Month: November 2007

This past weekend on our way to see the bridge in Nectar, we passed some other neat places.

This building below is Carl L. Hagood General Merchandise Store on AL Hwy 79. I’m not sure exactly what town this is in – somewhere close to Masseyline, I think:

This old store is in Locust Fork. It’s called Paul C. Marsh & Son General Merchandise:

The price of gas that’s on these pumps is $.72 and $.77/gallon:

A little bit further down, we saw signs for T&N Acres Zoo. This is their mailbox:

They had all kinds of animals:

…and these buildings:

…and even this baby camel! We met the nice lady that (I think) owns it, and she was leading this baby camel around! The zoo is closed for the season but opens back up in April.

After we left the bridge, we found this church in Union Grove…

…that had this setup for dinner on the grounds! See all the tables set up, and the pavilion over some of them? I had a friend in college who invited me to a dinner on the grounds at his church and it just made *such* an impression on me. Every lady that attended the church set up this huge feast – each made her best dish (ohmygosh those casseroles! fried chicken! red velvet cake!) – and laid the entire thing out beautifully on the tables. When a bell was rung, everyone took a plate and helped themselves, then went and sat around on the blanket or quilt they brought. Soooo nice:

This weekend, one of the things we went to try to find was the Nectar covered bridge – or actually, where it used to be. The bridge was built in 1932 and burned in 1993. It was 385 feet long and was the seventh-longest covered bridge in the world!

It’s a little hard to see in this picture (probably easier to view in the winter when there’s not so much foliage) but there are three pillars visible below. That’s all that is left:

A really good picture of how the bridge used to look is here.

There are three other Blount county covered bridges – I took these pics in 2002:

Easley Covered Bridge:

Horton Mill Covered Bridge:

Swann Covered Bridge:

Since we were so close to Waldo when we were visiting Talladega, we went over to try to find the covered bridge there. It is *so* pretty:

It’s behind the Old Mill restaurant. The bridge is 115 feet long, and was built in 1858 on the site of the Socopatoy Indian Trail, not far from a gold mine. It goes over Talladega Creek.

It looks so odd because the approaches to the bridge were removed by the state because the bridge has not really been maintained. It just seems to be floating – like a piece of art that isn’t really meant to be functional. I guess that’s what it is now!

Besides all the pretty homes we took pics of in Talladega, we found some different things around downtown, like the Ritz Theatre. It was built around 1936 – it’s *so* art deco! I’d love to see the inside:

This is the courthouse – it was built in 1836 and is the oldest county courthouse in Alabama:

The train depot:

The Talladega Spring – it’s the original water source:

…the structure is…different:

This stone marks closeby where the Battle of Talladega began during the Creek War (part of the War of 1812). Andrew Jackson and his men fought the Red Sticks here:

…and I’m not sure how, but the columns from the old Cullman County courthouse wound up here – there’s a plaque on this one. I just did a Google search to find a pic of the original, and I found this, but I don’t see any columns in this style on it. Hmmm…

Across the street from the spring, we saw a sign for the Talladega Walk of Fame, Davey Allison Memorial. There were these plaques around a small park:

Not far from downtown is Talladega College, founded in 1867 by two former slaves – William Savery and Thomas Tarrant. The college’s website states that they are the oldest private historically black liberal arts college in Alabama.

Drewry Hall, built in 1932, the business school:

This is DeForest Chapel, built in 1903:

This is the Savery Library, built in 1939. The really interesting thing about this building is that inside are the Amistad Murals, which were painted by Hale Woodruff:

The murals are six by forty feet, and were completed 100 years after the Amistad incident. They depict the slaves on board revolting, their trial, and their return to Africa as free men:

In the floor below this mural is a picture of the ship, embedded in the terrazzo. I read the students never step on it as a sign of respect.

Shug’s four months old now!

Can you tell what he was for Halloween tonight!?

He’s a “deviled” egg! His little cap has horns and his pants have a little tail…and his shirt has the yellow center to make him into a deviled egg!

We made several little visits before going to Leslie’s – she gets lots & lots of trick-or-treaters!

So sweet!