Tag: Other Stories

Phoenix Energy

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Leading the Way in emerging industry

By Carol Pappas
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Give Matt Hyde a few minutes, and he’ll likely convert you to the positives of alternative energy as easily as his company converts cars and trucks into using natural gas.

It’s not just a job to him. It’s his passion. “It makes it easier when you love what you do,” he said, just days after Phoenix Energy cut the ribbon on its new home in Pell City. An Alabama leader in converting vehicles to run on compressed natural gas, the company moved its headquarters and 13 employees from Jefferson County to St. Clair with an eye toward the future.

St. Clair Economic Development Council officials “were there from step one. They really wanted us to come. They were a great liaison,” he said.

“Phoenix Energy, as a leader in the alternative fuel industry, is a company with great growth potential,” according to Jason Roberts, Project Manager for the EDC. “We are happy to have them as part of St. Clair County’s industrial community.”

Now settled into its 14,400-square-foot building on Lewis Lake Road, Phoenix Energy is moving toward that growth potential. As Hyde, the company’s operations director, points out, at $2 a gallon, “every time you fill up, it’s a return on your investment.”

Phoenix Energy was created in 2004, and it has come a long way in a short time. Hyde’s father, Ken, became majority owner of the company after he retired from Alabama Gas Co. It was a natural fit. He had been working with Alabama Gas’ fleet of natural gas vehicles since 1978.

Today, Phoenix has grown from two employees to 13 and works with customers throughout the Southeast, converting vehicles to compressed natural gas usage.

The up-front cost to convert a vehicle is between $6,000 and $12,000, depending on driving habits. Over a 10-year period, he estimated the savings in gasoline and oil changes alone can amount to $40,000. On top of savings, it is cleaner energy, so the vehicle lasts longer, and the resale value is better, he said.

The barriers to growth of this emerging industry are convenience — there are only seven natural gas fueling stations in Alabama, for instance — and getting companies comfortable with the idea. Frito Lay and Waste Management are two of the more recognizable names who are not only comfortable with the concept of using compressed natural gas as their fuel source, they have embraced it.

This past summer, Frito Lay opened its first compressed natural gas refueling station in Wisconsin and is expected to build seven others across the country. In a statement from the company about the fleet conversion, Frito Lay officials said its 208 compressed natural gas vehicles will translate into the elimination of 7,863 metric tons of carbon emissions, which is equal to 1,125 cars annually. It is a viable alternative for other fleets of large companies, municipalities and school districts. But refueling stations are needed along major corridors so that they can have access to natural gas, Hyde said.

Phoenix will have its own refueling station open to the public within the next year, Hyde said. “It’s a logical fuel source for America right now. It’s abundant, and it’s cheap.”

America imports $1.7 billion a day worth of petroleum. By his figures, America could have paid off the national debt in seven years by converting to natural gas as an alternative fuel.

The natural gas cylinder can be mounted in the bed of a pick-up truck, under its rear frame or in the trunk of a car. A “brain box” is located in the engine that tells which fuel is in the fuel tank — gas or natural gas — and it can switch between fuels without interruption.

Personal compressor units are available at an investment of $4,900 to $7,100, so the user can refuel at home as well.

When he sits in traffic, his own truck converted to natural gas, “I feel like I’m doing my part — doing something good for my country. I have the power to do something good for this country, and it’s natural gas,” he said.

“It functions like gas. It’s 85 percent cleaner for the environment, and you’re saving money. It’s a win-win.”

While it will take time for universal acceptance, Hyde likens it to another automobile visionary. “Henry Ford didn’t build the first car based on gas stations.”

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Leverton Brothers

Band topping the charts

Story by Carolyn Stern
Photos by Michael Callahan

The Leverton Brothers Band hardly had time to pack up their instruments between shows in the past few months. This local group is gaining recognition all over the county and beyond, and Benny (Benjammin) and Randy Leverton are realizing a lifetime dream.

More proof of “breaking out,” comes from the popularity of their single, “Polecat Holler.” It recently hit Number 1 on the Indie World Country Chart. The “holler” is an actual spot located between Gadsden and Guntersville. Bill Moon, who knows a lot about that area, wrote the lyrics, and band members came up with the music.

