Category: St. Clair Outdoors

Shel-Clair Farms

A world of cattle drives, scenic trails

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Mike Callahan

With the strains of “Rawhide” swelling inside their heads, 18 intrepid cowpokes slap their hands on their thighs, kick their horses and yell, “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out,” as they ride off to round up the herd.

“I’ve always wanted to say that,” one of the cowgirls remarks.

It’s all part of the annual cattle call at the Shel-Clair Farms, a 1,000-acre spread that straddles the borders of Shelby and St. Clair counties off U.S. 231 South. Owned by Ralph, Randy and Wayne Bearden, the farm and ranch is home to row crops, horse boarders, trails and fishin’ holes. It’s also home to 150 to 200 cows that have to be mustered for weaning, pregnancy checking and vaccinating every spring.

“I started the roundup in 2009 as a way to get the cows to the barn and have some fun at the same time,” says Randy Bearden, farm manager. “We skipped last year because someone got hurt in 2013. But we decided to try again this year.”

No one got hurt this year, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Twelve of the 18 riders were Shel-Clair boarders, who are accustomed to cantering among the cattle without incident. Rounding them up from the various fields and meadows and pushing them to the pasture near the old corn silo is another matter.

“Stay behind them, because they’ll turn the opposite way if you don’t,” Randy tells the group before it heads out one steamy Sunday afternoon in May. “Don’t run them, because some of them are pregnant.”

After these basic instructions, the weekend drovers take off in search of their hoofed subjects. Some of the cows are down in the hollows; others are in the woods cooling off. As soon as a few are spotted, the whooping and hollering begins.

“Woo-hoo, get on out of there, girls,” riders yell at the reluctant cows and calves. “Giddy-up, whoop whoop. Move along.” Once a few of the animals start moving, the others follow. A handful are insubordinate, however, and try their best to avoid the horses. They double back into the woods and stop in the streams to avoid capture, forcing mounted participants to split into teams to rally them.

During the three-hour event, riders pass an abandoned, barn-shaped house built during World War II that has almost been reclaimed by Mother Nature. They climb a ridge, where a bunch of folks watched Alabama play the University of Florida several years ago on a giant, flat-screen TV run by a gas generator. They stop briefly at the creek that was full of trout until the river otters ate them, then listen to cows bellowing from a nearby pasture. A slight breeze moves the tree leaves and tall weeds, making the humidity a little more bearable.

“The creek runs out of a spring where the water is crystal clear and never gets above 63 degrees,” Randy says. “It has a few bass and bream now.” The Beardens also have an 8-acre lake on the opposite side of the farm where they allow the public to fish for a fee.

It’s their day job and more

Randy cuts about 400 round bales and another 1,000 square bales of hay each year to feed the cows. If there is an abundance, he will sell some hay, but the herd uses most of it. The number of cows varies when some go to market or have babies. He tries to keep 150 mama cows and two bulls all the time. “Most cattle farms in the state have only 30 to 40 head,” he says. “But this is how I make my living. I don’t have an off-farm job.” He says the money he gets from leasing 110 acres for row crops pays the taxes.

He sells the cows at the Ashville Stockyard, and one obstreperous specimen is about to make that trip a trifle early if she keeps trying Randy’s patience. “That’s Number 36,” he says of the stubborn mama who insists on running away from the horses and the herd with her calf at her side. “She does this every year,” he adds, as disgusted as a mother who can’t control her toddler’s tantrums.

Randy’s family started farming in Shelby County in 1929 when J.E. “Ned” Bearden opened a dairy farm in Helena. Ned and his wife, Irene “Ma” Bearden, raised six children on that farm. Their son Ralph and Ralph’s sons, Randy and Wayne, started Shel-Clair Farms in 1972. Tired of getting up before dawn for milking or at 2 a.m. to repair a broken well pump, they closed their dairy business in 2005 and transitioned to a row-crop and beef-cattle operation. They added horse trails and boarding in 2007.

They have developed 12 miles of scenic trails that cover rolling hills, cross small creeks, ramble through forests and pass by a waterfall. The trails have names like Open Range, Ridge Mountain and Hurricane Mountain. The Haunted Swamp, part of the Hurricane trail, is so named because of the cow skulls hanging from trees and various bones scattered about. At least, that’s Randy’s story.

