Tag: Other Stories

LEARJET 464 Juliet

[Show as slideshow]

A mission of hope, a story of perseverance

Editor’s note: Excerpts from Wood’s book are italicized.

Story by Samantha Corona
Photos by Jerry Martin

In 1981, Bobby Wood sat down with a pen and paper, and began to write.

His story would have all the exciting elements – foreign countries, constant travels, a clash of cultures, gangs of criminals, and a few good guys who chose morals over money. It would highlight corrupt governments, an illegal industry on two continents, and one man’s quest to bring a valuable piece of American property — and history — home.

Most importantly, Wood’s story would be real. No fictional characters and no exaggerations, it would be his own true-life experiences – him and 464 Juliet.

“I wrote it all down by hand. I sat down and started writing, and I filled up notebook after notebook,” Wood said. “I wanted to include everything, every detail.”

Now, more than 30 years later, that original story Wood scribbled down has become a memoir, a nonfiction novel finally ready to be shared with the rest of the world – Learjet 464 Juliet.

“I’ve had this story for years and wanted to share it, but because of certain people and certain events, I wasn’t able to,” Wood said. “Now that some people have passed on, I’m able to publish it.”

Owner of Wood Performance in Pell City, Wood grew up in Birmingham, detouring to Florida before now calling Cropwell, Ala., home.

He began his love for engines early. His father owned and operated Wood Chevrolet in Birmingham, and it wasn’t long before the car fever caught on. Wood became involved in professional drag racing and was named the NHRA National record holder twice. He later traveled the nation in the Coca-Cola racing circuit.

Wood’s business today is leading innovation and design of carburetors and cam shafts for Harley Davidson motorcycles.

“I’ve always loved working with my hands. I like putting things together to see how they work,” he said.

In 1972, Wood moved to Opa-Locka, Florida, just outside Miami, with his wife, Terry, and their children. He started Wood Engineering, which built and designed products for the aircraft industry, and in 1978, under the title of Air Unlimited, Wood also opened a Cessna aircraft dealership, flight-training school and FAA repair station.

That’s where the story begins, and a Learjet by the name of 464 Juliet enters Wood’s life.

In January 1980, Raul Soto, Colombian by birth and Wood’s “right-hand man” at Air Unlimited, arranged for Wood to meet with a lawyer in Colombia who was interested in striking up an oil deal and in need of private investors. It was a proposition Wood decided to explore.

As the deal unfolded, Wood was introduced to another Colombian lawyer who brought his attention to the opportunity of restoring and returning confiscated airplanes.

The “business” of Colombia at that time – drug imports and exports – made available several abandoned and hijacked aircraft throughout the country. Some were left to waste away, some stripped for any value they could provide to the starving, money-hungry population, and some were considered property of the Colombian government and military.

An aviator at heart, Wood’s interest was piqued at the possibility of repairing and restoring these planes, both for the financial possibilities and the fun.

While out exploring the area and surveying a number of planes, native Soto remembered a U.S. plane that had been grounded just a few years earlier in 1977.

According to Wood and several news stories, the Learjet N464J was on a rescue mission to bring an American who had been badly injured in a plane crash back to the states to receive care in Texas. The victim was severely burned and required treatment that Colombian hospitals couldn’t provide.

“464 Juliet, a Jet Ambulance on a medical mission of mercy, had been sent to retrieve an American named Bruce Douglas Allen, who had been horribly injured in a plane crash. As Allen lay dying with third-degree burns over 80 percent of his body, Colombian officials and agencies, with the possible blessings of their United States counterparts, detained 464 Juliet on trumped-up charges of violation of airspace, and then, days later, neatly confiscated her by planting only fifty grams of cocaine onboard to ensure she would never leave Colombia. Neither would Allen, who was left to die unattended, a few days after 464 Juliet was confiscated.”

Six Americans – two pilots, two paramedics and two passengers – were jailed for their involvement with the rescue mission, but the circumstances, and their eventual release, left a number of unanswered questions.

As Wood made his way to the Simon Bolivar airport, where Juliet was detained, he saw the tail with her name, and it was love at first sight.

“Learjets are something special. I’ve always loved them, and I was excited about the chance to get her up and running again,” he said.

That opportunity wouldn’t be as easy as Wood had imagined.

As the story will tell readers, over several weeks and months, every roadblock imaginable lined the path – self-serving locals, legal red tape, drug lords and corrupt government officials would all have a say in Wood’s new quest to uncover the true story of that mercy mission and free Juliet.

“At that point I made a decision: If I didn’t get 464 Juliet out, no one else would either. I could have been wrong, but I didn’t believe so. I would turn their game back on them and muddy up the waters so much as to actual ownership that it would take years to clear – by that time the jet would be worthless.”

Today, Terry said she still remembers vividly how she felt every time her husband would head back to the Miami airport, bound for Colombia and whatever obstacles awaited him.

“I was terrified,” she said. “I knew he had to do this because he wanted it so badly, but I hated it every time he left.”