This recognition builds on the popularity of last year’s hit, “Take Me Back to Alabam’” written by Randy and Letha Leverton.

Brothers Benny and Randy are the founders of the band. Both have been musicians most of their lives. “I started playing guitar when I was 10 years old,” Benny says, “and I’ve been playing and writing songs for more than 30 years.”

Randy, who mans the drums and sings, has taken very much the same course. “Each of us played with different groups for a while,” he says, “then we got together and picked up other members along the way.”

Managing to keep their day jobs, the brothers grew their audience by performing as much as possible. Randy has owned RTL Printing and Signs in Pell City for 20 years, coincidentally, the band’s direct source for its t-shirts and CD covers. Benny is retired from CenturyLink Telecommunications. They split the band’s business between Randy’s Studio 1 in Cropwell, where the recording is done on Benny’s Benjammin’ label.

The band’s song list covers blues, country, rock and soul. Much of the music they play is written by one or more of the band members.

Talent binds the present crew. Benny’s wife, Paula, says, “Sometimes we sit in the studio and toss stuff back and forth. Somebody comes up with a tune, somebody else throws in some words.” She joined the band in 1990, plays percussion, sings and writes songs. She also has a day job as Executive Assistant-Nursing Administration at St. Vincent’s St. Clair.

Barry McNair, a classically-trained pianist is on keyboard. He began playing piano when he was five. His day job is teaching electronics for the Etowah County Board of Education. Barry moves between electronics and music with the ease of a man who enjoys both.

J.J. Jackson says he “hit the road in his teen years and has been wandering ever since.” He’s played bass guitar in a number of bands. “My favorite was the Crimson Tide band in the ‘70s.” It had nothing to do with the University of Alabama, he adds.

Phil Harris, acoustic rhythm guitar, is a seasoned songwriter who’s been performing for 20 years. Recently, he recorded “11 o’clock” and “Where Have All the Heroes Gone” at Studio 1.

Whether performing in front of a crowd or jammin’ together, there’s no stopping the music from flowing. As Benny puts it, “We just write about life, and we just love music.”

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On a Mission

Christy Minor follows in her grandparents’ footsteps

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted photos by Christy Minor

It’s a legacy of mission work that has taken Christy Church Minor halfway around the world and back again — six times. But it’s a calling to a continent she seems to have been destined to fulfill.

Her grandparents Clyde and Anneli Dotson were missionaries in Africa for 40 years. Her mother, Margaret, grew up as the daughter of those missionary parents in Rhodesia. And although Minor is a judge’s wife, a mother of two and an elementary school librarian in Pell City, Alabama, Africa has become a place that beckons her every summer.

Fresh from a mission trip to Swaziland, a tiny country in South Africa, Minor shares her experience from the comfort of Coosa Valley Elementary’s library, surrounded by Pell City children eager to hear her story about this faraway land.

A month earlier, she was wrapped nearly head to toe with the warmest clothes she could find. It’s winter there while Alabama children swelter in the heat of the summer sun. As a member of the Pell City First Baptist Church mission team, her work at an orphanage in Bulembu was getting its library in order in a building with no heat.

By the end of the week, neat shelves packed with books in orderly fashion replaced the titanic piles of books strewn about the floor that Minor had encountered upon arrival. She went through them all, discarding what wasn’t needed or was out of date and then transformed it into a real, usable library. “They were very happy to have a librarian,” she notes.

And just like she does on a regular basis at Coosa Valley, she would read to the children of Bulembu. Their favorite, just like back home, was “No, David!” And as Minor recounts to the Coosa Valley children about sharing the children’s book with their counterparts a world away, the look of familiarity is evident in their faces.

While where she was in Bulembu was an orphanage, careful attention is given to avoid the stigma of children with no family. They live in individual homes with “aunties” caring for them. She lived in one of the nearby homes, visiting the children each afternoon after school and working with them. She , too, became known as “Auntie Christy,” she tells her students in the best South African accent she can muster.

