Day 7 of Eastbound, with the Hammer Down … Not Really! – Alabama to Georgia

There was a light rain last night and it made going to sleep a breeze ... to bad staying asleep was more difficult, we both awake at 3:30am, but much too early to get up ... we did manage to get back to sleep! 

We departed Kountry Air RV Park and headed east on ... you guessed it ... US 82 .... we should be on it all day ... we might reach US 19 today and turn south ... only time will tell!

In 1833, a New Hampshire industrialist named Daniel Pratt moved south. Pratt established the largest cotton gin factory in the world and, with it, a town known fittingly as Prattville. Soon this humble hamlet outside Montgomery became an industrial hub, fueling Alabama’s antebellum cotton production. Prattville weathered the Civil War and recovered faster than any other Alabama town, as Pratt collected on debts owed from his Northern accounts. Since then, Prattville has continued to grow in important ways, gradually shifting from an industrial epicenter to a forward-looking city and a beloved hometown. Through floods, tornadoes, damaging fires and shifting economic conditions, Prattville and its townspeople endured. 

US 82 joined I-65 and the was a sign indicating "Hank Williams Memorial Highway." In 1997, The Alabama State Legislature voted to name a portion of Interstate I-65 the "Hank Williams Memorial Lost Highway" The stretch of highway begins in his boyhood home of Georgiana, Alabama and runs north to Montgomery, Al where he spent most of his better days and where he was buried after his death on January 1, 1953. The often-reported Williams' claim that alcohol and a woman's lies started him "rolling down that lost highway" is now enshrined along with the entertainer's name as an official part of Alabama history.

Prior to 1814, the present site of the city of Montgomery was in the center of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. A large Indian mound and other traces of an important prehistoric center can still be seen today at Fort Toulouse - Fort Jackson park north of town. Most scholars agree that Hernando de Soto passed through the area in 1540, encountering the ancestors of the Creeks. Other European explorers followed, but it was the French who established the first permanent settlement - Fort Toulouse - in 1717. They remained until 1763.

There are few cities that have affected the flow of American history as much as the state capital city of Montgomery, Alabama. Standing on the front portico of the state capitol building and look down Dexter Avenue is an awe inspiring experience. Men and women who dramatically impacted the course of our nation did so within view of the capitol steps. It was here that Jefferson Davis took the oath of office as President of the Confederate States of America. The capitol building in Montgomery was the first capitol of the Confederacy and the orders to open fire on Fort Sumter and inaugurate the Civil War were sent by telegraph from a building just down the hill. Were the view not blocked by buildings, you would also be able to see the bus stop where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955, sparking a movement that shook the nation. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was organized within sight of the capitol at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, then served by a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1965, one of the most powerful marches of the Civil Rights movement came up Dexter Avenue to the capitol. The marchers had come from Selma, joined by others along the way, to demand their right to vote from Governor George C. Wallace, then known for his "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" declaration. The march on Montgomery is now commemorated by the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, a national park area. The trail incorporates U.S. Highway 80 from Selma to Montgomery and introduces visitors to the significance of the march and its impact on American culture.

In Montgomery, we found Maxwell Air Force Base. It's history dates back to the Wright Brothers' flying school of 1910. Today, Maxwell is home to the 42nd Air Base Wing is the host installation for Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex. The wing mission is to develop mission-ready Airmen and operate a world-class installation. The wing is responsible for providing all base operating support, infrastructure, and services support for active-duty, reserve, civilian, and contractor personnel, students and families at Maxwell and Gunter-Annex in direct support of Air University, the 908th Airlift Wing, Air Force Material Command and Air Force Space Command units, the Defense Information Systems Agency and more than 40 other tenant units. 

We crossed over the Alabama River as we departed Montgomery.The Alabama River is formed by the Tallapoosa and Coosa rivers, which join about 6 miles north of Montgomery. It flows west to Selma, then southwest until, about 45 miles from Mobile, where it joins with the Tombigbee, forming the Mobile and Tensaw rivers, which discharge into Mobile Bay.

I-65 and US 82 split and we are back on US 82 east, yet again. We passed by a large farm market. How big you ask? Just look at the size of the cattle ... is that big? It is the Sweet Creek Farm Market, a farmers market with a cafe. The vegetables are awesome, the southern food is excellent. There are huge cookies in the dessert case, and homemade ice-cream. A great place to take a break, to shop, eat, shop more, and use the super clean facilities!

Here is a glimpse at the Saturday morning traffic on our route today. Another reason we love our two lane roads ... awesome and beautiful!

Union Springs, a small historic town, we passed through on US 82. The picturesque downtown and the surrounding residential streets show what makes it uniquely and genuinely Southern. 

From antebellum homes to one of the oldest jails in the state to cemeteries dating back nearly 200 years, Union Springs is a showplace of Southern history, architecture, and charm. Naturally, I had to take a picture of the purple house! 

We found two beautiful 
murals, one is on the 82 Seafood 
restaurant 
and another is on the side of a downtown building. 