The trails are well-marked, unless the cows have knocked down some of the signs. Day riders, who are just as welcome as the boarders, can’t pass the farm’s Sycamore Sally without stopping for photos in the huge tree’s hollow trunk. That may change, though, because Randy found a snake inside the tree recently.

When he’s not rounding up cattle by horseback, Randy rides through the property in a red Ford pickup with a Blue Heeler named Blue on the bed’s tool box. Blue paces back and forth, trying to keep his balance. Randy says he has only fallen off once.

After the roundup, which took twice as long this spring as it normally does because some of the cows were less than cooperative, Randy treats riders to pizza and soft drinks at his new barn.

Sharon Jones of Leeds, one of the farm’s original boarders, is a veteran at the Bearden roundup. “I ride by myself a lot, so I really enjoy riding with a group,” she says, between bites of pizza. “It hypers my horse up, too, so he’s more fun to ride.” Madison Sharp, 18, a recent graduate of the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile, is another boarder who has done several roundups. “It’s fun,” she says. “It’s interesting to watch my horse think.”

It was Jackie Cockrell’s first roundup, and she brought along her 11-year-old son, Colton. “It was very exciting,” says Cockrell, who keeps their horses at her own farm in Leeds. “I would do it again next year.” Colton agrees. “Yeah, that was fun,” he says.

For more information about riding or fishing at
Shel-Clair, visit its website @ shelclairfarms.com

Features

2015 Panther Run

Brutal fun at The Ridge

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan
and Graham Hadley

Starting with a yell and a cheer, the participants in the 2015 Panther Run at the Ridge were ready to face just about any obstacle.

It’s a good thing — because there were more than 30 of them between the runners and the finish line at the specially designed course on a Springville mountaintop in St. Clair County.

Normally an off-highway vehicle, nature and outdoor park — sometimes even a concert venue — the Ridge is converted once a year into a long, winding obstacle and mud-run course that attracts fitness enthusiasts from near and far, with some competitors coming from all over the country.

For that one day, July 13 this year, the Ridge, which is most famous as a top destination for off-road vehicles, is closed for riding and open for running (and climbing, crawling, rolling and whatever else it takes to get over the obstacles).

The Ridge started hosting the Panther Run three years ago, said park owner Jason White. What started out as a small event has reached epic proportions. With every entrant slot for the race sold out last year, they added more for this year.

And sold out again.

“We sold out. We sold out last year, so we added about 50 more slots, …” he said. “We had 800 tickets we sold, plus there were around 30 volunteers, and then there were spectators, too.”

White estimates they topped 900 to 1,000 people in the park for the race.

The Ridge is normally run by a handful of people — mostly White and his family and close friends — but it takes a small army of helpers and volunteers to get the facility converted from an OHV park to the grueling 5K mud and obstacle course that has made the Panther Run such a big draw.

“It takes over a month to prep the course, including building the obstacles. It takes a lot of work, but anything worth doing is worth doing right,” White said.

Particular attention is paid to the obstacles. Organizers spend days looking at what has worked at previous races, what has worked at other venues, and then they group brainstorm all of those ideas into what unique obstacles they can feasibly — and safely — build for the Panther Run.

“Everyone gets together and brainstorms. There are six of us whose job it is to go over all the ideas and weed out the ones too hard to build or that are too complicated,” White said.

“Though we look at what other courses do, we tweak their ideas, then make them different to try to make them unique to us. We want everyone to experience something different when they come here.”

That attention to detail, their location and the facilities at the Ridge create a special experience that White credits with making the Panther Run so widely popular.

“I think it has reached out to people. We are piling in runners from all over the Southeast. Word of mouth and positive reviews online and on social media are pulling people from farther and farther out,” he said. “We have been compared to big events like the Warrior Dash and the Tough Mudder.”

The competitors

One of the key components to the success of the Panther Run is that everyone who competes is a winner. The fastest man and the fastest woman get special recognition, but everyone who takes part receives a medal and shirt, regardless of when they finish or if they were able to complete every obstacle on the course.

And there are different difficulty levels, from beginner all the way up to special endurance passes that let those runners continue lapping the course as long as the event is going on.

“We had the unlimited pass at this race. We sold about 20 of those where they get to keep running the course. I don’t know why they did it, but they did,” White said.

Some of the runners come alone, but more often they are part of groups — many times made up of experienced obstacle runners, traditional runners and beginners.