But by the end of the week, when the Bulembu children would see her on the playground, they reminded her of the joy they found in what they learned from the book she had shared. If imitation is the best form of flattery, they certainly discovered it. They would smile, hold up a single finger and say, “No, David!” to her as she passed.

Bulembu is actually a real-life lesson to be learned in and of itself. It was a deserted mining town bought by the not-for-profit Bulembu Ministries Swaziland just seven years ago. Swaziland fell victim to the AIDS pandemic and has the highest incidence in the world of this deadly disease. As a result, thousands of children have been left orphaned.

Bulembu, in which Global Teen Challenge plays a major role, was created with a vision to make it self-sustaining to give those children a chance to rise above the abject poverty that has controlled their region for generations. And it’s working. It is now 30 percent self-sustainable through a dairy operation, bottling honey, a bakery, a water bottling plant and timber sales.

“It is very encouraging,” Minor says. Teachers come from all over the world. “They said, ‘We just came here for a few months’ ” and seven years later, they’re still there.” She is convinced in seeing firsthand what goes on there — a challenging curriculum, medical care, love and guidance — “they will be the future leaders of the country.”

Because of this ministry, the benefits and accommodations were not what she had come to expect from previous trips. “I am used to going to remote, really destitute areas” — places where Malaria reigns and swollen bellies from malnutrition are the norm. But in Bulembu, “It was truly a trip of hope to see what can happen when God’s people come together to help children.”

It also made her see that she is needed elsewhere, in places where the visitors aren’t as numerous nor the opportunities as plentiful.

She wants to go back to those remote areas “where they need medical attention and where they have never heard the word of Jesus Christ.” That is her calling, she says, just like her grandparents before her.

Just after Minor returned to Alabama, her grandmother was to give a talk about missionary work at her Oxford church and asked her granddaughter to share her experience as well. “She was able to share about what was happening 50 years ago, and I shared what was happening five days ago.”

To them, it is a legacy of love and compassion that lives on. “I have always felt called to the continent of Africa,” Minor says, her eyes reflecting an unmistakable longing to return.

For her, it is an obvious conclusion. “My heart is intertwined.”

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The Cane Makers

A stick and a knife are tools of their trade

Story by Tina Tidmore
Photos by Michael Callahan

Walking stick, cane, hiking pole and pilgrim’s staff: just a few of the terms that refer to the humble weight-supporter often associated with disability, the elderly and ancient Biblical characters walking through a desert. At least two St. Clair County woodworkers add creativity to the sticks they find in the woods, giving them eye-appeal in addition to a practical use.

Marvin Little, a retired insurance adjuster, takes a simple approach in his creations. His focus is on using a variety of woods and a variety of handles. He retains the bark and enhances the natural beauty of the stick.

Little’s interest in making canes started when he moved into a new home 15 years ago. While walking through the woods, he noticed some small trees and branches that would make good walking sticks. He has learned many of his techniques through online cane-making clubs where ideas are shared.

His own sharing sparked interest from another would-be cane maker. Cook Springs resident Jackie Stevens, who retired from the banking industry, remembers her interest starting when Little regularly brought his canes to the old St. Clair Federal Savings and Loan in Pell City to show the employees.

Little tried to get her involved in the Logan Martin Woodcarvers group, but she regularly declined. Finally in 2006, “I went to a meeting and became hooked,” Stevens said. Then, with a few unprepared, seasoned sticks Little gave her, she started creating her own canes.

Using a knife, Stevens actually carves shapes and figures into the sticks, including one she worked on of two snakes this summer.

Both Little and Stevens said a love for working with wood was passed down to them in their families. “I enjoy making something with my hands,” Little said. “It’s always a challenge to make something pretty and useful out of wood.”

“I even love the smell of wood,” Stevens said.

Little’s approach is not only to provide something attractive and unique, he likes knowing he is making something with practical use that is helpful to people.

But Stevens’ focus is on adding to her personal wood-carving collection or creating artistic pieces for decoration or display. She has given some as gifts or done commissioned pieces. They are strong enough to be useful, but that’s not her main focus.