A man of deep faith, Wood said there was scarcely ever a moment when he didn’t feel completely fortunate to make it through alive. Without a doubt, he says the adventure would not have been possible without the grace of God.

“I have always been a devout believer in God, and I prayed to him for strength. I had been so busy, I had almost forgotten that He was there, but as I prayed, rattling over that road to Cienaga (city along the northern coast of Colombia), I truly felt His presence and was comforted.”

Thirty years later, Wood says he still feels blessed to have witnessed everything he did, and to have made it home to Terry and his children. As for the fate of 464 Juliet, he said, that is something readers will have to discover for themselves.

Other Stories

Custom Candy

Independent business bringing its sweet operation to Moody

By Amanda Pritchard
Photos by Jerry Martin

Creating a candy wonderland for children of all ages, store owner and creator Hanson Watkins opened Indie Candy in Crestline Village with that goal in mind. The business has thrived, and now she is expanding production in Moody.

In looking for the perfect place to expand her business, Watkins searched within an hour radius all around Birmingham, but ultimately knew she wanted to settle in Moody. “My father has done business in Moody for 30 years. It has a great reputation.”

This natural gourmet sweets shop specializes in allergen-free candies. Still keeping its storefront in Crestline Village at 73 Church St., Watkins will over time be building her workforce from seven employees to approximately 25 once the expansion is complete.

Featuring treats that Watkins calls “super duper handmade,” Indie Candy provides sweets that are free from the big eight allergens — wheat, soy, peanuts, eggs, tree nuts, dairy, fish and shellfish. “If it’s on the market and fits in our all-natural, allergen-free category, then we have it,” Watkins said.

Producing hard candy, chocolate and gummies, Watkins says, “Indie Candy focuses heavily on quality ingredients, keeping things fresh and shipping immediately.” Citing its best-seller as flavored gummies, Indie Candy packages its edibles in festive seasonal wrappings. “Everyone’s gone crazy for our pumpkin pie brittle. We’ll have it packaged in our gift tins for Christmas.”

Making it a mission to bring new experiences to candy lovers, young and old, Indie Candy Public Relations Director Beth Norris said, “Watching kids come in and eat their first piece of chocolate is out of control. Women come in all the time who haven’t been able to have candy and ask which section can they have. When we say all of it, they get so excited.”

Celebrating brisk Halloween sales, the staff at Indie Candy shipped more than 8,000 individual pieces of candy.

Indie Candy does not just make candy for others. They treat themselves, too. Watkins and her family have had trouble finding the right edibles without allergens and food dyes, so she looked to herself to provide the goodies. Mango and cherry gummies are her personal favorites, while Norris says she prefers the truffle apple.

Offering alternatives to allergens, Indie Candy can be purchased at its Crestline location or through its website at www.indiecandy.com. New customers can also “like” Indie Candy’s Facebook page to find out what’s cooking in the kitchen.

Indie Candy’s move to Moody with its production facilities will be completed soon. The new location is at Moody Acres where Minnie’s Bakery once occupied space.

Looking forward to expanding her business, Watkins said, “This is such a big deal for families who haven’t been able to have candy before. We can’t help but feel like what we do matters.”

Other Stories

Inventive Mind

[Show as slideshow]

Master ‘tinkerer’ turning heads around the world

Story by Mike Bolton
Photos by Jerry Martin

For those who have never met St. Clair County’s Wayne Keith, the first impression is never what was expected.

To the Mother Earth News crowd to whom he is becoming a cult hero of sorts, he doesn’t have the long hair and tie-dyed T-shirt they envisioned. To the college professors who are flying him across the U.S. to speak to distinguished panels so his vast knowledge may be harvested, he’s neither the polished engineer with a pocket protector full of slide rules or the quirky inventor that they might have imagined.

Wayne Keith is just a 63-year-old farmer in overalls who likes to tinker. “He’s just a regular guy” is the resounding response from those who meet him for the first time.

On this morning, Keith arrives at the Jack’s in Springville, and his old, wood-burning Dodge truck that is causing such a stir across the U.S. and in foreign countries doesn’t even get a second glance. An old pickup truck with three big drums in the back is as common of a sight in Alabama as Hoverounds are in south Florida.

Inside, he joins the gathering of old men who assemble daily at what they jokingly refer to as the table of knowledge. There, the old men sip coffee and feign genius as they attempt to solve the world’s problems. Keith’s presence in the group is a paradox. To the old men, he’s just Wayne, the local farmer that they have known all of their lives. He is unique, however, in that he’s actually a genius solving the world’s problems.

While the old men tell their stories, Keith doesn’t bother to explain that he has just returned from the Go-Green Festival in Missouri, where his wood-burning truck was held in great awe by patrons. Nor does he explain that he was the keynote speaker at the Environmental Protection Agency’s national convention in Atlanta. There, the good old boy armed with nothing more than a Springville High diploma was surrounded by some of the most-educated environmental scholars in the world.

“When I sit on these panels, I’m the only one that doesn’t have Ph.D at the end of my name,” he says from the log cabin he built in the woods near the St. Clair Correctional Facility in St. Clair Springs. “It’s always a little humbling.”

