Alabama Anthology

Columbus turned out to be just a bed and breakfast stop for us, as we've been to the city many times and had no new spots to visit on our list.  So we followed US-80 across the Chattahoochee River into Phenix City, AL (pop. 37, 498).  For the record, we had no luck finding out why Phenix is spelled without the O.  The town was once called Brownville and later Lively, for reasons which should soon become apparent.  But the state legislature renamed it Phenix City, perhaps after the Phenix Mills in Columbus, where so many of its residents worked.

PHENIX CITY'S RIVERWALK ALONG THE CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER

Today Phenix City boasts a wholesome atmosphere and stellar reputation that earned it the top spot on Business Week's 2007 list of "Best Affordable Suburbs to Raise a Family."  But that wasn't always the case. Disregarding the fact that it was located in a dry county within a dry state, Phenix City was one of the first communities to reinstate liquor sales after the repeal of Prohibition.  By the mid-1950s, the river town across from Fort Benning, GA, offered every imaginable vice—gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, drugs, and numbers.  Back-room abortions were said to be common, and even incidents of baby selling.

Phenix City was known nationally as "Sin City USA."  Criminals had so thoroughly infiltrated the local government that they were making the rules and punishing anyone who wanted to interfere with their rackets.  A few brave citizens attempted to start a movement to clean up their town, but these were easily put down by threats and violence.

Finally, concerned citizens realized that help would have to come from outside the city.  They persuaded Albert Patterson, a local lawyer and Purple Heart veteran of World War I, to run for attorney general of Alabama.  After Patterson won the election, leaders of Phenix City's underworld realized they had a significant problem they needed to handle before the new attorney general could take office and bring the power of state law enforcement into Phenix City.

On the night of June 18, 1954, Patterson worked late at his law office in the Coulter Building.  His car was parked between that building and the Elite Cafe next door.  As he was getting into his car to go home, he was shot three times with a .38 caliber handgun.  Patterson stumbled out of the parking lot on to 5th Avenue before collapsing and dying.

TROOPS PATROL THE STREETS OF PHENIX CITY IN 1954. (Photo from Birmingham News)

Patterson's assassination—for which the chief deputy sheriff was convicted— issued a wake-up call that state officials could no longer ignore that the state must intervene in Phenix City.  The governor called in the Alabama National Guard and imposed martial law in the city.  Eventually dozens of local officials entered guilty pleas or were convicted in court.  More than 400 people went to jail or paid a fine for their participation in the vice operations in the town.

Within a few years, Phenix City was proclaimed "wholesome." Albert Patterson's murder had been the catalyst for accomplishing the clean-up of Phenix City that he hoped to manage as the state's attorney general, but he paid the ultimate price to achieve it.  To bring this interesting bit of history and the courage of Albert Patterson to light, even if in a very small way, we planted a letterbox tribute across the street from his old office.

COULTER BUILDING IS NO LONGER IN USE, BUT ELITE CAFE FOUND NEW LIFE AS GIRLFRIENDS.

Before leaving Phenix City, we needed to indulge a new and wacky (or should that be quacky) road trip tradition.  Several years ago, we obtained a supply of rubber ducks.  We've given them away from time to time under various circumstances, but mostly they've roosted in one of our closets.  It was time to set them free.  So we decided to launch them in streams as we travel.

DUCK VAN DYKE POSING ON THE LEDGE OF THE DILLINGHAM STREET BRIDGE.

Assuming rubber ducks migrate south like other birds, today we walked to the middle of the Dillingham Street Bridge between Georgia and Alabama and sent Duck Van Dyke out into the big wide world on the Chattahoochee River.  We're hoping he makes it to the Gulf of Mexico or wherever rubber ducks spend their winters.

BUT WAIT!  THIS IS JUST THE BILLBOARD.

Continuing west on US-80 through Russell County and a tiny corner of Lee County, we drove into Macon County, approaching Tuskegee, its county seat and our next stop.   About nine miles outside of town, we screeched to a halt when we saw a unique three-dimensional "billboard" advertising the Hillbilly Mall a half mile ahead.  If the sign was this quirky, we couldn't resist stopping to check out the mall.

A TRUCK TURNED PLANTER BESIDE THE GATE OF HILLBILLY MALL

Finding the gate locked, we pulled over in front of the fence to look at the hundreds of items on display outdoors.  The Hillbilly Mall delivered all the "sign" had promised.  Just as we decided to plant a letterbox outside the fence and move on, Big John Richardson rolled up in his hefty red truck.  Delighted that we had stopped by, even though he's open only on weekends, the friendly and hospitable John invited us in and spent 20 minutes with us sharing his passion for folk art and crafts, even though he needed to be attending to his nearby furniture factory.

BIG JOHN IS WILLING TO SHARE HIS IDEAS AS LONG AS YOU HAVE TIME TO LISTEN.