Because their canes have different primary purposes, they have different price ranges. He sells his canes at local festivals and is careful not to invest too much time or supplies into them. “You have to make something that will sell at the venue where you want to sell it,” Little said. So his price points are $18 to $28, which generally amounts to enough to cover his expenses. He’s not making any profit or even paying for his time.

Similarly, Stevens isn’t in it for the money, even though she’s sold one at $60 and others up to $400. She started her cane-carving while seeking a stress-reliever. “My shop is the only place that I can completely lose myself with no worries or fears and lose all track of time,” said Stevens. “To me, the entire process from harvesting the wood to applying the final finish is rewarding.”

But she avoids turning it into a job. “I want it to be my idea, my style, no demands,” Stevens said. “I bowed out of the real world and come into my fantasy world.”

In 2006, when Stevens first attended the Logan Martin Woodcarvers, she was the only woman. But now others are involved, and they have taken up carving dolls. “The biggest thing is the friends I’ve gained in the group,” Stevens said.

Cane-making Process

Making a walking cane starts, obviously, with the stick. Marvin Little, who lives just north of Pell City, has used sassafras, hickory, oak, bamboo, sourwood, cedar and many other species. “A lot of it I don’t know what it is because I cut it in the winter when there aren’t any leaves,” Little said.

Some are branches, but most of the walking canes started as trunks of young trees. Little often turns the root ball into the cane handle. Broken limbs lying on the ground cannot be used because they are weakened by bugs. “It has to be something that feels good in your hand,” Little said.

Both Little and Jackie Stevens say “twisties” are highly favored. They are trees that have been twisted into a cork-screw form by vines. “If I find a good twisty in the woods, I’ve got to have it,” Stevens said.

Both Little and Stevens have friends offering them sticks and other wood. “I hate to see wood discarded,” Little said.

The harvested stick must be allowed to season for a year. Then, Little cleans off loose bark. It’s at that point that he decides what he will make with that stick. Some need to be straightened using water and a clamp. Sanding and painting are next. Then he puts on the handles and adds the protective clear coat.

In addition to the joy of creating something attractive, there is the challenge of doing so within the limitations and features each piece of wood has. “The wood has to talk to me,” Stevens said in reference to what she decides to do with it.

Much of the character of a walking cane is in the handle. Little has used a variety of items to create decorative handles, including doorknobs, deer hoofs and elk horns. Even a golf ball has been turned into a cane handle.

The most unusual request Little received was to create a wood-carved human skull as a cane handle. He has been asked to do canes shaped like snakes. But he has refused. Why? Simple. “I don’t like snakes,” he said.

To be functional and stable, the top of the cane must be in the same plane as the bottom, even if the middle is twisted. Also, the height of the cane needs to come up to the person’s wrist. Shorter or longer and it will not provide the stable support needed.

A cane Stevens is most proud of is one that used material from the former Avondale Mills in St. Clair County. “I made this cane in the memory of my Big Daddy McCullough, who worked in the mill all his life,” Stevens said. As the Mill was being dismantled, she asked for some of the remnant material.

She got some wooden thread spools and a 1902 sprinkler head that she made into a cane that she treasures. “I took several of these old spools of various colors, stacked them on each other and ran a quarter–inch thread rod the length of the cane and then put the sprinkler head on top,” Stevens said.

She has agreed to have her canes included in an exhibit at Heritage Hall Museum. Little plans to be selling his canes at this fall’s Homestead Hollow.

But beyond that, they do it just for the joy found in creating a work of art with a knife and a stick.

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Ride the Ridge

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OHV park exceeds creators’ wildest dreams

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan

Like many other teens in St. Clair County, Jason White and his friends loved riding motorcycles and ATVs through the abundant trails and woods in this region of Alabama.

But after they finished up school, places to ride became harder and harder to find. As often as not, they would pack up their bikes and four-wheelers and head out to a designated riding area, only to find it wasn’t open. The other option was to find places to ride that were not necessarily designated for off-highway-vehicles or open to the public.