Before Keith got the world’s scholars attention with a truck that burns firewood instead of gas and travels 5,200 miles on a cord of firewood, he says he was just another bored high school student and an uninspired worker who was unhappy with his job for four decades.

“In high school, all I cared about was hunting, fishing and building stuff,” he said. “Going to college was never considered.

“I worked in the engineering department of a trailer manufacturing plant, and I spent five years building small trailers on my own. I was a Springville policeman for years with the K-9 unit, and then I went to St. Clair Prison as the dog trainer there. The whole time I farmed.”

The entire time he was working in a controlled environment, he yearned for something else, he says. An avid reader, he once read about vehicles from several countries being forced to run off of burning wood because gas was in short supply during World War II. That piqued his interest.

“When we had the oil crisis in the United States in 1973, and the price of gas shot up, I began reading more and more on the process of gasification (burning bio-mass to convert into a flammable vapor),” he said. “I learned everything I could find out about it.

“But in 1974, the oil embargo was lifted, and gas prices went back down. I just kind of forgot about it.”

Keith became somewhat of a noted tinkerer and inventor in the years that followed. He built a sawmill from junk steel he gathered from around his farm, and he cut wood for locals wanting to build their own homes. He estimates he has cut lumber for about 60 local homes.

He eventually cut wood from his own farm and built his own log cabin on the property. The beautiful home boasts oak floors and beams as well as numerous other woods throughout.

“No other human hands except those of me and my wife touched the cabin while we were building it,” he said. “We never bought anything to build the house except nails.

“The sawmill has operated 12 years, and there has never been a breakdown.”

Building your own home isn’t that big of a deal for many in rural Alabama, but Keith’s next invention got local tongues wagging. He took scrap metal from his farm and built what he called a “Flying Jenny.” The carnival-like ride had kids across the county clamoring for a ride, especially when they learned it would toss them in a nearby creek.

But it was Keith’s next project and the increasing cost of electricity that made local adults sit up and take notice. The 63 year-old built two windmills on his farm near his house, and the wind-driven fans supplied more than half of the electricity needs for his home. Soon after, others wanted plans, so they could build their own on their farms.

“The windmills have a generator that direct current to a battery bank,” he explained. “The battery bank has an inverter that converts the battery power into power that can run your home.”

Those windmills were destroyed in a storm earlier this year, but he plans to build them back.

Keith insists he is neither an environmental nut nor should he be a hero to the “Green” crowd, but almost reluctantly he admits he more and more is being seen as such. He insists he’s just a tinkerer who is looking for a cheaper way of getting through everyday life.

“I’m not a tree hugger,” he says with a laugh, “but if something I build allows me to do things more cheaply and it is more environmentally friendly, that’s fine, too.”

Gas prices fuel Keith’s innovation again
Rising gas prices in recent years once again piqued Keith’s interest in the wood-burning powered vehicles of World War II.

“I drew a line in the sand and decided that in 2004 if gas hit $1.50 a gallon, I was going to do something,” he said. “When gas reached that point, I started studying.”

The worldwide availability of cheap gasoline and the inefficiency of wood-burning vehicles caused the gasification process to pretty much be ignored following World War II. Keith by no means invented the process, but scholars say what he is done has perfected it to the point that it has now become viable.

What gasification does is take a bio-mass, such as dried wood, and burn it in a low-oxygen container. That converts the burning bio-mass into a combination of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane, the vapors of which are flammable. The vapors are piped from the three containers (one of which is a fuel filter made from hay) in the back of the truck to the engine where it burns like gasoline.

Auburn University and Texas A&M have run extensive tests on Keith’s trucks and have come up with startling conclusions. Since the vehicle completely burns the wood and emits no smoke, it results in 70 percent lower emissions than the total electric vehicles on the market today. The only real emissions are the ashes which are called bio-char, and they make excellent fertilizers for gardens. There is also water condensation that must be drained.

Tests show the process is 37 percent more fuel efficient than gasoline.

David L. Bransby, professor of bioenergy and bioproducts at Auburn University, says Keith is not some country bumpkin inventor. He says Keith’s near perfection of the gasification process has created interest across the U.S. and world.

“He’s an extremely smart individual,” Bransby said.

“I know of no well-qualified engineers that have been able to accomplish what he’s done. And he’s done it without any college education. His understanding of the process is exceptional.”

Keith’s plans are to work out a few more kinks in the process and then apply for patents. At that point, he plans to sell the process to a company that will convert trucks from gas to wood-burning.

Land-grant universities from across the country are interested in the process for an entirely different application. Bransby says he doesn’t see the process as being viable for most U.S. drivers but sees it as a low-cost source of energy for farms. An internal combustion engine coupled with a generator could produce electricity to power chicken houses and cattle operations and the waste-heat generated from the engine’s exhaust could supply heating needs.

Meanwhile, Keith is traveling the country speaking to universities about the process. He’s spoken in Michigan three times and in Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida and other states. He even drove one of his trucks to the Bonneville Salt Flats, where he set a world speed record for wood-burning vehicles.

