Cahawaba Festival annually on the second Saturday in May in which visitors can enjoy a Southern barbeque, music, arts and crafts and games.
From Selma we ventured north to the Birmingham area, “The Pittsburgh of the South,” since we were interested in the origin of the iron and steel industry in Alabama. Alabama is the only place in the world in which iron ore, limestone and coal, the ingredients for iron and steel making, were found in close proximity and in abundance.
First, we went to the Bessemer Hall of History which was housed in a beautiful railroad depot – an abandoned Great Southern Railroad Depot. The reader may remember that Sir H. Bessemer developed a method of purifying molten iron by forcing air through it to remove impurities and make a better grade of steel. We were looking forward to this museum, but as luck would have it, it was closed. So, we went another 12 miles south to the Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park.
The Tannehill Ironworks was a major supplier of iron for Confederate ordnance being manufactured at Selma. Unknowingly, we tied together two sites that we visited in Alabama. The remnants of three charcoal blast furnaces at Tannehill could produce 22 tons of pig iron a day, which were shipped to the Naval Gun Works and Arsenal at Selma. Brown iron ore mines were only two miles away from the furnaces in those early days.
(Dave Tickel, a 1951 Middletown High School graduate, is travel editor for MiddletownNow.com)
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