“We would drive all the way out there just to find the place closed. We could not find places to ride where we would not get into trouble,” he said.

That’s when he got the idea to create an area dedicated to OHV riding that would always be open. He discussed the idea with the other people who rode, and they started an effort to make it a reality.

The process took about a year.

“We were looking for a place, trying to make it happen. People would drop in and out of it. Then this property came up for sale behind my grandfather’s land — it’s actually some property we rode on growing up,” Jason said.

The land was purchased, and the outdoor park, The Ridge, was born along the mountain ridge overlooking Springville. Originally opening with just a few miles of trails and some practice tracks, the park has grown beyond Jason’s greatest expectations.

And true to his original idea, The Ridge is always open, barring severe weather.

“We wanted a place that was guaranteed to be open,” he said.

Jason, his brother Josh White, and their dad, Greg, run The Ridge. After they purchased the land, they spent six months getting it ready to open, with 15 miles of trails and one track. Josh also put a website together for the new park.

“We had around 200 people show up opening day,” Jason said.

That was seven years ago. “We started off in an RV up by the road, just nice and simple. Then we got a singlewide donated for us to use. We were getting around 100 riders a day.”

Jason admits that, since the economy slowed, so has the volume of riders, down to about half what they were seeing then, but that has not kept them from expanding The Ridge, not only with new places to ride and different riding experiences, but with other features as well.

Today, The Ridge boasts around 40 miles of trails, everything from absolute beginner to expert, trails specifically for single-track riding on bikes to paths wide enough to accommodate side-by-sides. They have multiple tracks, each one tailored to different riding needs. There is a track for young riders just learning and other tracks, like Area 51, a triangle with different jumps and different faces so riders can practice a variety of competitive skills.

Jason says about 60 percent of their visitors are single-track motorcycle riders, and they have a dedicated 14-mile single-track loop that starts out easy and works its way up to an area called The Beast that is expert level.

More than it was

As much as OHV riding is still the focus of The Ridge, the dream of an OHV park that was always open for riders has become a dream of a weekend getaway retreat for families and groups, with a little something for everyone.

Jason and his Dad run a custom insulation installation contracting business, White Urethane, as their regular job, but they have brought that construction know-how and work ethic to the park. It now has primitive and RV camping with hookups, cabins and hotel rooms, and meeting facilities for visitors and groups to use. They built most of it themselves, with some help from other family members.

During the peak seasons, usually when the weather is cooler in the fall and spring, a restaurant is open, as is a gear store where people can buy everything from used motorcycles to riding equipment and rent ATVs and helmets. Helmets are required for anyone riding in the park unless the vehicle they are in has a roll-cage and the manufacturer requirements don’t include helmets.

Jason points out the helmet rule is an absolute, as are the other park rules, mostly about riding safely and respecting other park visitors who are there to enjoy themselves, too. “We want this to be a family-oriented place where people can come and spend a weekend and get away,” he said. And so far, that has usually been the case. Jason said they have only had to have two people removed from the park for misbehaving since they opened. “Generally, we have a nice group of folks out here.”

While people still mostly come to ride, The Ridge also boasts zip-line tours — a mix of the more sedate tours and the faster rides that are growing in popularity. There are five lines in all, culminating in the most exciting run at the end.

They also have two stocked fishing ponds and a specially designed competition-level 18-hole disc golf course.

Jason and his brother had set up a basic course to just play around with and give visitors something more to do at the park.

“Some guys from the Birmingham Disc Golf Club came out and looked at things.” They changed the course around to more official specifications and then held a two-day competition there.

They also have some rock-climbing areas and one section where they can do rappelling instruction.

In the early days of The Ridge, visitors could come out and enjoy free concerts. Like the riding, when the economy tightened up, the free concerts faded. But the stage and performing areas are still in place, and Jason wants music to one day again be a regular part of their venue. “We just did a three-day concert here,” he said, noting he is working on bringing more of the same to the area in the near future.

A new focus

“Resort” is the word Jason uses to describe where he sees the park heading. With the hotel rooms, cabins, meeting rooms and multi-use recreational facilities, The Ridge is not only attracting individual riders and families, but also organizations, churches and youth groups looking for a place to hold retreats.