First-timer Shawna Stokes of Birmingham smiled, pointed to her teammates, Alania Stokes, Miranda Fohner and Wendy Thompson, and said, “I thought it would be fun to watch, and then I got sucked into running it.”

Miranda said they were going to work together as a team, especially since not everyone had done this before — “We are not going to be pushing anyone down.”

Though Shawna said she had a more competitive perspective on things. “You’re not pushing anyone down,” she clarified with a smile, adding, “I tried to do this a couple of years ago, but none of my guy friends wanted to do it.”

A number of local businesses were on the scene to support groups of employees and staff. CrossFit and other exercise centers from Alabama and surrounding states were particularly well represented.

Jay Stackhouse from Priceville and Staci Clemons from Summerville were there, both running in the early elite heat. Then, they helped other competitors they brought from the gym where she is a fitness trainer.

“It was pretty brutal, with some extremely challenging obstacles. The netting was particularly hard,” he said.

“The two of us came as a team to compete; then we came back to the course to help everyone we have with us. They may hate us while we are pushing them to finish, then they love it.”

Pell City-based Northside Medical Associates had around 40 runners in the race, something they said was a good way for the co-workers to have a day out together while promoting the importance of exercise and fitness.

“This is our first year out here organized as Northside,” said Ronnie Harris, human resources manager for Northside, speculating that Laura Gossett and Dr. Michael Dupre would end up leading their heats.

As much as the Panther Run is a competitive event, the underlying theme is for everyone to come out and have fun — and for many runners, that meant costumes.

One team, the Incredibles, sporting outfits from the Pixar movie of the same name, was made up of four family members and two friends.

For Majesta Bishop of Huntsville, who learned about the event on Facebook, it was her first race, though she is a hobby runner. One other member of the Incredibles team had done the obstacle run before.

As they donned their costumes and got ready for their heat, the team kept pumping each other up with encouraging words — a common theme for the day.

Sporting brightly colored hair and face paint, John Archer from Albertville said he was there with Sand Mountain CrossFit. John, who did competitive swimming for nine years, said, “This is my first run and I am very excited. The face paint and the hair, I did it because I thought it would be fun.”

Another group of runners were facing off along more traditional Alabama lines — in friendly fashion — made clear by their team name: Three tigers and an elephant. Larry Turner, Cambria Ware, Sidney Ware and Brandi Turner were all there to support each other, though there would be some friendly internal competition.

After the race heats, the tired but happy runners gathered for food and company along the various paths at the Ridge.

Buddy Spidle, a loan officer from Birmingham, said his experience was “outstanding.”

This was the first obstacle race for the physically fit former U.S. Marine. “It certainly tapped all my physical resources. It was very demanding; it was very thorough. It was fun, and I will be back,” he said.
More to come?

The Panther Run has become so successful, White is considering doing another race in the fall.

“We might do a second race — not necessarily the exact same thing, but we are definitely looking at some kind of race in the fall.

Whether it is putting together that race or preparing for next year’s Panther Run, White said none of it can happen without all the volunteer help they receive.

“I want to say thanks to all the volunteers — from people who help build obstacles to volunteer fire departments. This would not be possible without everyone coming together,” he said, adding that many of the people helping make the Panther Run a reality are former participants who have stepped up to keep the event going.

“We build relationships with people, become friends with people who want to come out here and see the park stay open and the race happen,” he said.

One of those — Billy Findeiss of Odenville (sporting a kilt for the run) agreed. He is one of those runners who also volunteers his time to make the event happen.

“I have been here every year, every year helping build the obstacles. These are great people, Jason and everyone are great people,” he said before having to go make sure one of the water-wall obstacles was working properly. Then, he took on the Panther Run himself in one of the later heats.

Check out the Panther Run and The Ridge online and on Facebook

The Panther Run

91 photos

Features

Chicken Head Run

Zachary Mason:
And the Music Lives On

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted photos

On a cool, spring morning in April, offering only a slight hint of warmer weather ahead, hundreds of people gathered at Pell City Lakeside Park in memory of Zachary Mason.

The next day would have been his birthday. Music from loud speakers echoed throughout the park, a celebratory prelude to the Fourth Annual Chicken Head Run. Zack would have liked that. Music was his first love. Friends and family were his passion. “Chicken Head” is what he playfully called most everybody. It became his trademark.

And on this weekend each year, they come together to raise money for the Zachary Mason Memorial Fund, which provides music scholarships to deserving students at Pell City High School.