“Some of these trips, as the one to Bonneville, are up to 2,000 miles round-trip,” Keith said. “You may literally see 1 million vehicles on the road on a trip like that.

“It’s pretty neat to think that you are the only one running off of wood.”

Other Stories

Volunteerism Defined

Terry & Sandy Gamble, Robert Hood help
Alpha Ranch rebuild after April’s deadly tornadoes

By Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

“Hear that wind coming down the valley?” asks Sandy Gamble, turning her left ear toward the door, which sounds like it’s about to rattle off its hinges. She laughs nervously. “Yeah, it’s scary. There are no trees now to block it.”

Sitting in a folding metal chair in Alpha Ranch’s new shop building, she glances at the door and windows, as if expecting that wind to pick up the shop and carry it away. It wouldn’t be the first time. It happened April 27, when tornadoes tore through Shoal Creek Valley, destroying almost everything in their path.

Sandy and her husband, Terry, live in the Clay-Trussville area normally. But nothing has been normal for them since the storms. On May 23, they parked their 26-foot travel trailer at Alpha Ranch on County Road 22, better known as Shoal Creek Road. Volunteers extraordinaire, they have devoted themselves to rebuilding the ranch and helping Gary and Phyllis Liverett rebuild their lives.

They came out to Alpha Ranch with Bridgepoint Community Church (Clay-Chalkville) a few days after the April storms. Their congregation put in half a day helping with the cleanup. “We came home that day crying, saying we can do more than just half a day with the church,” Sandy says.

The Gambles met the Liveretts more than 20 years ago, when they worked together at Bridgepoint’s Camp Chula Vista. They had kept in touch, so the Gambles thought about the Liveretts when the storms hit. “We moved here to help clear debris and for her to cook and for me to work,” says Terry, taking a puff from his cigarillo.

After the tornadoes, nothing remained of the original 120-by-40-foot shop building but the concrete slab. Used to teach trades such as auto repair, carpentry and electrical wiring to the at-risk teenage boys who live at Alpha, its reconstruction was a priority so the Liveretts could store materials and machinery while rebuilding the ranch. Once the shop was 85 percent complete, most volunteers had gone home. Only the Gambles and Robert Hood, an Odenville man who has worked alongside them, remained.

“Robert and I did all the finish work,” Terry explains, while keeping a watchful eye on his 28-month-old grandson, Hayden, who is running around in miniature overalls asking grandpa to kiss his boo-boos. “We built the work benches, the cabinets, the roof and walls, did the electrical work and the plumbing.”

With the shop almost complete, attention has turned to rebuilding the two homes destroyed by the tornadoes. One will be occupied by the Crawfords (daughter, son-in-law and nine grandchildren of the Liveretts) and the other by Phyllis and Gary. Maybe the houses will be complete by Christmas, maybe not.

Two years ago, Terry retired from Norfolk Southern Railway and the Army Reserves, two positions he held simultaneously for 36 years. He was deployed five out of the final 10 years of reserve duty, serving in the first Gulf War, in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Bosnia. His job was humanitarian assistance, rebuilding roads, schools and churches that had been destroyed by war. He had seen plenty of destruction, yet none of that prepared him for what he found in Shoal Creek Valley after the April storms.

“I was shocked at the devastation, but more shocked at the attitudes of the people out here,” Terry says. “These people lost everything, yet you did not see them down. They just took things day by day.”

Sandy often cooked breakfast for 50 and lunch for 150 workers and valley residents. At first, she and Terry bought the food, then donations started coming in. “One Saturday we didn’t have any food, and a pipe workers’ union pulled up with barbecue and baked beans,” she says. “We never ran out of food. We couldn’t keep water, Gatorade and ice, though. People were drinking four to six bottles a day during the hot summer. Hardin’s Chapel kept us supplied. I bet they bought 20,000 bottles of water.”

Cooking for hundreds of people and building a shop isn’t exactly what the Gambles had planned for their leisure years. They spent the first year of Terry’s retirement traveling the world, aided by Terry’s “space available” status on military flights. They were accustomed to helping people in need, giving money here, a spare bedroom there, but had never encountered the overwhelming needs they found in Shoal Creek Valley. “What got to me was the sentimental things I saw in the lake after the storms, like the teddy bears and the sofa and the dormers to the Liverett house,” Sandy says.

Terry has a brand-new bass boat that didn’t see water all summer, and he is building a street rod that he hasn’t touched in months. He has reduced his work load to three days a week, however, and manages to get in a little hunting.

So, what are the Gambles taking away from this experience?

“We thought we were going to be blessing other people out here, but we’ve received the blessings,” says Sandy, a retired school teacher. “I had surgery on my hand in October, and I was homesick for this place.”

Terry appreciates his new friendship with fellow volunteer, Robert Hood. After school started, most of the other volunteers went home, but the Gambles and Hood remained. “I never knew Robert before all this, but I’ve enjoyed working with him immensely,” Terry says. “Gary will make a list and Robert and I will go down it, checking off as we get something done. We work well together.”