“We are starting to look at more online and reservation bookings. That always makes things easier for us, knowing exactly what groups and how many people are coming to the park,” he said. “We did a wedding rehearsal, they stayed the night; and two youth groups; and an adult group, just in the past six months.”

He recently got his ropes-course certification at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center in Talladega and plans to add a cooperative ropes course to The Ridge soon.

The Ridge has also hosted Panther Runs, described on the www.pantherrun.net website as: “Mud, ropes, barrels, tires, rocks, wood, water, logs, sand and dirt mixed with a big bowl of adrenalin and spread out into a 5K (Unleashed version is longer) mud run/obstacle challenge.”

Even as he looks to find new ways for people to enjoy themselves at The Ridge, their core focus is riding — and a big part of that are OHV events that draw hundreds of enthusiasts here for several days at a time.

Whether it is the Southeast Cross Country Association Buddy Hare Scramble or some other competition, The Ridge generally holds six or more major riding events a year, which in part help support the park all year long.

And all of it goes to maintaining Jason’s original vision: To have a park where riders have a guaranteed place to ride.

For upcoming events and to check on space availability at The Ridge, visit their website at www.ridgeriding.com.

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Pieces of history

Fort Strother is long gone, but efforts
continue to preserve the site and its story

Story by Jerry C. Smith
Contributed photos

George Washington never slept in St. Clair County, at least not as far as we know. But Andrew Jackson did, also Davy Crockett and Sam Houston. And, they all slept at a place that has virtually vanished from memory, Fort Strother.

Travelers along Alabama 144 may be familiar with a large stone monument, just west of Neely Henry Dam. It’s inscription reads:

FORT STROTHER
CREEK INDIAN WAR
HEADQUARTERS OF
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON
1813-1814

It seems such a brief epitaph to represent Fort Strother, a key site in Alabama’s settlement. Incidentally, 2013 is the fort’s 200th anniversary.

Jackson was tasked with solving some rapidly escalating troubles arising from a massacre of Indians by whites at Burnt Corn in south Alabama, and its resulting retaliatory attack by the Red Sticks Creeks. He felt that the only solution was to totally defeat the Creek Nation and remove them from their Southern lands.

Established in 1813 as a military supply depot and operations center, Fort Strother headquartered Andrew Jackson’s Tennessee Militia during the Creek Indian Wars, a local theater of the War of 1812. Jackson had sent his head cartographer, Captain John Strother of the 12th U.S. Infantry, to find the best strategic fort site for conducting military operations against the Creek Indians in Alabama.

Captain Strother’s choice of locations was perfect for receiving supplies overland from the north, loading them onto flatboats built on-site, and floating them down the Coosa for various military operations. It also secured access to a strategic river crossing nearby.

Prior to its construction, the area already hosted a small trading post belonging to Chinnabee, a “friendly” Creek chief. There was also a small Creek village across the river known as Oti Palin (Ten Islands), named for 10 river islands jutting from the river north of the fort site. Ten Islands had become the fording place of choice on that part of the Coosa because of its shallow shoals.

Part of the Tennessee Militia cut a 50-mile road through north Alabama’s wilderness from Fort Deposit to Ten Islands in only six days, and began work on the new encampment. At first called Camp Strother, as the settlement grew and a stockade was built, it became known as Fort Strother.

On November 1, 1813, Jackson himself arrived from Fort Deposit, and promptly used his Militia to destroy the Creek village of Tallaseehatchee, a few miles across the river. But no sooner had he begun settling in than a call to action came from a most unusual messenger.

Fort Leslie, aka Fort Lashley, was a frontier stronghold of the Leslie family in what is now the city of Talladega. It was besieged by a large number of Red Sticks, a warlike faction of the Creek Nation who were waging vengeful raids against friendly Creeks and settlers that had begun with Fort Mims, a similar family fortress in south Alabama. All within Fort Lashley were surely doomed, awaiting an attack at sunrise the next day.