John and his wife Carol have cobbled together a fun roadside attraction/flea market using mostly recycled materials and found objects combined with their artistic talents. Big John is brimming over with creative ideas of how to recycle rejected materials into folk art. One of his goals is to build a collection of hillbilly-worthy shacks on the property where crafters can work and sell their creations.  We did leave a letterbox hidden outside the fence to encourage others to check out this remarkable piece of Alabama ingenuity.
From hillbilly artists to African American legendary heroes, our next stop was at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at Moton Field.  Known in 1941 as the "Tuskegee Experiment," the U.S. War Department bypassed its own discriminatory policies and practices to recruit and train  African Americans to fight in the Army Air Corps in World War II.  More than 16,000 men and women trained and served as pilots, air traffic controllers, mechanics, navigators, flight instructors, and all the other jobs needed to support the 99th Fighter Squadron.  Though they served admirably and well, they continued to face prejudicial treatment both in the military and after their return home.  Tuskegee was the first training location for these courageous men and women, and this site was created to tell their forgotten story.

We had no difficulty finding the address of the Airmen historic site on Chappie James Drive, but figuring out where to enter was another story.  The location of the official National Park Service sign was next to a massive empty parking lot.  Downhill and quite a distance from there, we saw buildings  that we assumed comprised the installation, so we found a road to take us there.

HANGAR 1 HOUSES EXHIBITS RELATED TO FLIGHT TRAINING.

As it turned out, this was just the first disappointing aspect of this National Park Service outpost.  Upon entering, we were greeted by a genial volunteer, clearly a local fellow by his honeyed southern drawl.  Though he was friendly enough and extended a warm welcome, our questions soon revealed that he lacked the knowledge and expertise about the site that a Park Service employee would have been able to offer.

UNIQUE PAINT OF THE 99TH AIRCRAFT LED TO THE NICKNAME "RED TAILS."

The second odd aspect of our visit was the lack of standard printed materials.  We have visited many National Park Service sites and at every single one, we were presented with the standard NPS four-fold brochure with a black ribbon across the top emblazoned with the site's name in white.  Incredibly, the Tuskegee Airmen site had no such item.  Though the exhibits were well executed and informative, the proper order to browse them was quite confusing.  We saw numerous references on panels to an event that occurred at Freeman Field in Indiana.  It took some searching of other panels to finally find out what happened at that base.

EXHIBITS IN HANGAR 1 OFFERED AUDIO OF SOME OF THE AIRMEN DESCRIBING THEIR EXPERIENCES.

In general, signage was sorely lacking both outside and in the exhibits.  Though we enjoyed our visit and learned a lot about the contributions of these Americans who fought fascism in Europe only to come home to face racism from the country they served, we left frustrated that the National Park Service has not staffed or funded the site adequately.

VISITS TO WASHINGTON'S HOME 'THE OAKS' WERE LIMITED TO GUIDED TOURS.

Our expectations were not very high as we drove across town to the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site on the campus of the historic Tuskegee University.  Like at the Airmen site, parking was quite a distance from the building that serves as the visitor center.  But this is an active college campus, so that was a little more understandable.  The site consists of two buildings on campus—the home of Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee Institute's founding president, and the George Washington Carver Museum, a tribute to the work of the school's legendary teacher.

CARVER WAS A MAN OF MANY INTERESTS AND TALENTS.

Having visited the excellent George Washington Carver National Monument in Missouri as well as an outstanding traveling exhibit on Carver at the Museum of Mobile, we have developed a great admiration for this renaissance man that Time magazine once called the black Leonardo da Vinci.  Carver was still living when Tuskegee made the obvious decision to dedicate a museum on campus to his achievements.  He participated in the selection of artifacts for display and was present at the 1941 opening attended by Henry Ford, who had supplied much of the funding.  Carver maintained a lab on the ground floor for scientific study, and from that location, a fire started in 1947, destroying a large portion of the museum.  The museum was rebuilt and the National Park Service assumed management of it in 1974.

FROM A YOUNG AGE, CARVER WAS A ROCK HOUND.  MANY OF HIS SPECIMENS ARE ON EXHIBIT.

On our way out of Tuskegee, we passed the courthouse square and were taken aback at what we saw in the center.  Tuskegee's population is 95% African American, Macon County's is 83%.  Why in the name of all that is holy do the citizens of this county continue to allow their courthouse square to be dominated by an homage to those who fought to keep their ancestors enslaved?

TUSKEGEE TOWN SQUARE.  WHAT DOESN'T BELONG IN THIS PICTURE?

Our visit to Tuskegee complete, we turned back to US-80 for the ride into Montgomery, our destination for the day.  Tomorrow we'll explore some historic sites around the city before moving on to Selma on Friday.

WEDNESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2016
    •  Started in:  Columbus, GA
    •  Ended in:  Montgomery, AL
    •  Miles driven:  106  (788 total)
    •  Weather:  58° to 72°, sunny
    •  Letterboxes:  0 found, 2 planted
    •  Walked:  2.6 miles (10 total)
    •  States:  GA, AL
    •  Counties:  5
    •  Towns:  11
    •  Gas:  $2.489 (premium) in Phenix City, AL
    •  Birdhouses at Hillbilly Mall:  2,176
    •  Broken-down trucks at HM:  6
    •  High schoolers visiting Airmen site:  42
    •  Cotton bolls lining the roadside:  18,347,902


Where's the Beef?  As we were preparing for this road trip, we read an article about fun games to play during a long day on the road.  One we thought would be amusing was Count the Cows.  You score a point for every cow on your side of the road, but if you pass a cemetery on your side, all your cows die.  Whoever has the most cows at the end of the ride wins.  What has made the game even funnier is the stark lack of cows we've passed in the last two days.  And we thought livestock lined southern roads.