Like the Gambles, Hood thought he would put in a few days at the Ranch, then return to his normal routine. “Extreme Ministries (a Pell City-based organization that mobilizes volunteers for construction-related projects) sent out an email through our church (First Baptist of Pell City) asking for volunteers for three weeks,” Hood says. “I said I would work three days, Monday through Wednesday, for those three weeks. The need was so great, after one day I realized that wasn’t going to be enough.”

Hood says he could find plenty to do at his house, such as picking up limbs and raking leaves, but in Shoal Creek, he gets a sense of satisfaction knowing he’s giving something back to the community.

A retired plant manager for O’Neal Steel, he is accustomed to volunteering, though. For eight years he put in 2,000 hours a year as a certified reserve deputy sheriff for St. Clair County. He gave that up in 2008 when congestive heart failure made it difficult to wrestle detainees to the ground. He had never wielded a hammer much or installed a toilet before his stretch at Alpha.

“Now I’ve done roofing, plumbing, wiring, carpentry, I’ve set trusses, whatever needed to be done,” he says. “But I tell people I just come out here for the lunches.”

Neither the Gambles nor Hood know when their lives will regain a sense of normalcy. “We’ll go home for Christmas, but we won’t go home permanently until the Lord tells us to,” Sandy Gamble says.

“How much longer will I be here? My wife wants to know, too,” says Hood.

“She has no problem with it, though. Since the latter part of September, I’ve cut back to three days. I volunteer two days a week for the county, filing papers at the courthouses in Ashville and Pell City.”

Ann Bobo, Terry’s first cousin and fellow church member, says the Gambles always have been very giving, very kind people who love to do things for others.

“They are always willing to help somebody out, but privately so that they don’t get any accolades for it,” she says.

Gary Liverett can’t say enough good things about Hood and the Gambles.

“Terry and Sandy have such heart. Sandy has helped feed people up and down the valley. They are a good example of what real volunteerism is,” he states. “Most people have gone back home. They’ve sacrificed and stayed.”

He never knew Hood until he came out with Extreme Ministries. “He has worked constantly and tirelessly; he, too, is the epitome of volunteerism,” Liverett said.

Other Stories

Hidden Treasures

[tiltviewer id=10 width=600 height=600]

Storefronts uniquely St. Clair

By Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

When it comes to storefronts in St. Clair County, appearances can be deceiving. A turn-of-the century Victorian house in Ashville actually is a quilt shop. A log house in Pell City once was a barn in Virginia. A shed used to brood ducks and turkeys serves as a second-hand shop in Odenville. A historic feed store in Springville has become an antique mall. A tack shop in Ashville is in a landmark rock building that once held cotton waiting to be ginned.

These not-so-modern structures have been transformed under the careful guidance of ingenious owners who make the most of odd-shaped rooms and limited spaces. Some have been restored to their former glory, some modernized, but each offers an unusual shopping experience.

Historic shop

On the outside, the Ashville House Quilt Shop looks much like it did when the Queen Anne-style house was completed in 1894. Listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Historical Places, its turrets and towers, gables and arches, wrap-around porches and gingerbread ornamentation showcase seven different historical paint colors. Inside, the high ceilings, heart-of-pine floors and original wood trim surround hundreds of bolts of gaily-printed fabric, cases and counters of colorful threads and a few quilts for sample and for sale.

“My husband, Lavon, and I bought the house in the early 1990s and spent three years restoring it, then lived here for three years before turning it into a tea room in 2000,” says Pat Drake, who operates the shop with her sister and partner, Loretta Horton. “We closed the tea room in 2007 and opened the quilt shop in 2010.”

Lavon did “most of the hard stuff” during the restoration, such as rebuilding the interior walls. But it was Pat who painted the ceiling frieze in the music room, using a cake decorator, caulking, paint and “about 200 trips up a 15-foot ladder.”

Pat’s mom, Alline Hill, pins customers’ assembled quilts to a long-arm quilting machine. Pat does the quilting. Loretta teaches most of the quilting classes, which cover basic skills such as binding, piecing and color combinations.

The shop, at the corner of U.S. Highway 231 South and Third Street, Ashville, is open Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Call 205-594-7046 or visit www.ashvillehousequiltshop.com for more information.

‘The Cabin’

Judy and Richard Potter love antiques, so when their nest became empty and Judy started looking for a way to use her retailing degree, the Pell City couple decided to open an antique shop in a log cabin. Never mind that they didn’t own a log cabin.

“We found a two-story log barn in Mendota, Virginia, that was built around 1830,” Judy says. “We disassembled it, then reassembled it here in our front yard on Cedar Lane.”

Opened 15 years ago, The Cabin on Cedar Lane bears little resemblance to its former self. Stone steps lead to a small porch that the Potters added. The second floor of the 20-by-24-foot structure is where the hay loft used to be. The Potters gave it a new floor from old wood and made a window out of the loft door, then added two windows in the front on the first floor. Original walls are made of hand-hewn oak, poplar and pine. “The poplar were the smooth logs, but they used some oak for strength,” Judy explains.