Among the friendly Creeks within its walls was Selocta Fixico Chinnabee, son of the chief who had begun the settlement at Ten Islands. Selocta knew of the troops at Fort Strother, and devised a clever plan to get their help. He donned the skin of a freshly-killed hog, snuck out of the gate, pretended to be rooting in the underbrush, broke clear undetected and raced to Fort Strother.

The Militia rallied, crossed the Coosa and attacked the unsuspecting Red Sticks at about four in the morning. Jackson’s casualties were minimal, but the Red Sticks were decimated.

Jackson returned to Fort Strother two days later, only to find that vital supplies had not arrived from Fort Deposit. Quoting professional archaeologist Robert Perry’s “LOCATING FORT STROTHER” paper, “With a force of 2,000 men and no food, Jackson’s situation at Fort Strother became desperate. By November 17, Jackson was forced to leave a small contingent of troops at Fort Strother, taking the majority of his force back toward Deposit in search of supplies.

“On December 5, 1813, Jackson had returned to Strother, and on December 9th was forced to put down a mutiny of his volunteers, who insisted that their contracted time had expired.”

By the middle of January 1814, Jackson had solved most of his supply and manpower problems and proceeded from Strother, intending to attack the Red Sticks stronghold at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. However, he was ambushed and nearly overrun in two separate engagements at Emuckfau Creek and Enitachopco Creek.

The mission was a complete failure, and Jackson was forced to retreat to Strother. Perry continues: “The official U.S. Army history of the Creek War characterizes the latter battle as a defeat for Jackson and states, ‘Jackson was compelled to entrench at Fort Strother and remain there for several months.’”

Between January and March of 1814, Jackson employed his troops building boats for transportation of supplies down the Coosa. During this period, the Fort Strother area would have steadily grown in size as the 39th Regiment arrived and Jackson began stockpiling supplies for a Spring offensive. The months of January and February 1814 mark the climax in the history of Fort Strother.

“… The fort had grown into a small city as supplies came in from Fort Deposit and Fort Armstrong. … By March 1814, Jackson had nearly 5,000 men, counting the Indian contingent, … and sufficient supplies for an offensive.”

In her History of St. Clair County, AL, Mattie Lou Teague Crow describes the encampment: “The fort, with its blockhouses, three large parade grounds, four separate camps — militia, infantry, cavalry, and at least 300 friendly Indians — was no small enterprise. The Indians — mostly Cherokees, some Creeks — were kept in a group. They wore white feathers and white deer tails to distinguish them from the hostile red men.” Local author Charlotte Hood wrote a book called Jackson’s White Plumes that explores this relationship and the whole Creek campaign.

Crow continues: “At times there were as many as five thousand men at Fort Strother, … and as few as a hundred and fifty. But today, all that is left of the great camp that played such a vital part in Jackson’s campaign is the cemetery, the graves unmarked and forgotten. These men were American soldiers, and they deserve to have their last resting place marked and given the same care as other American military cemeteries.”

Various other writers have surmised there was a fort, blockhouses, blacksmith shops, cooperage, field hospital, corrals for hundreds of horses, quartermaster store, boat-building yard and several wharves along the riverfront.

All these preparations were soon put to use, as described in a National Register of Historic Places application form: “… Jackson had been informed that a large number of Creeks were concentrating at Horseshoe Bend, which they were resolved to defend to the last. Jackson determined to march down the Coosa, establish a new depot, and them march against the Creeks. … On March 14 he departed, leaving 480 men under Col. Steele to hold Fort Strother and keep open lines of communication.

“The subsequent battle … was the decisive battle of the war, breaking the power of the Creek nation, and opening up … two-fifths of what is now Georgia and three-fifths of Alabama for settlement. … Strother continued to be part of a strategic line of communications with the Gulf Coast and Florida, serving as a way-station for troops headed south. No mention of the fort has been found after 1815, when Gen. Coffee and several Indian chiefs conferred there.”

After Horseshoe Bend, Jackson headed southward to Mobile, thence to New Orleans to fight a more famous battle against the British, albeit a wasted one since they were unaware that the War of 1812 had already ended.