Zack would have liked that, too. He walked at graduation from Pell City High School to a standing ovation in 2012, a tribute to the accomplishment of their fellow classmate who was born with Down’s Syndrome.

The son of Randy Mason and Melinda Pierce, Zack had a knack for making friends – plenty of them. “Anybody who had any contact with him fell in love with him,” said Tanya Osborne, his eighth- and ninth-grade teacher, who came up with the idea for the run. “He was my gentle giant. He was the sweetest thing possible. He played with my kids. He has a special place in my heart, and I will never forget him.”

In August the year he died, she saw information on Facebook about a Down’s Syndrome run in Gadsden. She and others formed a team for Zack. They donned T-shirts with a “kissy face” picture of Zack and dubbed themselves, “Zack Attack.”

About 30 people ran in that race, and it was the catalyst for a run every year since in Pell City near his birthday. “He called everybody Chicken Head. It was the perfect name for the race,” Osborne said. Now in its fourth year, the Chicken Head Run attracts nearly 200 runners and has awarded thousands of dollars in scholarships.

It’s a way to remember Zack and to keep the music alive. His aunt and Randy’s sister, Cacky Berlin, comes each year from her home in Clyde, N.C. “This is his element,” she said as she motioned toward the crowd, the music and the runners. “He touched so many people in his short life. It’s unbelievable. It’ really great that this race can help other students. He would be so happy.”

Rhonda Purdy, Melinda’s best friend, echoed the sentiment. “The music lives on,” she said. “It’s a way to continue to share what Zack loved most – music.”

His mother, Melinda, called it “exciting” and a testament to Zack. “He touched so many lives.”

Rhonda’s son, Adam, was one of those whose life was particularly touched. When Zack died, “I was heading down a path I didn’t need to go down. He changed my life. He was my best friend and my little brother. It was so sad to lose someone so close to us, but he inspired every life he met. He touched more people than most of us will touch in our life,” he said.

“As tough as it is, it makes it all worthwhile to see all these people,” Adam said.

Stepfather Todd Pierce concurred, recounting stories of “how much he loved people. He would be in the middle of all of it. He loved everybody.”

Zack was especially close to his brother, Austin, who was running the time clock at the race. Photos of them together over the years reflect the bond the two shared.

Shelby Weaver, a student at Jacksonville State University, won a music scholarship from the memorial fund. “It helps me to know I have a community scholarship like I have. It’s support from home. Because Zack loved music like he did, it helps me continue what I’m doing.”

His father, Randy, is known for his civic leadership. You could always count on spotting Randy involved in countless worthy causes throughout the city. And you could always spot Zack right alongside him.

Randy made it a point to make sure Zack was involved, too – at Chamber of Commerce events, Civitans and at Pell City Center for Education and the Performing Arts, where Randy acts as stage manager for shows.

“Both Randy and Zack are such a blessing to our community,” said former executive director of the Chamber of Commerce Erica Grieve, as she distributed packets for runners. “It is great to be able to come together in memory of Zack.”

“He came to all the rehearsals,” said CEPA Artistic Director Kathy McCoy. “He sang with Steve Shafer in the Christmas production. He would sit in the audience, and he knew every song, every word, so we started putting him on stage. He was our real sweetie.”

Unlike most teens surrounded only by peers, Zack’s reach transcended age demographics. At his 18th birthday celebration, 70 to 80 adults showed up, his grandmother, Sara Bain recalled. Four singers donated their time to entertain. When the classic, “My Girl,” was performed, Zack knew all the words. Barely masking her surprise, she said. “I didn’t know he knew the moves!”

Zack spent a great deal of time with his grandparents, and music was usually at the center of it, Bain said. He had baskets of cassettes and CDs at their home, and in the last few months of his life he took particular interest in the Gaithers Homecoming music video, featuring Singing in My Soul. “He played it over and over. All of it ministered to him deeply and therefore to me, too, because I watched and listened through Zachary’s eyes, ears and heart.”

What reminds her most of her grandson is a saying that seems to fit perfectly. “Live Simply. Love Generously. Laugh Often. Live Freely. That was Zachary.”

Mud Racing

A whole new kind
of racing comes to
St. Clair County

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan
and Graham Hadley
Video by Graham Hadley

From private parties to massively popular competition racing, Beaver Creek Offroad Park is St. Clair County’s place for fun in the sun with mud.