Judy doesn’t have as many antiques as when she started, but stocks “some really good reproduction furniture pieces, lamps and home accessories,” she says. Many of the items she sells are by local artists, including Ron Sims pottery and Peggy Turner watercolors. Other items include fused glass jewelry, decorator balls made of sea shells, pickled vegetables, dip mixes and Trapp candles.

The Cabin on Cedar Lane, 5014 Cedar Lane, Pell City, is open 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Call Judy at 205-338-3866 for more information.

Landmark building

Anyone giving directions to a street off U.S. 411 between Ashville and Leeds invariably says, “Go past (or to) the rock stores. …” The three rock buildings near the intersection of 411 and County Road 31 have been landmarks in the area since Will Dollar built them between 1927 and 1929. Today, one of those buildings houses Jodie’s Harness and Tack, a place to buy equine goods, get your tack repaired and shoot the bull about anything from the weather to President Obama’s health care plan.

“We bought the two buildings on this side of the Highway 25 years ago from a man who had an auction house here,” says Jodie Isbell, the “we” being she and husband Bobby. “The tack shop was where Will Dollar stored cotton to be ginned, and the building next door, where we live, was a feed store. The mercantile was across the street. There was a cotton gin and grist mill behind our two buildings, close to a creek.”

Dollar’s first store burned down in 1926, and he rebuilt using field stones from his own property. His mercantile was where everybody came to buy sugar and flour, fabric and thread, pots and pans, and to get their corn and wheat ground. “People spent the night here in their wagons to get their wheat and corn ground the next day,” Jodie says.

Sixteen years ago, Jodie and Bobby bought a sewing machine and tools from the estate of a late friend who had a leather shop. They simply wanted to repair the harnesses for their own horses, but people started asking them to repair their harnesses and halters, too. “Then they started asking us for other tack and horse supplies,” Jodie says. “It just grew.”

They’ve added saddles, horse shoes, bridles, tack to fit large horses like their Percherons, equine grooming supplies, feed supplements and more. They still do tack repairs and sell yard eggs from the 200 chickens running around the property.

Jodie’s Harness & Tack, located at 22326 Highway 411, Ashville, is open Wednesday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. until Noon. Jodie can be reached at 205-629-5891.

No eggs in this hen house

Despite the vintage jewelry, the primitives and the cobalt blue and green feathers from an India Blue peacock, it’s the property surrounding The Hen House in Odenville that makes Henrietta T. Goodman’s second-hand shop so interesting. She sells “affordable treasures and boutique items at thrift-store prices” from a nondescript, one-room, pre-fab building formerly used by her husband to store feed and brood his ducks and turkeys.

But the shop sits next to Henrietta’s orchard, with its blueberry, blackberry and strawberry bushes; it’s pear, plum and persimmon trees; and muscadine vines. Both are near the front edge of a 17-acre property that includes house; barn and swimming pool; two ponds; pens for their rare Lady Amherst and Red Golden pheasants, and their peacocks, guineas, quail and chickens; and the pastures for their Zebus (miniature Brahma cattle). “I’m trying to get my husband to plant me a pumpkin patch, and he wants to add goats to our petting zoo,” says Henrietta, a vivacious woman with a ready laugh. She has been running second-hand shops since she retired from her job with Bell South Cellular in 2004. She opened The Hen House in 2010. “Everybody stops when they see my Hen House sign, thinking we sell chickens and eggs,” she says, laughing. “So we’re going to start that soon.”

The Hen House, 11934 Hwy 411, Odenville, is open Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. 4 p.m. For more information contact Henrietta Goodman at 205-531-0443.

Century old, new life

Just a few years ago, Springville’s Main Street was lined with antique shops. Today, there’s only one, the Ole Springville Antique Mall, but it boasts 37 vendors, including most of the owners of the former Main Street shops.

Located in the old Washington Feed building, which operated as a feed store for more than 100 years, the antique mall is owned by Curt Deason and managed by Beverly Crumpton. The latter used to own the House of Quilts antique shop down the street.

“I bought Washington Feed in 1994 and operated it until 2003,” says Curt. “I sold it, but it went into foreclosure. I bought it back in 2007, remodeled it and turned it into an antique mall.” Each vendor has a separate booth, and Deason is pleased with his dealers and their merchandise. “We’ve got some really nice stuff in here,” he says. “We don’t allow any yard-sale items, they have to be antiques. That’s one of our main policies.”

The 8,000-square-foot building actually is two buildings combined. The first was built in 1905 by the grandfather of Frank Rutland. The second was added by Rutland, who ran the feed store for many years. “You can see where the two are joined together, because the walls and doorway are very thick there,” Deason says. “Those were outside walls at one time.”

The Ole Springville Antique Mall, 6364 U.S. Highway 11, Springville, is open Mondays and Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Thursdays hours are 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., and Sundays it’s 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. The telephone number is 205-467-0612.