We came through a small town of Three Notch. We saw this wayside marker about Three Notch Road. It was built by U.S. Army Engineers over the summer of 1824. It served as Bullock County’s major transportation route throughout its history. It was constructed to facilitate military communication between Pensacola in Florida and Ft. Mitchell in Alabama near the Georgia border. The 233-mile path through a virtual wilderness was known as Road No. 6 in official reports, but was known and named locally for the distinctive horizontal notches blazed into trees by advancing surveyors as they marked the route for the builders who followed. Capt. Daniel Burch oversaw construction of the road which was wide enough to allow “carriages, carts, wagons, &c.” and included “substantial wooden bridges” over those streams which were not so wide as to require ferries to cross. Three Notch Road was the major thoroughfare for those coming from Georgia into present-day Bullock County when eastern Alabama was opened to American settlement with the removal of the Indians. The road entered the county from the north near Guerryton, crossed the Chunnenuggee Ridge at Enon, and continued south to Ft. Watson, as the community of Three Notch was named before the Central of Georgia Railroad came through. From there the road continued southwest through the communities of Ox Level (by Mallard Chapel), Indian Creek, Blues Old Stand, and Sellers Crossroads before exiting the county on present-day Bullock County Road 19, near the Sandfield community in Pike County.

 We went through Midway on US 82. The earliest settler in Midway, was likely Samuel Feagin, who became a land broker and the first postmaster. He also built a small inn, ran a store, and operated a stage coach stop. Feagin's son, James Madison Feagin organized the Midway Guards during the Second Creek War, when many homes in the area were burned and settlers were driven off their land by the Creeks. The outfit would become the Midway Southern Guards and join the Fifteenth Alabama Infantry Regiment, which fought in many important Civil War battles in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. By 1838, the first post office had been established, and the area apparently was already called Midway. The Battle of Pea River, a conflict during the Second Creek War, took place in the area in 1837. By 1855, the town had grown enough to support four physicians, three churches, and a school. The town became part of Bullock County when it was formed in 1866. In 1870, the town incorporated, and the Montgomery and Eufaula Railroad came through in the early 1870s. In the mid-1870s, much of the business district was destroyed by fire, but the area was rebuilt by 1878. 

The most historic building remaining in Midway is the Old Merritt School. Mrs. Margaret Elizabeth Merritt of Midway sold two acres for $5 to the State of Alabama in 1921 as a site for an elementary school for African-American children. Built in 1922 with matching Rosenwald funds, the Midway Colored Public School featured oak and pine construction and two classrooms divided by a partition. The building is one of the few surviving of the more than 5,000 rural black schools built with contributions for the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The building was enlarged twice then renovated in 1978. It is now used as a community center. It was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 1990 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Our last town in Alabama was Eufaula. It is nestled high upon a bluff overlooking the beautiful 45,000-acre Lake Eufaula, along the Alabama-Georgia border. Along the main street in Eusaula is a Confederate Monument. The shaft is of Georgia granite, beautifully polished so as to produce two shades of gray, and is thirty-five feet high.  On top of this, exquisitely carved in Italian marble, is the statue of a private Confederate soldier, with his accouterments, standing  "at rest".  The presentation of the monument to the city, in the name of the Barbour County Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was made by Miss Mary Clayton, the organizer of the Chapter and a daughter of Gen. H. D. Clayton.  

On US 82, when you leave Alabama and cross over into Georgia, you cross over Walter F George Reservoir and onto the Ernest Vandiver causeway. 
It was a beautiful day to be on the water, we even saw a few jet skis enjoying the day!

The first town in Georgia is Georgetown. Originally called "Tobanana" after a nearby creek, the city takes its current name from the historic community in Washington, D.C. There was this beautiful church, with a beautiful sky! 








The Quitman County Jail, with 12-inch thick brick walls, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Another historical city landmark is the Harrison-Brannon-McKenzie antebellum cottage. 

Cuthbert is home to Andrew College (formerly Andrew Female College), a two-year private liberal arts college. The Fletcher Henderson Museum is in Cuthbert in honor of the 20th-century jazz musician and orchestra arranger, Fletcher Henderson. The city has notable sites such as a Confederate Army cemetery, historical houses built in the 1800s, and the Fletcher Henderson home. In 2007 an announcement was made of a museum to be dedicated to late resident Lena Baker and issues of racial justice. Baker was an African-American maid who was convicted of capital murder in 1945 in the death of a white man; she was the only woman in Georgia to be executed by electric chair. She had claimed self-defense, and in 2005 the state posthumously pardoned her. She was the subject of a 2001 biography and a 2008 feature film of the same name, The Lena Baker Story. (It was later re-titled Hope and Redemption: The Lena Baker Story.)

The Charter of Andrew College, granted in 1854 by the Georgia Legislature, is the second oldest charter in the United States giving an educational institution the right to confer degrees upon women. Originally named Andrew Female College, Andrew operated as a women’s four-year college for 63 years. In 1917 Andrew became a junior college and in 1956 the institution became co-educational. During the Civil War, classes were stopped and the College served as a hospital for wounded confederate soldiers. When classes resumed in 1866, a physical education course was added to the College’s curriculum, the first such course to be required of women in the South. In 1892, Andrew’s buildings burnt to the ground. However, the people of Cuthbert raised the funds necessary to build Old Main, the College’s landmark building, that very same year. Only a handful of colleges in Georgia are older than Andrew and few possess such a rich and celebrated history. Andrew College is recently celebrated the culmination of its Sesquicentennial (150 years of service) and a progressive Campus Master Plan was recently approved by Andrew’s Board of Trustees.     

Glennville Georgia is the hometown of Cole Swindell. We were not lucky enough to see him walking the streets. Oh well! US 19 joined with US 82 as we arrived in Albany Georgia. US 82, continues further east, so we stayed on us 19 south, heading toward Florida. We stopped just outside of Albany Georgia for the night at Devencrest Travel Park. This will be our home for one night.