When Allison Morgan and her husband, Jason, inherited St. Clair farmland near Vincent that has been in the family since 1823, they knew there was one thing they did not want to do with it — farm.

She is a teacher, and he is an engineer, and while they loved the outdoors and spending their time with their kids outside, they had no desire to plant crops and till the soil.

“I grew up learning to work in the fields, but we don’t have time to do that. We had a garden for awhile, but before you knew it, it was overgrown,” Allison said.

Then one day, while driving to Walmart, like lightning, an idea struck: The property, with an abundance of wet springs and good terrain, would make the perfect outdoor park, complete with a massive serpentine competition ORV mud track with steep banks, a long straightaway and deep mud holes.

“It was an idea that we, me and my husband, had on the way to buy groceries. I was looking online, and all our friends from Pell City were going all over the place to drive in the mud,” she said.

Beaver Creek Offroad Park was born, and mud racing had officially come to St. Clair County.

“We had come up with something that provided family time where we could have fun, and we wanted the public to come out and enjoy the outdoors the way I did growing up. This was a good fit for us,” she said.

The project started out modestly, with just a simple muddy area for riders, but has steadily grown since then.

“The first time we opened, it was just basically a mud hole, but we had 800 to 900 people out here.

“Then we posted on Facebook just to see if people would be interested in having something like this track. We ended up with 40 people on our doorstep who wanted the park. The racers just showed up at 9 at night and asked if we would build them a place to race,” Allison said. “We did not know what they were talking about, so we researched online.”

From the word “go”, the park was a success — and since both Allison and Jason were new to the sport of mud racing, there was an admittedly steep learning curve.

“We started on the track in August and worked through September and October 2013. Then the racers showed up, and we had our first race in April 2014,” Allison said. “We had an excellent turnout. We were kind of shell-shocked by the number of people who came out. We were understaffed; we had no clue what was coming.

“Since that day, we have learned a tremendous amount about running these kinds of events and this sport.”

On average, they can easily see 800 people at the park in a single weekend, with bigger events drawing even more.

Those big events can include truck racing, ATVs, side-by-sides, sometimes combined with a music fest where they play everything from country to hip-hop. The music events are taking on a life of their own, with an emerging style of music that actually combines those two disparate music styles becoming especially popular with the mud-racing crowd.

Allison says the park is making money, but they are not pocketing the profits. She has put her teaching career on hold to run the park, while Jason works as a plastics engineer supporting the family. The extra money the park earns goes into expanding the park and building on the already solid business foundation.

“It is a work in progress. I don’t know if we will ever be finished in our eyes. We are always working on something,” Allison said.

“I put my dreams as a teacher on hold for this, but it has been a success. We are still in the process where we are growing and expanding, so every dime we make at the park is turned around and invested in the park. I believe 100 percent it will be a financial success, but we are not calling it that yet because we are still investing in making the park the best it can be.”

Family Fun

A key to that success is the family-inclusive nature of the park, with a focus on providing a place where people of all ages can experience the outdoors. Allison and Jason want a place where they can have fun with their children and where other families can do the same.

“Family time is important. It’s kind of our motto: This is a family place. We want to be able to bring our kids out there,” Allison said.

“It took awhile for people to realize our dedication to the family environment. We have been fortunate that we have not really had any problems. The fans respect what we are trying to do. The people show up, respect our rules — they have an amazing time. It is turning into a great thing.”

Race Day

That family atmosphere was pervasive at one recent mud-racing event April 19. Everywhere you looked, people were out riding around the park with their kids, cooking out with their families and watching as the specialized trucks raced against the clock and each other through the track, several areas of which were full of many feet of water thanks to days of heavy rain.

For the Morgans, they were hard at work as a family supervising everything — a busy job for Allison, who was running the concessions, and Jason, who was down in the pit area keeping the drivers and their crews organized.

And many of those teams were family and friends themselves, often racing against each other in different trucks.

Eddie Blevins from Shelby, Ala., said he just started racing last year.

Pointing to the stands, he said, “I used to be up there watching. Now I have not missed a race here.”

With pit support from his son Cale, Blevins had a solid showing with his truck Never Satisfied — “We did pretty well, won two and lost one” of the races.

At a previous race, they had won almost $1,000. For Blevins, that’s a win-win situation however you look at it. “You get paid to get out here and do something you love,” he said.

