Month: February 2006

We also took pictures at this building:

We then went on over to Winston County, and the first thing we stopped at was this old steel bridge on County Road 66 between Addison and Arley – it was open until just a few years ago, but it’s closed now – soooo pretty!

After that, we drove over to Houston. This is the old jail – it used to be just a log building, then it appears that someone came along later and added this ‘cover’ over it to try to preserve the structure:

The National Register of Historic Places lists the jail’s ‘period of significance’ as between 1850-1874. All through the wooden walls are nails. It’s thought by some that the nails were put in to keep inmates from trying to saw out or be sawed out.

After we left Houston, we went over to Looney’s Tavern, which is where 2500 or so anti-secessionist citizens of Winston County met to organize in 1861 (they later referred to their county as the ‘Free State of Winston’) to voice their opposition to the war (Christopher Sheats, who was their representative in the Alabama House of Representatives, was thrown out of the House in 1862 and later arrested for treason, although it never went to trial). Today, Looney’s Tavern is the site of an amphiteather where ‘The Incident at Looney’s Tavern’ – a show about these events – is performed regularly during the summer.

Av and I knew we’d see the amphitheater if we drove there, but we didn’t realize they also had “Looney Putt” – complete with war props like cannons, etc….

We went back out Highway 278 and found this dog trot cabin. The dog trot is an old style here in the South – essentially, it’s two rooms, or cabins, really – joined by one roof going over both structures. There’s an open space, letting in a good breeze between the left and right to cool things off in the summer.

In Double Springs is the Winston County Courthouse. Across the street, in front of a bank, is this memorial:

It’s called ‘Dual Destiny’, and the last paragraph of the plaque reads:
This Civil War soldier, one-half Union and one-half Confederate, symbolizes the war within a war and honors the Winstonians in both armies. Their shiny new swords in 1861 were by 1865 as broken as the spirits of the men who bore them, and their uniforms of blue and gray, once fresh and clean, were now as worn and patched as the bodies and souls they contained. Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, disillusioned by the realities of war, shared dual destinies as pragmatic Americans in a reunited nation.
Donald B. Dodd

Natural Bridge isn’t far away – it’s the “longest natural bridge east of the Rockies”:

It’s 60 feet high and 148 feet long. Sooooo pretty!

After walking around, we went back inside and talked to the gentleman who owns the property – Jimmy Denton. He’s very, very nice, and we chatted for a long time. He said he’s pretty close to retiring and putting everything up for sale, so if you’re in the market for a natural bridge….