Other Stories

Ten Islands

A tale of two campaigns

By Carolyn Stern
Photos by Jerry Martin

It’s been called “The County’s most historic site” by many. Fort Strother, which would be almost 200 years old today, was an important stepping stone for President Andrew Jackson in his campaign against the Creeks. But where is it? The answer is, you just can’t get there from here.

In the early 1800s, the new country of America was a mass of movement. Opening new land to settlement was never expected to be simple. In Alabama, it meant that the native Creeks would lose land they had long considered their own, and they began to fight back.

“Legend has it that late in the year 1812, Chief Cataula called a council of war at Littafatchee, a village on Canoe Creek, several miles from present-day Ashville,” writes Mattie Lou Teague Crow in her “History of St. Clair County.” Several skirmishes and a bloody battle at Burnt Corn Creek showed that the hostile Creeks (called the Red Sticks) had declared all-out war.

On Oct. 7, 1813, Gen. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee took command of a small company of infantry troops and headed toward the trouble spots in what is now Alabama. Many volunteers joined Jackson because they felt their homes and families wouldn’t be safe as long as the Indians were on the war path.

One of those volunteers was Davy Crockett, who was well known for being a troublemaker. An example is shown in a biography called “In the Footsteps of Davy Crockett” by Randall Jones. After 60 days with Jackson’s army, he and his volunteers began to get restless and were ready to go home. In one camp situation, Crockett said he and the volunteers loaded and primed their rifles and walked across a bridge to leave, despite Jackson’s order that a cannon be aimed and readied for firing at anyone who crossed. They weren’t fired on, he declared, but Jackson said they were “the damned’st volunteers he had ever seen in his life: that we would volunteer and go out and fight, and then at our pleasure would volunteer and go home again in spite of the devil.”

Jackson marched his army to Fort Deposit on Oct. 11 and established a supply depot. From there he headed directly south from the Tennessee River toward Ten Islands. Part of his army went ahead to cut a road that eventually stretched about 50 miles. This route became known as Jackson’s Trace and was still used after Alabama became a state.

No written evidence has surfaced that Jackson ordered a fort to be built at Ten Islands, but the indications are that his plan was to establish this second step in his supply system and work south. Some historians think Jackson gave the fort the name of Strother to honor Gen. George Strother Gaines, Indian factor to the Choctaws. Others say Jackson named it for his topographer, John Strother. An excerpt from one of Strother’s letters infers that was a dubious honor.

“The evil spirits, stated by the natives to reside in a deep hole in the Ten Islands, have surely employed all their mischievous machinations to prevent this post from being supplied with provisions. …”

Through the beginning days of General Jackson’s campaign in Alabama, his men had to forage en route because a supply system hadn’t yet been set up. Eventually four forts were established: Fort Deposit, Fort Strother, Fort Williams and Fort Jackson (built on top of Ft. Toulouse) close to Dadeville.

As soon as he reached Ten Islands, Jackson sent men to cut trees for the stockade. Fort Strother was used by the general during 1813 and 1814 as his headquarters throughout the conflict with the Creek Indians.

Charlie Brannon, who has researched the fort’s history for 40 years and has known about it longer than that, has the facts at his fingertips. “I grew up not far from where the fort was, and I used to wander around and find arrowheads and other such stuff there.”

Brannon says the fort was about 300 feet by 350 feet. “Jackson’s men cut down trees, split them, carved picket posts and stood them in post ports with the flat sides to the inside.” Jackson and some of his officers stayed inside the stockade while most of his men camped outside in mud huts, he adds.

Records show that the fort included three large parade grounds, four separate camps — militia, infantry, calvary and at least 300 friendly Indians, mostly Cherokees but some Creeks. They wore white feathers and white deer tails to distinguish them from the hostile Native-Americans.

Food was of primary importance since the army numbered 3,000 men when it reached Fort Strother on Nov. 1, 1813. (Crockett and his friends were in and out.) A hundred to a hundred and fifty cattle and hogs were maintained, and cribs and storage bins were built to keep the grain dry. The whiskey supply (for medicinal purposes) required a building measuring 144 square feet. It was always kept under lock and key and was well guarded.

After all the forts were established, wagons with supplies moved continually down the line of forts because Jackson wanted to have at least three weeks’ supply of everything needed to support his army when they met the Indians in their final battle. On March 27, 1814, Jackson’s army defeated the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend.

In 2000, a joint project by University of Alabama archeologist Carey Oakley, Charlie Brannon, Richard Perry and community volunteers, as well as students from Jacksonville State University and Troy University, examined the land. Perry has written a detailed report of the fort’s history, “The Historical Significance of the Creek Indian War of 1813-14, Land Use and Archaeology of Fort Strother in St. Clair County, Ala.”

A cemetery had already been identified, and a ground-penetrating radar device found anomalies in the soil. Some were confirmed as being human remains. Some post ports and evidence of the moat that surrounded the fort also have been found. Brannon says that 187 artifacts from that project are in the Alabama Archives at Tuscaloosa. “Also, 57 graves of those soldiers who served under General Jackson have been identified. Some of them were killed in battle, and others probably died of malnutrition, disease or injury.”