The winnings from those races can add up quickly — something that is important in a sport where the price of vehicles can hit the $40,000 range or more for the higher-end trucks.

But many drivers, like Blevins, are fielding much more affordable rides.

One young man who had just turned 15 was racing that day — and winning — in a truck he and his friends, with help from his father and family, had built literally out of spare parts for almost nothing.

David Matzke pointed proudly to his son Austin, saying, “He won his first race today. He turned 15 Friday. We probably have $1,000 in that truck.”

Austin grew up watching his Dad drag race. “He always wanted to race, so I taught him mechanics. We built this truck in two weeks.”

David said he is a huge fan of the mud racing scene and the family-friendly environment Allison and Jason are fostering at Beaver Creek.

“I love to see the kids out here doing this. Out of everything they could be out doing, this is a good thing to do,” he said.

Travis Perkins from Columbiana, who is also in his second year of mud racing, and Brian Johnson said the Beaver Creek track fills out the area perfectly. With two other regional tracks, Beaver Creek makes three. That lets them rotate venues every week or so without having to travel all over the Southeast to keep a regular racing schedule.

“We love it here. Allison and Jason Morgan, they are good people. If it was not for them, we would not be out here,” Johnson said.

While mud racing may be the big draw, with music fests a close second, the 150-acre park also has paths for ATVs and other off-road and off-highway vehicles, room for camping and other outdoor activities.

Allison says they are looking at finding a way to also eventually add rock climbing to the park. That’s not the people clambering up cliffs with ropes kind of climbing, that’s the specialized off-road vehicle clambering up piles of boulders kind of climbing.

“We are improving; we are expanding; we are making things out here that we need,” Allison said.

“I think this year is going to be great.”

The track is located at 139 Beavers Lane, just off U.S. 231 south of the Logan Martin Dam road
between Pell City and Vincent.
You can find it online @ beavercreekoffroad.com
and follow it on Facebook.

Mud Racing

76 photos

Features

Forever Preserved

Big Canoe Creek & Chandler Mountain Orchard

Story by Carol Pappas
Submitted Photos

It’s more than just a job for Wendy Jackson, executive director of the Freshwater Land Trust. When a piece of land, a creek or a stream can be preserved, it’s about the future.

It’s about her grandchildren and their grandchildren. It’s about partnerships, where public and private entities come together to preserve the past for the future. And it’s about sharing those protected treasures for generations to come.

Few know that better than Doug Morrison, who heads up the Friends of Big Canoe Creek in Springville. Since 2009, he and his group have been working with Freshwater Land Trust, St. Clair County Commission and City of Springville to protect this pristine area as a nature preserve in the state’s Forever Wild program.

Atop Chandler Mountain, Jerry and Janice Lanning know the value of the work, too. Their acreage is being preserved as an orchard growing a blight-resistant American Chestnut Tree, one of only two such orchards in Alabama and the state’s base of operations.

“It looks like a go,” Jackson said of the Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve, which is nearing an expected real estate closing in coming months. Forever Wild, a state program that buys land to protect and preserve it, has made an offer, and the landowner has accepted.

“Mayor (William “Butch”) Isley and the City Council of Springville, the St. Clair County Commission and the Friends of Big Canoe Creek really stepped up to the plate and did what others around the state have been trying to do,” Jackson said. Their success will mean 327 acres of land fronting Big Canoe Creek near Homestead Hollow can be preserved for the future and shared for the public to enjoy.

“We are so excited. It really is testament to a lot of leadership in St. Clair County. A lot of other counties haven’t seen this success,” she said. In addition to the obvious win on the environmental side, Jackson called it a “huge win on the economic front” because it is expected to lure tourism dollars to the county.

“This is a great example of how we work,” she said. “We’re not an advocacy group. We don’t file lawsuits. We believe hunters and anglers are some of the greatest conservationists, helping to preserve places that matter.”

Based in Birmingham, FWLT does its work in an eight-county area through public and private partnerships and a tool called a conservation easement. “It helps keep family lands in family hands,” she explained. Landowners can continue to farm or manage a forest while preserving it for the future. They can protect the land from future development and “preserve a way of life they care about.”

There are estate planning tools through conservation easements that can reduce estate taxes, but many people don’t know of their existence because the act that created it was not passed until 1996.