And so it also ended for Fort Strother. Folks later traveling the area were totally oblivious to what was there and how important it all was to our lives, and it remains mostly so today. Indeed, walking the overgrown land itself yields no clues of its former usage. But a determined group of St. Clair ladies decided to change all that.

Charlotte Hood, wife of Alabama Power Company hydro manager Jerry Hood; Patsy Hanvey, a Cherokee potter; and Gadsden Library archivist Betty Sue McElroy became known as the Ten Island Three. The APCO newsletter, Powergram, reported on their efforts: “… These three self-taught historians have synthesized information from hundreds of sources, including archives, libraries and fellow history buffs.”

“This information was jumping out at us from all directions,” Patsy says. “We feel just like someone reached out and took us by the hand and led us.”

Their energetic efforts soon bore fruit, and on March 30, 1999, the St. Clair County Commission and the Alabama Historical Commission offered $10,000 each in matching grants for the Fort Strother Survey and Registration Project. In May of that year, a newly formed Fort Strother Restoration Committee met to officially begin work.

Retired Alabama Power executive George Williams had been elected chairman. Project archaeologist Robert Perry was vice chairman, and County Commissioner Jimmy Roberts became project director. Both Roberts and then Congressman Bob Riley played vital roles in obtaining the two $10,000 grants.

Other committee members and newly elected officers were Charles Brannon, vice chairman, also retired from Alabama Power; Carol Maner, historical writer; Rubye Sisson; Harold Sisson; historian Ben Hestley; Calhoun County Commissioner Eli Henderson; Kay Perry, secretary; Adm. Dennis Brooks; Realtor Lyman Lovejoy; Randy Jinks; State Rep. Dave Thomas; newspaper reporter Hervey Folsom; Sherry Bowers; and of course, the indomitable Ten Island Three.

Much exploration was done in the Ten Island environs, including the cutting of fire lanes to simplify field operations. A University of Alabama team led by Carey Oakley and another from Jacksonville State University led by Dr. Harry Holstein located and identified more than 800 artifacts, including gun parts, rifle and musket balls, and iron grapeshot, all consistent with armaments of that era.

Also found were hundreds of wrought-iron spikes and cut nails, assumed to have been used mostly in flatboat-building. Other finds included knife-blade parts, broken iron kettles, various tools, and lots of by-products used in blacksmithing.

However, the finds that would be most dear to Mrs. Crow’s heart were disclosed in the old cemetery. Oakley and his crew used ground-penetrating radar and other modern technologies to locate and catalog some 76 graves adjacent to the assumed stockade site.

But alas, the restoration project ground to a halt when funds ran out. At one time, it was proposed that the old stockade be recreated and the cemetery restored to proper dignity, all in a park-like setting accessible to the public, but that too has fallen by the wayside.

The exact locations of work sites have purposely been left out of this narrative to discourage trespassers and artifact vandals. In fact, all the affected lands are signed and posted. To view the general area, look to the western shore of the Coosa from Alabama 77 near Ohatchee Creek, and let your imagination fill in the rest. One might even visualize Old Hickory himself, on horseback, left arm in a sling from a near-fatal bullet wound suffered in a duel just before coming to Alabama, gazing downriver while making plans for future battles.

It is hoped that someone, or some organization, will resume this important restoration project to bring one of Alabama’s most historic sites to light and make the fort a public part of the state’s heritage.

Some years ago, the Cropwell Historical Society, after great efforts by Mary Mays, George Williams and other members, installed the impressive marker, made from local marble, that is mentioned at the beginning of this story.

Fort Strother has also been honored by a much older, more elaborate marker placed by an Anniston DAR chapter in 1913, on the site’s 100th anniversary. The marker is no longer in sight, but we can still appreciate its words:

Here stood Fort Strother
A defense against the Indians
Built by General Andrew Jackson
And occupied by him and his
Brave men
During the Creek Campaign,
November 3, 1813
Erected by the Frederick Wm. Gray
Chapter DAR of Anniston, Alabama
To preserve the memorial of
Faithful service.
November 13, 1913

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