He adds that other items found in the area, hand-wrought horseshoes and chains, rings and belt buckles, testify to the presence of early travelers. “Some of the articles have a Spanish connection, leading me to believe that Ferdinand De Soto or his men came this way.”

Andrew Jackson had a very personal reason to remember our county, writes Mrs. Crow. “It was in St. Clair County that he found a Creek baby without family. He sent him to a friend in Huntsville and later took him home to his wife, Rachel, in Tennessee. This Creek Indian boy, Lincoya, grew to manhood in the home of the Jacksons.”

Brannon says the Coosa below the dam “is pretty much as it was naturally.” Researchers have determined that the fort was located on the west side of the Coosa just below the present Neely Henry Dam, and the land has had a variety of owners. Slated once for a residential community, it also was mined for sand and gravel. The only marker that memorializes its presence is beside Highway 144 near the Ten Islands Recreation Area. Unfortunately, there isn’t an 1814 fort at Ten Islands that we could visit today. No glass cases of artifacts or armaments. No replicas of the stockade with the corner blockhouses, no designated cemetery area with markers yielding the names of those soldiers who died at Fort Strother. Instead, we have the connection between Ten Islands and Fort Strother, each a story on its own.

Blue and Gray Clash at the Coosa

In July of this year, shouts of summer fun echoed from the sandy beach along the Coosa River. Families picnicked within view of a cool swimming spot on a hot day. Most had passed a historical marker in a parking lot above the recreation area, but probably few had stopped to read it. The plaque tells of a very different scene on a July day.

Battle of Ten Islands

“On July 14, 1864, a small group of brave Confederate Cavalry under Gen. James H. Clanton, approximately 300 strong, were overwhelmed by a vastly superior Union Cavalry force under Gen. L.H. Rousseau. The Confederates were attempting to protect the Janney Iron Works near Ohatchee and Crowe Iron Works near Alexandria. The superior Union force destroyed both iron works and proceeded to Talladega.”

If you had stopped to read the sign (at the urging of an avid historian in the vehicle, like your grandmother), you might immediately train your eyes on the lake and on the opposite shore trying to count the islands. (I know this from personal experience.)

The intriguing name is that of an Indian village that existed before the settlers moved in. It was called Otipalin, a Creek word meaning Ten Islands. The islands may no longer be visible, but the location and the story of the 1864 battle live on.

Events leading to the battle began on July 12 when Union Gen. Rousseau and his “Raiders” invaded the small town of Ashville. Their intent was to load up on supplies that “the enemy might have stored there,” according to Rousseau’s Aug. 10, 1864, official report to the War Department of his actions. After securing feed for the animals and food and clothing for his 2,500 men, the general and his raiders moved on.

Rousseau continued in his report, “On the morning of the 14th, I proceeded with the main body of the command to cross at a ford at Ten Islands, four miles below Greensport.” The ford allowed crossing of the river, and here the Union soldiers met the Sixth and Eighth Alabama Cavalry.

“The advance was met by severe fire from the enemy posted on the east bank sheltered behind rocks and trees,” Rousseau wrote. However, heavy fire that was returned by his Fifth Iowa and Fourth Tennessee Cavalries allowed the Union troops to prevail. Rousseau reported 15 Confederate solders were killed, 40 wounded and eight taken prisoner. His army continued on its way south.

Tom Cooper, Alabama Power supervisor of H. Neely Henry, Logan Martin and Weiss dams for many years, says the area was the perfect place to cross the river. “The ford used by travelers and troops to cross the Coosa was at Wood Island, where a slough came up. Wagons and horses could get across there.” The crossing was natural limestone, he explains.

The 1864 battle of Ten Islands between Union and Confederate soldiers was fierce, but now the marauders are just everyday folks looking to have lots of fun. With a little imagination, they might just see Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett crossing the river here to reach Fort Strother in the early days of the Indian wars. Or hear the guns and see the action of those long-ago events that are part of this county’s history.

Park attendant Alton Griffith has spent the past five summers watching over the recreation area at Ten Islands. “People don’t know about all this,” he says. “We have a boat-launching area and a fishing pier, a sandy beach and shallow water access, as well as picnic tables and restrooms,” he adds. “And it’s all free.”

After he retired from Goodyear in Gadsden, Griffith looked for something to do that he would enjoy. “On weekends in the summer we might have close to 1,000 people, and the license plates on the cars aren’t all from Alabama. I like to meet and talk with people, so I like it here.” So do a lot of others.

Directions

• The revived Janney Iron Works (Calhoun County) sits on Janney Road (Hwy. 77 north of 144, right on Spring Road and left to Janney Road.)
• To get to H. Neely Henry Dam directly from I-20, take Ala. Hwy. 77 north and turn left/west onto Ala. Hwy. 144.
• From the Ashville area, take U.S. Hwy. 231 south to County 26 and turn left. Continue to Ragland, pick up Ala. Hwy. 144. The recreation area is a left turn just before the bridge.

Other Stories