“We want to make sure farms stay farms,” she said. “In 50 years, we will need to feed two times the people we feed now. The average age of a farmer today is 60, and we’re losing farms every year.”

And they want to ensure that lands rich in biodiversity like Big Canoe Creek are protected and preserved. “Doug Morrison has really been a hero in this along with the city and county. He has really been a champion and stayed on it.”

“We are thrilled that this project is moving forward,” Morrison said. “The Friends of Big Canoe Creek originally nominated this parcel in July 2009. We were later approached by an adjoining land owner and nominated a second tract in April 2010. In May of 2010, we partnered with the Freshwater Land Trust and conducted a Bioblitz on the nominated parcels.

The Bioblitz was an intense 24-hour biological survey in an attempt to record all the living species in the area, land and water.

“We had groups of scientists, biologists, naturalists and volunteers participating. Some of the groups attending were professors and students from Birmingham Southern and Samford, a biologist from the Nature Conservancy, folks from Alabama Rivers Alliance, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, photographers from the Conservation Photographers of Alabama, and of course, many volunteers from the Friends of Big Canoe Creek. After the first tract is acquired we are hopeful the second tract can be added.”

When the property gets its official designation, it will become a nature preserve. Its nomination letter describes it as “hilly, forested terrain and aquatic and riparian habitat in and near Big Canoe Creek, including the drainage of a significant tributary of the creek.”

It has “abundant creek-side scenery and wildlife habitat. High points on the property afford views of the uppermost section of the Big Canoe Creek watershed, including beautiful rural Canoe Creek valley and the opposing ridges of Pine and Blount Mountains. The site is suitable for hiking, bird watching, paddling, mountain biking, horseback riding and a variety of other outdoor activities.”

“This endeavor is truly a community driven project,” Morrison said.

American Chestnut making comeback

Meanwhile, another environmental project is taking root in St. Clair County on Chandler Mountain, where the Lannings have donated land for an orchard to regenerate a blight-resistant American Chestnut Tree.

Originally known as the Redwoods of the East, these enormous trees — once found in Alabama and St. Clair County — became extinct because of a Japanese blight accidentally introduced in the United States in the early 1900s.

Once the blight spread, there was no stopping it. It wiped out these majestic trees, completely changing the landscape of the Eastern United States. “My mother remembered seeing them as a child,” Jackson said. After that, they were gone.

Working with the American Chestnut Foundation, timber companies and other groups, FWLT is involved in the St. Clair project, which is predicted to take decades to reach its goal of a blight-resistant tree.

“It’s a long-term proposition,” Jackson said. The tree is planted and at a certain age, the blight is introduced. If it survives, that tree is propagated. “It’s a multigenerational thing that will take decades for complete regeneration.”

And just as partnerships have worked well in the Big Canoe project, partnerships are playing a key role in this one, too, she said. Timber companies are helping with seedlings. A whole team of work volunteers from Honda Manufacturing of Alabama laid pipe for an irrigation system and planted another tier of trees to expand the orchard.

What is happening on top of that mountain is a valiant effort to bring back trees that the country’s founding fathers used to build furniture and split rail fences. They were trees that provided food to support an abundance of wildlife. It’s about the ecosystem, and it’s about timber for wood products — all interested parties working together to make something good happen.

But it’s more than that, Jackson said, adding a personal view of it. She knows it can’t come to fruition in her lifetime. “My goal is for my granddaughter to one day be able to walk under the shade of a Chestnut tree” — a simple pleasure she wants for her grandchildren and the generations that follow after.

Features

More Scenic Drives

Driving directions to
St. Clair’s scenic spots

Words and Photos by Michael Callahan

As I stood on my deck overlooking Logan Martin Lake, the wind bore down with a crispness and chill that could only mean winter was upon us in St. Clair County. Above me, a whirling grey mass of clouds, blocked out the sunlight. However, it had been quite a few weeks since I had packed up my camera gear and headed out to bring our readers a scenic St. Clair drive.

While I was badly missing the beautiful colors of fall, I knew where I was headed on this day. With camera, tripod — and warm clothes — I set out. Driving north from Pell City, I turned onto Alabama 174 , then over to Kelly Creek Road. Turning left on Kelly Creek, I just settled back and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Hay fields abound, and that means numbers of scenic pastures with livestock dot the drive along this idyllic road. Kelly Creek Road skirts the western side of Bald Rock Mountain. It had been quite a while since I’d made this drive, and I was taken in by the numerous horse riding stables and facilities.

Traveling down through the valley, I knew where I was headed. A couple of weeks back while working with one of our writers on an assignment in Springville, I had become quite interested in all of the older homes, churches and businesses in the area. I knew I wanted to capture some of what I had seen to share with our readers.

Entering Springville at the Highway 174 and US 11 intersection, I headed up Murphree Valley Road. At the top of mountain, I turned sharp left onto Pine Mountain Road . Just a short distance later, I came upon The Ridge Outdoor Adventure park. After suffering major tornado damage just a short time ago, they are back in business offering the thrill of off road ATV riding, and zip lines abound. Catch a look at the high flying riders. After watching these guys flying through the air, it was time to head back down.

Along the way, I came across Hullet Chapel Independent Methodist Church. As you can see from the photo, it was founded in 1870. That’s a whopping 145 years.

I came back into the downtown area and very quickly realized there is much history here. Taking the back streets, I came upon a very old business, as witnessed by the weathered boards adorned by father time. As you can see from the photo, it’s been time tested and still standing. Also had to grab a picture of the flag attached to the side of the old place. Just down the way and across from Homestead Hollow, another old business with the classic weathered wood made for a wonderful photo.

Now it was time for the downtown homes and business district. I will let the photos speak for themselves. Many of these classic homes have withstood a century or more of wear and tear. There, the architecture is from a different time and place in our county. Businesses are opening back up in storefronts that have not been occupied for many years. Laster Sundries is a good example of very old business that has reopened. Check out the article by our own Tina Tidmore on this historic business.

Traveling on through town on U.S. 11, I was taken in by the Springville Presbyterian Church circa 1873. Just up the hill you can find an old rock school house that has withstood time for more than 100 years.

As I left town traveling up U.S. 11, I knew where I was headed. About eight miles north of Springville on the way to Steele, a classic road cross still stands. These sign crosses are a fixture on roadways that many of us can remember from our childhood. Reverend Maye’s Crosses were once on our roadways throughout the United States. The one shown in the photo is located on U.S. 11 close to Steele.

Just a few hundred yards up the highway, I came across the decaying hulk of an original Pan Am service station. The Pan Am stations were the Rolls Royce service centers of their day, back in the 50s. While air conditioning was something virtually no business had in that era, Pan Ams did. You could also get gas, food and auto service if needed. They were something akin to our modern shopping centers, years before their time.

Traveling westward on U.S. 11, I turned right onto Double Bridges road headed back to Ashville and home. Rounding a curve, I was really taken in by what is called a winter/green field. Taking a look at this photo, you just have to admit we have some big sky scenes in our county.

Entering the city limits of Ashville, I came across what was probably a very old apartment house. As you can see from the photo, folks back then used rocks for foundations. A few yards down the street, there’s a Masonic Lodge reportedly built in the 1850s. This building is on the historical register.

Just a few hundred feet down the street stands the historic John Inzer house. Built in 1852 by Moses Dean, it became a home to John Washington Inzer in 1866. One of the highlights of this place is a bullet hole in the beautiful colored glass on the front of this Greek Revival home. It is reported to have come from the pistol of a Yankee soldier who was occupying Ashville during the Civil War. A very active group of Sons of Confederate Veterans does a wonderful job of preserving this historic place. The photo you see is Mr. Bill Watkins, SCV 308 St. Clair County Chapter.

A block over and just off U.S. 231 north in downtown, I found another excellent example of historic architecture. It is now called the Quilt House, and its gingerbread highlights, are ornate examples of an era long past.

Leaving Ashville and heading back down to Pell City, I had to get a photo of one more historic house before my drive was over. Just off U.S. 231 in Wattsville, adjacent to the railroad, this house was once a hotel serving customers of the thriving Seaboard railroad that ran through the Coal City/Wattsville area. Another excellent example of historic architecture.

Thanks for once again, meandering across St. Clair County with me. We want to share more scenic drives with you in our picturesque county and explore more of our rich and historic past. Our buildings and structures say much about who we were and how we got here. I am glad St. Clair County is my home.

Photographers Note: Thanks to Jerry Smith , Discover St. Clair writer, photographer and author of Uniquely St. Clair for his help and willingness to share historical data with this photographer. Thanks again to Mr. Roland Thomas’ invaluable resources.

Scenic St. Clair Drives

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